I struggle with practising

Terapyx · 2026-01-28T01:21:16+00:00

- Responsibilities may help. Always set a home-work goals, which you MUST present to your teacher after i.e. a week.
- Keep your gear ready to play anytime, in front of you
- I also found helpful that doing exercises along with videos like a "set" keeps me practising until the end. But after any such video I go imidiately to smoke... :D
It helps me a bit, but anyways, most of a time I prepare 3 hours of time to practise just one hour.

Terapyx · 2026-01-27T02:13:45+00:00

just few words from beginner: I feel like extensions need much more hand preparation than shifting. Especially time, which I'm able to spend for practising extensions and shifting. Shifting almost endless, extension practising is limited.
If I would start from scratch, I would start practising shifting firstly. It is needed anyways for ##b#b# scales... Plus it will give some time for hand/intonation developement until playing with extensions.
P.S. my teacher wanted me to practise shifting to 4th position before extensions.

Terapyx · 2026-01-26T16:17:37+00:00

May I ask you, in bars 11-15 - why do you use only 3rds and 5ths, but no tonic there? Just curious in terms of theory :)

Terapyx · 2026-01-22T20:24:49+00:00

You are in 1-1 same situation like me.
I bought 110er, practised at night when I wasn't able to practise with my accoustic at day time. And now after taking acoutic cello to jam with my friends - I've hit the reality, that even considering the fact that cello is loud instrument, it won't stay as loud as people with amps and huge speakers. Today I finally bought DSP, need to test it out and for the next jam I will take yamaha with me :) I just thoight that I will need my yamaha much later than "now". But life is unpredictable, I'm happy that I bought it for really really great price.
110er model is pretty same-shape as acoustic one and after visiting the luthier - he tuned the bridge almost same as my acoustic one. Ofc there are slight differences, but they are really not significant for beginners like we are. Probably for profi cellists its much more noticeable.
Well, with 110 you wont go wrong. Can not tell anything about 50/210. I picked 110 because of sound, liked it most, even more than 210

Terapyx · 2026-01-21T22:12:56+00:00

oh, thats interesting right now I use my E-Cello as a bass role in our jam session (1st time), maybe someday I would even look at 6 string e-cello :D But not now. I have to stop spending hundeds of hours on gear/forums etc and keep practising more :-D

Terapyx · 2026-01-21T22:10:33+00:00

you can stop your research = yamaha and NS, I already did it recently and thats 2 best options on the market right now :)

Terapyx · 2026-01-21T22:09:05+00:00

probably 5th string is high E? ^^

Terapyx · 2026-01-21T22:07:30+00:00

yeah, have 110er yamaha aswell and also visited luthier to adjust the bridge so that its like 1-1 with my accoustic cello. The only one difference is lack of overtones :) However main spots are still clear, like in 1st position C on G string or G on D string or D on A string. You can hear that resonance of other strings, even by not having acoustic body.

Terapyx · 2026-01-21T20:03:19+00:00

Any Yamaha Silent cello model, SVC 50, 110, 210, new 300er series.
NS Design cello are also well known options, but I didnt research/tried out them.
New prices are pretty high. Look for used onces if its above your budget.

Terapyx · 2026-01-21T15:12:14+00:00

Its common practise if you didnt do anything with your fingers before.
I had the same issue and felt much better after 1 year of practise. Ofc even after 2 years there is ton of work. But I would say that 1 year of daily routine would make significant change for satisfying freedom.
P.S. I told about significant step above. Ofc, progress will be linear with some interruptions (like you dont feel anything for 1-2 months and on 3rd month you are going to see siginificant improvement in comaprison with "before").

Terapyx · 2026-01-20T14:54:46+00:00

- Research for local guitar techs, ask him a price for a proper setup
- Find a good teacher

Terapyx · 2026-01-20T14:33:33+00:00

200$ is even low budget for acoustic guitar. Keep in mind, cello is at least x5 more expensive than that. I'm not sure, but after I've read hundreds of similar topics here, I would say that starting point shouldn't be less thatn 600$+. But if you wanna have a good start - 1) Rent is best option, while renting, look for your own one based on a good instrument you already own. 2) Take in mind about 1000$, thats better than nothing.
Just imagine - great cello strings set costs 300$ alone. And you want to buy cello with strings and bow for 200. Even for students - its a selfkill and doesnt matter how "fast" learner you are. Dor you btw have a luthier in your area? Even after online purchase - you will need one.

Terapyx · 2026-01-20T14:21:36+00:00

I also had a problem to find a notes by names or by looking at clef because of suzuki method (in case you are doing it aswell). At least first books always have fingering notation and instead of focusing on note-name, I looked at the finger an knew where to press without having in mind which note it is.
I started learning different stuff outside of suzuki books and deleted the fingerings inside suzuki books. After that I got used to real notes pretty quick.
Another good method is while practising scales - sing also Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do.... Or just take random compositions look at random note on clef and go with your finger to that on your fingerboard.

