Distance Practicing

When Jen and I met we were in the same place for almost two weeks.  As you can imagine it was not difficult for us to spend time together, practice, and plan.  However, once we went back to our respective homes on opposite sides of the country things became a little more difficult.  Not only were we planning a concert tour, we were also commissioning new pieces from three different composers from across the country.  Of course there were many phone calls and emails to put together our plans but, how were we going to practice?  We decided that the best thing to do would be to practice in 4 steps.

Step 1:  Jen and I practice at home on our own and learn the music really well. 

Step 2:  Jen sends me a recording of her playing with a metronome:  When I listened to the recordings, I decided to call Jen to ask a couple of questions about the tuning and timbre of her cello, specifically whether she was using equal temperament.  She described how strings and instruments with adjustable pitch are by nature not equally tempered, so that while she had chosen to tune her strings with equal temperament, she wasn’t tuning all of her chords, etc with equal temperament.  That was very important information for me, as I adjusted my intonation between her recordings and my piano.  I practiced with the recordings and then recorded over Jen’s part and sent it back to her so she could get an idea of my phrasing.

Step 3:  Jen and I talk on the phone about tempos:  It was important for us to get a head start on musical priorities and basic ideas before we began rehearsals in Montana.   Jen and I also had conversations about the extended techniques she would be using like sul ponticello and (especially) harmonics.

Step 4:   Coming soon…

-Heather

PS.  If you’re interested in learning more about temperament you can check out this website.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/190596/equal-temperament

PPS.  Here’s a video of Jen playing a piece Mischa Salkind-Pearl wrote for her that uses a lot of extended technique for the cello.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm6MgkWkfbg&feature=channel_video_title