Hi everyone, I'm hoping someone can help me.......

here's a little history.
I started playing the cello with the school when I was 10.
I loved the instrument so much, my parents signed me up with a private instructor a year later (when I was 11).
I studied under her for 3 years. About a year ago, she moved to another city, so I had to stop learning from her. From then on, I didn't have any private lessons (only through music classes from school). Finally, two weeks ago I found another cello teacher. But this cello teacher is very hard on me and I'm getting a little scared. He's very picky about the "proper technique" and apparently, I have HORRIBLE technique. I think out of everything bad he said about me, the worst would be my posture (body+hand+everything ).

He said my fingers are too flat against the strings.
He said my wrist is supposed to align with my forearm.
He said my thumb should curl.

I'm trying really hard to correct all those, and I'm improving on the first two. But the flat fingers problem is just soooo hard to correct. I don't know if it is because I have super long fingers that are double-jointed. Plus all my joints everywhere in my body are hypermobile and can bend reallllly easily. So sometimes when I play, my fingers actually over-bend (I hope you guys can picture it).

I really hope someone can share some tips on how to override this problem. I read somewhere on this forum about using a squeezy ball to strengthen your fingers. Do you really think that would help?

I have a recital coming up in December, and my self-esteem is so low now whenever I play the cello. I don't even know if I wanna go to that recital. I didn't know my posture was that bad...


EDIT: I'm gonna clarify what I mean by flat fingers. You know how a finger has three joints. THe first joint is always flat (and sometimes overbends). But the second joint stays curved. What my teacher wants me to do is to keep the first joint curved up as well. But it always stays flat or bends down like the shape of a U or V. He wants my fingers to have like a round arch, instead of a pointed roof.

Sorry I am not a cello player, but just wanted to comment on the above:

I have no idea how this teacher is, perhaps he/she is very good. I do agree technique is fundamental and HAS to be right from the beginning so is posture. So, if you technique/posture need improving, good on the teacher for spotting these things and helping you....BUT and I repeat BUT, he/she should have been a tad more careful in how the message was conveyed as obviously (and in your case it has) it can really hit you emotionally and can have a counter-productive effect!
I started with a new teacher 3 months ago, and I am SURE my technique and posture also were not good, but he has not commented on how bad it is, instead he has prescribed me exercises to help my intonation, hand shape/finger shape and during lessons he reminds me what to watch out for. I get also lots of praise 'sandwiched in' between him telling me what to change and whenever he praises he means it, he does not praise for things which are not there.

So what does this do for you? sorry, nothing, as I can't undo what your teacher told you, but perhaps try to remember, it is NOT our fault if our technique/posture is not right if we were never told, instead you should praise yourself for trying hard to follow your teacher's instructions and like you said you are improving in some things already. Think of how much of a better/healthier cello player this will help you to be in the future

ps hope you can make to the recital

Please don't miss your recital! And try not to be too hard on yourself. Both my daughter and I play cello - I learnt as a youngster and came back to it as an adult when she started (she was 8 years old then) - I was trying to help her and play duets with her and realised how terribly I had been missing it. She had lessons through school to start with (I actually didn't think she'd be able to play a string instrument as she couldn't sing in tune to save her life, but she really wanted to take up the cello, so school lessons were a good start as they cost nothing and she got the instrument for a very cheap fee). Her first teacher was fabulous, a very nurturing and inspirational woman, but not a cello first study (she is primarily a violinist but was made to teach cello by the instrumental music service as her third instrument) - I can't fault the grounding that my daughter got and I will always be grateful to this teacher, but she knew her limitations cello-wise and advised us to move on to a private teacher after a couple of years. It became quickly obvious with her second teacher (who is also an absolute treasure) that there were some problems with daughter's technique - hand sloping backwards as a violinist would so not enough weight on the fourth finger, bow hold needed some work, not a straight line from elbow through to hand......sound familiar?

After a year of my daughter taking private lessons I was so impressed with her teacher's patience, enthusiasm and her eye for detail that I asked if she would take me on as well........best thing I ever did BUT boy oh boy did I have some nasty little holes in my technique. I still bow up on the fingerboard, vibrato was very fast and tight (and got worse when I was nervous.....it still does if I don't watch it! ), thumb gripping too hard with my left hand, my hand sloped backwards too - I could go on and on, but I think you may be getting the picture here.

