When the bow is legato and slurring, the left-hand takes charge of the rhythm and must dictate it for clarity.
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. 28 We had SO much fun exploring Popper 28 this week with the amazing Joely, who inspired us to look at this study in totally new ways. Katie was a student of Joely’s and considers her a wonderful mentor and huge influence in her life. Join us as
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 29 This is a particularly challenging study, especially if your double stops have been on the back-burner lately. We talk a lot about psychology of practice and how to prepare a difficult work like this in our discussion this week. If you are attempting this study, be kind
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 35 This is another study that focuses on distant key areas and strange enharmonic relationships (b natural to g-flat equals a perfect fifth, for example!) The étude challenges our brain in that there are aspects you have to figure out and organise in order to be consistently in
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 36 We were delighted to welcome back fabulous cellist Martin Johnson (Leader, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland) as our last guest of the series for our exploration of Popper 36! Martin brings up some fantastic points about musicality and finding solutions in this study, trusting your instinct with
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 38 This étude appears extra challenging with the ‘presto’ tempo marking and the octaves. Starting slowly is highly recommended. Take out the octaves and practice the bow stroke on open strings first. Practicing this in rhythms is very helpful to increase the speed once you can play this
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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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Practice Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 40 Popper 40 – as the last in the set, this is surprisingly not the most difficult of Popper’s collection of études but rather a very specialized study in natural harmonics. We were delighted to approach this study as it gives our thumb chops some time off! We
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