Lots of accidentals! Similar to your chromatic scales. Chromatic harmony can be challenging for our brains to read quickly and challenging to understand aurally for intonation.
Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 21 Here is our live discussion of Popper’s 21st study. It was a fun one! This focuses on bow legato, bow distribution, string crossings and shifting often in thumb position. Can each shift and string crossing stay smooth so that it doesn’t effect the legato sound? Interesting to […]
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 22 Popper 22 is a beautiful study. We have both really enjoyed learning this one. Check out the first five minutes of this video for HILARIOUS stories about the 17-year cicada plague in the US, which is reoccurring this year! Start at 05.05 to skip this…! Legato bowing
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 23 Popper 23 was our final étude of the year. In this video, we reflect on all that has made this project an awesome challenge. This study offers many different technical challenges and approaches. Bow legato, string crossings, bow distribution, quick changes of bow speed, shifting, octaves, unusual stretches
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 24 Christian Elliot (Irish Chamber Orchestra) came back for a second time with Popper 24, a beautiful and challenging study that explores a vast amount; thumb position, harmonics, developing the ear, string crossings, legato bowing and more.
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 26 We found this one to be a real workout for the left hand as well as the bow as it explores different hand positions in thumb position. Legato bowing with plenty of shifting and string crossings to keep us challenged!
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 27 This is an étude that works on spiccato and sautille strokes, as well as an extended technique that is rarely used in the repertoire – thumb to second finger octaves. Lots of chromatic harmonies here and coordination between right and left hands is key.
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 31 Apart from some tricky thumb position exploration, double-stops, and all our favourite high-end of the cello playing, we explore ways to keep concentration up when doing something repetitive… especially towards the end when there is a very tricky passage (Sneaky Popper!) Don’t waste time practising the repeated
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 32 Popper 32 is a study that revisits up-bow staccato; however, it is quite different from the other big up-bow staccato study, No. 14. Namely because the tempo indicated by Popper is quite a bit slower, so the function of how the technique works is totally different and
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 37 Here’s a tricky study filled with LOTS of technical aspects… fast shifting, mordents, thumb position which also features on the lower two strings. Working out the mordents takes some attention. Coordinating the right hand and left hands is key – the bow must start before the beat
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Practice Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 39 We enjoyed exploring this beautifully lilting study that has a lot of variety and some beautiful double-stops in D-flat major. However, this one is not without it’s difficulties. Lots with thumb position, hand balance, intonation in triads and thirds and bow distribution planning. Hope this video will
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