What I am trying to say in a roundabout way is don't be too disheartened by all the things that your teacher has highlighted as issues with your technique - when you switch teachers you are bound to find that each teacher has their own ideas about how things should be done and new issues will be uncovered. I suspect your teacher may be trying to help you rather too quickly and hasn't realised how overwhelming it can be to be confronted all at once with a myriad of things that need fixing. I wonder if it may be overwhelming for a teacher to take on a new student and see all of those issues - perhaps it's hard to isolate them one at a time? It's very likely also if you haven't had private lessons for a while that you may have grown a few bad habits without realising it - teachers are great for pointing out things you didn't even know you were doing.

What this DOESN'T mean is that you are a bad cellist. Truly. And you don't have to fix your technical issues in a few lessons - it takes time to unlearn and relearn those things which have become ingrained. My daughter has a great hand shape now and the line of her arm is much better - but her thumb position is a work in progress . That's fine. I know she'll get there in the end with cello teacher's constant and gentle reminders, as will I (I really thought I had "arrived" the other day when teacher prodded my elbow with her bow to remind me to lift it up, just as she does with my daughter....hee, hee )

It is not good that you are a little scared of your teacher - a healthy respect doesn't hurt and helps to keep you on track, but you should be able to laugh with them too and ask questions without feeling like you are going to be in trouble for doing this. I don't know your teacher and I can't say whether that kind of relationship can develop over time - I would encourage you to let them know that you are feeling overwhelmed if at all possible, as it is clearly affecting your playing and your self esteem - not good!! I would hate for my daughter (she's 12 now) to have a teacher with whom she felt so uncomfortable. Have you talked to your parents about how you are feeling? They may be able to help you talk to the teacher about these things - or if things aren't getting better, perhaps even help you find someone else (I realise this may be hard as it was obviously hard to find a teacher in the first place). I calculate you are about 15 (sorry if I am wrong!) and I know at that age I would have found it hard to work this sort of stuff out with my teachers. A good teacher will listen and recognise that they are dealing with a young person as well as shaping a cellist - and learning is best when there is a good relationship on both sides.

I can definitely picture the hypermobility issue - my daughter has very flexible joints too (she is half Chinese) and used to do this. It's actually not an uncommon problem from what I have seen of the other kids who play cello in her orchestras. Don't bother with the squeezy ball exercises - the best way to strengthen fingers is technical exercises! (speaking from a GP perspective here and with a some OT and physio knowledge too, as well as having dealt with this issue with daughter and with myself) Don't know what your teacher has you doing, and don't want to interfere with this, but mine gets us going with Feuillard (I love Feuillard, it has so much good stuff in it, especially left hand things). Plus if you are very mindful of what you are doing and just keep thinking about how you are holding your fingers plus being stern with yourself when you catch yourself hyperextending, you will eventually break the habit, trust me. I won't say hyperextension is always bad - you have to use it when you are barring a fifth across two strings, for example, but you need to be able to choose when you are going to use it. Having an arched finger makes it easier to clear the strings for fast passages and for double stopping (well, for some double stopping.... ....). It is perfectly OK to ask your teacher to explain why you have to do something a certain way, incidentally - I do this often and it helps me work on a particular skill if I know where I am heading with it.

I think you should give yourself a very large pat on the back for working so hard on your problem areas - you are getting better! That tells me immediately that you are doing good work and that you care about your cello playing a great deal. Be kind to yourself, give yourself time to sort this stuff out, talk to your teacher and focus on what is getting better rather than all the things you still have to work on and I promise it will help you feel better.

Wolfnotes (ah technique, a never ending story.... )

My (also 12 year old) daughter tends to play with rather flat fingers. Her current teacher said not to worry unduly about it, that hypermobility is common in lots of children, that she had the same problem herself as a child and that she "grew out of it" in her mid-teens.

She said that the important thing is to always start with the fingers positioned correctly and if they "collapse" mid-piece, well they collapse. When you start again, you position them correctly again. Gradually the length of time you can play before they collapse will get longer and one day you will notice that you've finished the whole piece and they're still rounded.

There's hypermobility as in a little bit flexible and there's hypermobility in a serious, serious way where you move and a joint pops out. I am of the latter type, I have a really severe case of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. So posture is an additional challenge when hypermobile, as you have to use your muscles to hold together the bits that most people have held together by the tight structures of the body's design. It makes it harder for you to be loose, so don't beat yourself up that it's been difficult for you!

There is an extent of hypermobility that will correct with exercises, and it does cover most cases, but I did also want to mention that there is an element that doesn't, because it can be really demoralising to be doing everything you have been told and everyone say you aren't doing it hard enough, if you were you would be better. Thing is, fingers are not designed to bend in that direction, so there are no muscles active in the process of straightening the joint from hyperextended to straight again. You can strengthen all the other muscles as much as you like, but there simply isn't a mechanism installed in the human body for recovering an overbent finger back to straight again, you have to concentrate on stopping them from getting flat. Work hard for a few months to correct this, but if it doesn't happen there are other things you can explore to support the joints when you are playing, don't assume it must be your fault or that there is nothing can be done about it. You might also need to exaggerate the C-shaped hand thing, as it's going to be easier for you to balance your fingers if they are slightly overly bent, as then you have some active muscle pressure working through the finger.