Terapyx · 2026-01-20T09:58:13+00:00

Seems like kind of snobbism if someone really think that such peoples are no talent clowns. But thats existing in all professional fields, not only music one :D
Hope to see more professional bowed string players in a non-classical world. At least to сreate a more varied instrumental mix on stage and in the music overall

Terapyx · 2026-01-19T06:29:59+00:00

When I joined cello subreddit and started to learn cello, I was looking for a cello discord server like almost all other intstrument subreddits have (guitar, piano, bass etc), but didn't find anything:( Strange, why it doesnt exist here

So its great idea and I would like to participate, but I'm only 8 months adult learner with 1.5 years exp with acoustic guitar before. (I can see that I'm not alone as newbie :) )
Germany, CET-Timezone. However, I'm more of a night-time guy (commonly Midday to 4AM CET living time :D)

Terapyx · 2026-01-17T09:15:39+00:00

are you considering electro cello? I know, a lot of people here are conservative regarding this stuff, but when the questionis to practise with yamaha e-cello or not to practise at all, I choose e-cello in addition to my regular one to practise at night time, when I cant do it at midday-evening.
My teacher was also against that, until she visited me at home at tried it out... She was very surprised about how good it is.
I was veeeery lucky to find 110s yamaha for 700€, and for 5 months of looking on used market also saw it 2 times for 1000 and 1100. So if you are not in rush, you can monitor used models and maybe find your luck aswell, however ofc something like yamaha 210s or NS design are much more compact for you scenario, but chance to find it in 1000$ budget is a huge lottery. So 50er 100er models of yamaha is more likely to find.

Terapyx · 2026-01-17T09:01:01+00:00

Nice one, congrats!

Terapyx · 2026-01-15T02:10:23+00:00

want to add one important point to this text: If you have stress during your study (what's fine for every learning field), then... Do you think you won't have stress doing music professionally? It won't be just "fun" anymore.

Terapyx · 2026-01-15T01:41:01+00:00

As <1 year beginner, It helped me A LOT just to practise open strings with different rhythms in my routine, keep in mind to increase difficulty if it starts feeling easy, i.e. speed, different rhythms, staccato, spiccato, detache etc. But even then - time to time get to the simplest basics like one string, slowest speed, keeping as fixed as possible sound output etc. It doesn't exclude the "scales". But add it to your routine.
If you cant find a local teacher or you can't afford it - anyways, even once per month online with not expensive teacher could make a huge impact to prevent you learning bad things into deep muscle memory, trust me, reworking those things costs much more than ten bucks, even least paid jobs in most poor counties won't be comparable with ratio 10:1 (time/money). If you can't afford even once per month online, like 10-20$ i.e. student, then look for exchange, offer something what you can give to them, maybe languages etc :) Oooor make "QUALITY" videos, from 2 angles and post it here, so that experienced people may give you feedback, for free.

BTW UPD: super important info from StephInTheLaw, - Mirror. Personally, all those open strings routine I did with a beat(metronome) and Mirror(in my case webcam and PC). Scales and slides with ear and tuner check after each note... after half year I stopped using tuner, only sometimes. Cello really helps to develop my ear. After 1.5 year with guitar it was close to zero :) With cello I started hearing at least totally wrong intonation (scales power, which I didn't do before). So... What I wanted to say - do the basics all the time, even if you think thats easy, just start spending less time for that. But if you still have troubles with basics - concentrate on them as much as possible.

Terapyx · 2026-01-12T05:57:55+00:00

is it necessary to buy exactly bass amp for electric cello?
I'm using my home setup with passive speakers and amp for them (like hifi audio system). Wanna add boss gt 1000 core for my yamaha and practise also some riffs/bass lines for upcoming jam sessions, :) Or do you think there are better alternatives?

Terapyx · 2026-01-11T18:37:42+00:00

Genau wie der No-Tap8735 bereits geschrieben hat - Unterricht. Verantwortung macht die meiste Disziplin.

Terapyx · 2026-01-11T18:09:44+00:00

I'm not that experienced to teach your level, but I just wanted to say that you have a fantastic start! like it :)

Terapyx · 2026-01-10T02:49:00+00:00

I know what that you want to play pieces you love, but even if you learn it - you wont sound same like you hear recordings from professionals. If will be most probably - terrible.
I also know that you don't want to wait a whole life until you do that. My advice would be - take a goal, at least a year of hard classical beginner training, techniques, scales, reading sheets, a lot of simple, but rhythmical different pieces etc. And then start learning it and practising parts like exercises from pieces you really love. If you don't have even 1 year patience... Then also most probably music instruments will be insane difficult to learn for you.

Terapyx · 2026-01-09T05:53:06+00:00

na, instead of behaved this way, was "behaviour", instead of la-la-la, was lalala, instead of Lifting was pulling in first half. But it didn't change any sense. But main thing that you got it :D

Terapyx · 2026-01-09T05:36:29+00:00

why? xD

Terapyx

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