Slowing Lesson Speed and Working on Basics (Part 1)

So, with my cello lessons, we have slowed down and are now working on my bowing and technique. I told my instructor that I really feel like I have no good foundation. I feel my bowing and fingering needs to be worked on. When we do pieces, it takes me forever to learn them. 

After three months on one small piece, and yes, it is broken into segments, the piece is still sounding choppy. The piece is very disjointed, not because of working on sections at a time, it is choppy within those sections. The parts where it completely changes, and they always have those parts, make absolutely no sense to me. It is just noise, like jazz is to me. No, I am not interested in learning to like jazz, I simply find it very annoying and just a bunch of noise most of the time, makes no sense to me. Listening to jazz does something to my thinking and it really is not good, it confuses me. I cannot think correctly when hearing a jazz band. That is what that change of direction in the middle of a piece does to me.

That is what these pieces are like when I come to a part that completely changes course from the way it was at the beginning. It sounds like that section simply does not belong with the piece, sounds like jazz, etc, when I try to play it and try get it to fit with the rest. When my instructor plays it or I find a good YouTube video of it, it does fit in, but still sounds like it veered off course, but it is more acceptable. I have a hard time working on bowing and technique when that happens, so I never improve. I believe I need to be more comfortable and able to do fingering and bowing to be able to conquer that issue.

I mentioned this to my instructor, that it makes me feel I am not improving or moving forward. I feel that at the beginning of the piece, I can learn that somewhat to an almost acceptable point, then the change-up happens and it is just a whole bunch of 8th and 16th note runs that make no sense and, to me, does not belong to the beginning section, and completely destroys that piece, They are just cello exercises to me, that is it.

I also am never able to learn a song where I can play it and feel I know what I am doing, feel like I have been working on it for three months and improved. Instead, after three months, it is like I am still just figuring it out. I am going back to some of those pieces and trying to smooth them up, but do not have a lot of time to do that along with my lesson work because it takes me so long just to do the lesson work to the point where it sounds somewhat like I might know what I am doing. Songs have to be slow and really easy (my “What a Wonderful World” video) in order for me to do it.

(cont in first reply)