You can get through this.

thanks for all your stories and encouraging replies!! You do not know how much all your words mean to me.

I practised A LOT today and I'll keep practising until my fingers curve. And if they don't, well, I guess my teacher will need to close his eyes when he teaches. =)

I am still reallllly scared about the recital. But I most likely will go (as of this moment). I hope I won't chicken out like a week before the recital.

Oh yeah, another problem I'm noticing is that my bow shakes a lot these days. I think it's my nerves. I guess I was never that nervous when I was around my old teacher (or my music teacher from school). But now it shakes a lot in front of my new teacher. How do you guys control the shakiness of the bow?

So glad to hear that you are feeling better and am crossing my fingers that you go ahead with your recital (what are you playing, if you don't mind me asking? Hope it is something you really like!). Just be a little careful that you don't overdo it with the practising and injure yourself, especially when you are mastering a new technique........soooo tempting to think if I just spend a little longer it will get sorted out much quicker, but SUCH a pain when you have a sore hand or wrist and you have to wait for it to settle down before you can get back to playing . Sometimes it is better to take your time - just tell your teacher you have been working on it and hopefully he will give you a bit of space and time to get this sorted.

Shaky bow is definitely a sign of nerves (and I'm not surprised, given how this teacher is affecting you!) I remember my bow shaking like a leaf when I first played for my teacher and for some months afterwards . I made an embarrassed comment about it and she just said "yes, we all have that problem when we are nervous" and that made me feel a whole lot better. It got better as I relaxed and got to know her - it also helped feeling that I was there to work on a piece, that making mistakes was part of that process and would help me to get better and show me which areas I needed to work on at home and that I didn't have to be perfect, just prepared to try my best. And my teacher was there to help me, not to judge me. Perhaps you could think of the shaky bow as an indicator of how relaxed you are - if it starts to shake, time to take some deep slow breaths, relax your right shoulder and arm (drop your shoulder) and settle back down into it. You could even try reproducing the shakiness at home and then practice responding to it - just try imagining your teacher sitting beside you and then do the relax thing. It will get better eventually

Wolfnotes

Just a quick note:

I recently started with a new violin teacher, after 2 and a half years of learning with another one (my first 2 and a half years, never played before).
He has found little pitfalls here and there in my technique, hand shape, wrist position in 3rd position which we are trying to correct with Sevcik exercises mostly.
I have been working on these points since June and I 'still' have not corrected them, although am improving!

On the double bass:
I started learning end of April...
last week my teacher noticed I started doing something 'funny' with my left hand, difficult to describe, but I was twisting it and my index finger base knuckle was knocking on the neck of my bass in first position. She quickly fixed that and I stopped doing it immediately. Last night at my lesson it didn't happen once.

Just wanted to say I discovered (like everybody on these forums say) that 'old habits' are difficult to 'undo'! (ie on violin been doing the incorrect thing for 2 and a half years and I am still trying to fix that after 3 and a half months, bass, fixed it straight away as it was 'picked' as it started)

Hi, just wanted to pass on a tip I once heard from a viola player years ago! I don't know if this will help at all, but it really works for me and I used to have massive problems with "the bow-shakes" when playing in public... As you draw your bow across the string, try imagining that you can feel the bow-hair running across your left thumb! Sounds weird but somehow seems to help. Maybe it just distracts your brain from the feelings of nervousness...

Thanks for that tip, basso continuo! Am going to try it later today when I do my practice - we had orchestra rehearsal yesterday for a upcoming concert in a few weeks and were playing the Bach A minor - our principal cellist was away and I had only ever sight-read it with the orchestra (once) and had NEVER played it with the soloist (who was also new to me). Boy was my bow arm shaky for the first five or ten minutes! (Didn't help that there are a whole lot of fairly exposed continuoey bits, so all my dodgy technique and intonation was out there for all to see - oh, and a very elderly chap who has come to rehearsals a couple of times this year chose this rehearsal to turn up WITHOUT HIS HEARING AIDS. . So could not hear the conductor or his own intonation or the rest of the orchestra - made for very hard work and I needed a stiff coffee by the end of the rehearsal).

Denofthieves, hope you are going OK and silence means all is well and you are practising with great joy for your upcoming recital

Wolfnotes