Practice until you can't get it wrong
Cello lessons and what I'm learning about habits and patterns
My new venture this year has been learning how to play the cello. Inspired by my mom, and her enthusiasm for music, I’ve started taking lessons and practicing regularly.
The cello isn’t an instrument most people just pick up and play around the campfire. It’s a detailed instrument, and requires lots of practice and attention to perfect. My cello teacher, Thomas, reminds me “the cello is not hard to play, it is just detailed.”
He’s right. In order to get a full, beautiful sound out of a cello, you have to hold it gently. You don’t push the bow across the strings or put pressure on the bow, you simply guide it across the strings. Any amount of excessive pressure will deaden your sound.
Finding the space where you are relaxed yet precise, is easier said than done. It requires attention, control and body awareness—something I’m not used to having to think about when I play an instrument.
Most of my music experience has been playing music from crudely-written chord charts from the internet or just playing by ear. I did learn how to read treble clef when I took piano lessons briefly as a child, but I was more interested in rock and roll, guitars and drums that force you to move.
Precise, charted music intended to play in a specific time signature and speed is not my forte.
I’m having to learn how to read keys via the number of sharps and flats on the staff and set my rhythm based on note values and time signatures—all in new-to-me bass clef.
That’s not to mention what’s going on with my hands—I have to keep the bow straight and level while also keeping my hand relaxed while holding the bow and pulling it across the string without digging in. My left hand is learning new intervals and new spacing. I’m used to the guitar, which is tuned in fourths. The cello is tuned in fifths.
Even for someone who has been around music her entire life, this is a lot to learn.
During a lesson this week, I was working on some intonation and interval training, and I finally—FINALLY—got it right. After I got it right, I celebrated, doing a little cheer and happy dance in my chair.
“Ok, now do it again,” my teacher said.
I tried again, and failed. My intonation was sharp, again.
Moving your finger placement by a single millimeter can completely change the string’s tone. The guitar doesn’t give you this type of grief. The guitar has frets, which as perfectly spaced so that the note is perfect every time, so long as your press the string to the fretboard on the correct fret.
The fretless cello is a new challenge, even to someone familiar with stringed instruments.
“Your hand is used to doing what you’ve been doing, which is playing the intervals slightly sharp,” Thomas said. “You have to practice, and repeat, until your hand learns and becomes familiar with the right way.”
This idea is not revolutionary, but it’s profound. Habits never change if you don’t practice new ones. You can’t just mindlessly play your scales either, you have to focus on doing it right way, hitting the fretboard in the right place, then remembering how it felt and doing it again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
There is no other substitute except practice and repetition.
This seems like obvious information, and it is, kinda. This information is less obvious when you are in the thick of it—when your notes are consistently sharp and you’re screaming into the void as you desperately try to right them.
Again.
And again.
And again.
You know it is wrong but you feel completely powerless to get it right. Because here you sit, getting it wrong again and again.
Eventually, you will get it right—if you really pay attention to what’s wrong. Is the note sharp because you are slumping? Does your hand keep inching lower down the neck? Are you distracted? Are you unable to sit tall because of something weighing you down?
Forming new habits is often difficult and complex. Many adjustments must be made to get the thing right. When things get consistently wonky, you have to shift every piece so the right action can fit.
This applies to any habit. Let’s take going to bed at a decent time.
Did you drink coffee after lunch? Now you can’t fall asleep.
So, you stare at your phone for an hour. Now you’re thinking about all the work crap you have to deal with tomorrow once you realize you got an evening email about an important meeting.
See the pattern here?
Just like learning how to play the cello in tune, tuning your life takes work, precision and practice. Lots of practice.
Many of my habits went right out the window when the pandemic started. To be frank, my daily routine has changed dramatically compared to the routine I was following in early March 2020.
Along the way I’ve had to troubleshoot and figure out what habits work in this new-to-all-of-us world. Some things have worked and some have failed fantastically.
I’m writing this blog because I admit I’m still working on my new routine. And that’s okay. My routine will change as my life changes, and yours will too.
Join me today in taking joy in the practice of life—of the ebb and flow of the seasons of nature of life and of our bodies. Never forget that practice is a life chore, and one that will serve us well if we surrender to it.