Well, I am on the second week of the two weeks stretch. For this particular instance, it is going well. There really was nothing that was difficult to understand in the last lesson. There were no vibrato in the lesson (wishing that comes soon), no new techniques, etc. The Webster Scherzo is just a little more involved with many many notes (my nemesis), and a couple stretches and a shift. Working on these in an hour lesson after scales, was extremely helpful. I am very hands on when learning, so the hour long hands on worked for me for familiarizing me with the stretches, timing and shift, as well as a confidence builder. My instructor told me very often, “You can do it. I know you can. You can do more with your cello than you think you can.” Remembering those words really helped this week. Now to continue smoothing it out this week.

The lesson coming up next week, we are going to start with dynamics with this song. I have never dealt with that. My first instructor was not very detail oriented. The reason the previous hour long lesson, followed by two weeks had good timing was because I could work on the stretch and shift in class over and over. I can have two weeks to get it as smoothed out as I can before we introduce dynamics in our next lesson. So, for this particular case, the hour long lesson, followed by a two week break allowing me to smooth it out as much as possible, is great timing.

My lesson would have been yesterday. There was no way I was ready to try to be concerned about dynamics. I really need this additional week. I am pretty sure this is not a format that would be as positive all the time. I am, also, pretty sure that when we start vibrato, I will pay for an extra half hour as long as I need, and have a lesson every week, with the added half hours as needed for that vibrato.

Does this make sense? I hope I explained it right. At any rate, at this time, this was just perfect timing.