//Checkpoint (4)//

One thing I learned from my days as a choir accompanist in high school was to stick a photocopy of the score on a piece of cardboard paper. This has several benefits:

• One can mark up the score freely with ease
• It is more portable
• It is easier to read without glare
• It eliminates page turning
• It stays put in light breeze

This time I used a black cardboard paper as this would be less distracting for the audience.

The Practice Score

For the next several months, I practiced the piece for several hours every weekend. I think I might have played the piece at least hundreds of times in total. The most difficult part was having to practice alone for a duet piece. So after I had memorized the piece, I started wearing an earpiece hooked up to my mobile phone and played along with the YouTube video. That turned out to be quite fruitful for several reasons:

• As Teacher always says “Rule Number One: Whatever happens, don’t stop.” I became more conscious about breaking this rule whenever I had to pause and rewind the video.
• The style and tempo presented by 2Cellos in this piece was in line with my story. I was able to get into the mood quicker. It also made molding the music into the storyline easier.
• Playing “against” the sound of the other cello part and more importantly that of the accompanying piano was like playing in a real rehearsal such that I was able to plan out every detail after countless trials. The most critical part starts even before the first note. I would close my eyes and let the piano introduction led me into the mood of the story. Then I would take a deep breath and opened my eyes shortly before the end of the last bar of this piano introduction to prepare for the cello music to start at the following bar.

However, playing with a live person certainly was not the same. I got to experience such differences during my weekly meeting with Teacher. Teacher would point out deficiencies that I was unaware of as it was difficult to listen to my own playing at home. I recalled several hilarious exchanges we had.

Referring to #2 above

Teacher: Play more softly.
Me: What do you mean by more softly? Quantity or Quality?
Teacher: ……
Me: Oh! You mean like beef stew simmering in a pot?
Teacher: (Almost fell off his chair laughing so hard while nodding)

Referring to #3 above

Teacher: Play more cheerfully.
Me: But they are dead
Teacher: They are in heaven now. R…ight? (*Teeth grinding*)
Me: Umm… But they are dead.
Teacher: ……

A major problem surfaced during these weekly practice sessions with Teacher. I was unable to get into the mood like I could at home. And this had caused my playing to practically fall apart. Not being in the same environment and not playing the same cello were part of the reasons. But there was definitely something more crucial at play. Only a week or 2 before the concert day did I figure it out. “What a close call!” I finally suggested to Teacher: “I will follow your lead for the first few notes of each section (#1, #3, and #5 in Figure 2). But after those first few notes, I will ignore you and do my own thing.” Surprisingly this worked like a charm!

//Checkpoint (3)//

I returned to my usual tactics to come up with a story. I kept replaying the piece in my head whenever I had free moments like commuting to work, taking a shower, waiting in line at a fast food store or supermarket, etc. Often scattered images would pop up in my head representing certain bars or notes in the piece. And gradually, or sometimes when I was lucky, a series of such images would play like a movie, forming a good chunk of the story.

With a story freshly made up, I described the plot to my teacher animatedly during our weekly meeting.

The story was based on my visit to the Auschwitz Memorial, the former concentration camp site located in Poland, several years ago.

Selected Photo Galleries from the Auschwitz Memorial website (A friendly warning that some of these photos can be quite graphical):

A) Former Auschwitz I site: http://auschwitz.org/en/gallery/memorial/former-auschwitz-i-site/

B) General Exhibit: http://auschwitz.org/en/gallery/exhibits/general-exhibition,2.html

C) Evidence of crimes: http://auschwitz.org/en/gallery/exhibits/evidence-of-crimes,1.html

Referring to the number markers on the music score above, the story went like this:

1. On a gloomy day, long queues of newly arriving inmates dragged their exhausted bodies through the entrance “ARBEIT MACHT FREI” Gate (Photo Gallery A), not knowing their fate.
2. As the inmates walked towards the stony chamber (Photo Gallery A), some crying in fear while others silently accepting the inevitable, they wondered…Would they be greeted with a much needed shower or the infamous poisonous gas? Unfortunately, for this lot of poor souls, the unthinkable was awaiting them.
3. Now they found themselves riding joyfully on the fluffy white clouds in heaven, finally free at last.
4. But then they looked down at the earthly land from above…
5. The horrific aftermath and suffering left behind by the massacre was overwhelming. In particular, the following scenes from my visit at the camp hit me the hardest:
   • The location of the camp was chosen for the efficiency of transporting inmates as it was at the center of all the targeted European cities. (Photo Gallery B)
   • When walking towards the crematorium (Photo Gallery A), the local tour guide whose grandfather was an inmate pointed to a building on the other side of a dividing wall not more than 100 feet away, and said “That’s where the commanding officer of the camp and his family lived. Often his children played on the grounds.”
   • The facial expressions of the inmates in their photographs on the walls of the hallways. (Photo Gallery B)
   • [Referring to the underlined note on the score] At the museum hosted in the actual camp buildings, there was a large room where the whole side of the wall is a glass window enclosure. Inside the enclosure was a mountain pile of human hair. In another window enclosure, there was a stockpile of personal belongings such as eye glasses, shoes, hair combs, etc. (Photo Galleries B & C)

Thankfully, Teacher nodded his head and agreed that this story would work well with the piece. “Yay!”