Any time where you have the thumb on the fingerboard available to play notes rather than behind the neck. Mostly in the higher registers but can be used anywhere on the cello.
Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 1 The first Popper Étude brings a significant number of challenges. Primarily a study for the bow staccato, the challenge is to always have clarity of sound and a very precise left hand and right hand coordination. Practicing this with the bow only on open strings first is […]
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 4 We were thrilled to have the incredible Tim Gill with us for exploration of Popper 4 – “a beast of a study”. We explore the unique challenges of this one, thumb position, key signature, bow legato with string crossings and lots more. Hope you will find this
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 5 Popper 5 is a really fun study, marked “scherzando” which is Italian for “play in a playful manner”. This includes challenges for thumb position. We hope that we’ve helped to make this scherzando fun for you while exploring the ever-present and very important dotted-rhythm! (Beethoven 7 anyone?)
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Etude No. 7 We had a lot of fun exploring Popper 7. We found a lot to concentrate on in this study, particularly as it pertains to the difficulties of bow distribution and string crossings. It just goes to show how Katie’s very first cello teacher told her… Popper is
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 8 A beautiful étude which focuses on bow legato and distribution in thumb position. A nice sound quality is produced without too much weight on the bow. Try to be relaxed everywhere. Be sure to stretch often if you aren’t using a lot of thumb position normally. Keep
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 10 Here is Ailbhe and Katie’s Popper 10 mash-up. We talk about lots of interesting things in this video, including finger anatomy, our personal history with this and lots of breaking-down nerd out action on string crossings and legato. Hope you enjoy!
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 12 This is quite a tricky study that really works on the geography of the cello especially in thumb position. It’s a real workout for anyone’s cello playing chops, and features a difficult octaves passage at the end of 4 pages of thumb position! However, we really enjoyed
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 13 Popper 13! Full of octaves and double-stops galore, this one certainly kept us busy. Check out how we approach this epic study, and our top tips for not getting overwhelmed by the world of octaves. Bow balance percentages are important for the tune to sing in the
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 14 We had a BLAST doing our Popper 14 session with the fantastic Christian Elliott (principal cellist Irish Chamber Orchestra, member of the Phoenix Piano Trio and Zehetmair Quartet). Popper 14 is all about up-bow and down-bow staccato, a very specific technical stroke that is tricky for nearly
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Teaching Notes for Popper Cello Étude No. 15 This is a great study with a wide variety of techniques. Not especially “thumb-y” but definitely focuses on some double-stops and tricky aspects of thumb position. We feel this is a great study to take a look at if you are interested in a career in orchestral
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