NaBloPoMo (Gesundheit!)

Not been so good at blogging regularly lately, have I? It's not so much because I am so busy I don't have time to write, though I claimed so a couple of weeks ago. I am busy, but I've been writing while busy before. I think it's more likely to be because my blog is pretty much about two things, foster kittens and learning the cello, and I have impediments in writing about both of those topics at present. I have no new kittens since I'm still under the ringworm quarantine, and I have hours and hours and hours of cello or music things waiting to be digested, organized, and transcribed. Sounds too much like work to me.

So I have decided, with NaBloPoMo in November, to simplify that task. (Hey - check it out! NaBloPoMo is on Ning!) I'm going to try to jump start (restart) my blogging by committing to a post every day in November, and to do so each day I will be writing about one (just one measly) thing I have learned in the last few months about playing the cello or music in general. I think I've found a small enough bit that I can do it without being overwhelmed, but we'll see.

As a preview of coming attractions, this is my material:
* A two-hour master class and one-hour private lesson with Pedro de Alcantara, cello and Alexander Technique teacher and author of Indirect Procedures: A Musician's Guide to the Alexander Technique (Clarendon Paperbacks).

* A three-hour hands-on string education session with Phyllis Young, Professor Emeritus of Cello and String Pedagogy at UT Austin and author of Playing the String Game: Strategies for Teaching Cello and Strings.

* Ten hours of didactic sessions with Edmund Sprunger, a Suzuki violin teacher with a Masters in Social Work, and the author of Helping Parents Practice: Ideas for Making It Easier.

* Hours and hours worth of cello lessons with Peter Howard, recently retired Principle Cellist of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

* Four hours of chamber music coaching with members of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.

* Many hours of Alexander Technique lessons with Lauren Hill, who trained at the Urbana Center for the Alexander Technique in Urbana, Illinois.

* Tidbits from my voice lessons with Andrea Leap and maybe my piano lessons with Guna Skujina.

* The opportunity to see Zoe Keating, former cellist in Rasputina, perform live this past weekend.

I told you I've been busy.