It burns me that I can’t tell from looking at sheet music what it should sound like, I told my cello teacher. He assured me that was normal for someone who hasn’t even been playing two years yet. He said not to be too impatient.

His cello class is having a recital on April first. He invited me to play something. I said I’d rather sit in the audience and relax. I didn’t say it, but I think I’d rather [insert some awful experience here]. There are limits to my masochism. Hopefully next year, though.

He told me how important it is to play in front of an audience. I’m convinced he’s completely right about that.

I’m now learning a piece where the rhythm gets tricky in the middle. It goes from one rhythm to another in the middle of the piece. So far, I’ve been concentrating so hard on bowing and fingering the notes, that the rhythm has suffered. “Try tapping your toe,” he told me. So I did.

Tapping wasn’t helping much. He observed. He gave me pointers on tapping my toe. “Don’t lift it up so high,” he said. So I tried again, this time not moving my foot so much as I tapped my toe. “Better,” he said. We worked on toe-tapping for a while. By the end of the lesson, I could tap my toe like a pro.

When I arrived home, I noticed my bow was missing. I must have forgotten it at the school, focussed as I was on my toe.