Slow

My cello teacher told me to play the tune I’m working on faster. I’ve got the intonation down more or less, just need to work  on the bowing (as always) and the tempo. My learning process is this sort of global bringing all the millions of elements into focus thing.

So, I will work onthis. That, and making it actually sound like actual music. Unfortunately that comes last with me. It’s as if I can’t relax and play something (somewhat) musically unless I know everything else is working. Also, serious coordination deficits, I suspect.

God.

I blame the amalgam fillings.

I am wondering, though, whether it might also be adviseable to seek, or compose, tunes more in line with my character, or nature – which is it? – and whether that might involve something extremely slow and drone-like, at least at the moment (a moment that has lasted, so far, decades).

Something slow, and procrastinating, but also persistent and perseverent.

Zoe Keating has a neat number on what I believe is her latest album, which plays at I think one-quarter the speed it was originally recorded at.

At.

It sounds real neat.

Also, I am totally at sea in my quest to find the right combination of effects pedals for my electric cello. Jacob has been very helpful with his patient advice, but in the end it comes down to, I guess, carting the thing to a shop and trying some out. Or carting it somewhere else and trying some out. And I suck so badly that I have serious inhibitions about trying anything out in public.

So I have been killing time watching demos on youtube of various pedals I have googled or otherwise found. I am, on the one hand, looking for something to add a little grit and character to the instrument’s sound, and on the other hand looking for something with a maximum of flexibility re: the parameters one can adjust and change.

I bought a cheap distortion pedal on ebay a while back, I have mentioned it before, and discovered that what works for a guitar works differently for a bowed instrument. It makes a fun noise, but is not adjustable enough, in the end, although I do love its ability to receive Russian short-wave transmissions when plugged into the theremin. It’s like ET phoning home.

I’ve been looking at moogerfooger demos, but due to the guitar/cello discrepancy and their expense am at something of a loss since local shops stock only a few of the models and not usually the ones I’m most interested in, so even if I did find the guts, and time to try them out, the actual ones I’m interested in would not be available.

Meh.

Bleat.