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What is performance anxiety? Performance anxiety is something that can: make a piece that sounds amazing at home fall apart when you play for someone else. cause you to feel like you might be dying as you walk onstage. make you never want to touch your instrument again! This is normal!  There are a bunch of bizarre things your body does when you are about to play for others. If you feel this way, it doesn't mean you are a freak who shouldn't play music.  We all feel some form of performance anxiety when the pressure is on.  EVERYONE! You won't be able to get rid of it compl ..read more

My extensions were a complete disaster! I talk a lot about my cello life before I met Martha. I was a complete mess in many ways, but especially regarding my cello technique.  For example, when I would play in an extended position to accommodate a G# on the D-string, every other finger in my hand position would be out of tune.  That didn't work well ever, really, but especially when I had to play fast passages.  Once Martha started working with me, she introduced a new kind of extension, one that kept my non-extended fingers in a place where they could play actual not ..read more

Happy new year to you!  I am really hoping 2021 will be much better than 2020. What a challenging year! But we made it.  Whew.  One of the challenges I continue to learn from is teaching online. It has been fun, and I am enjoying the ability to teach anyone from anywhere. Not just Atlanta.  An interesting aspect of teaching online is the amount of miscommunication I have been having with my students.  Luckily, I have had time to draw a few cartoons to share with you the funnier disconnects I've experienced during  lessons.  Have you experienced any misc ..read more

I wanted to share with you my latest adventure at AWARE. Since I started volunteering there four years ago, I have wanted to play my cello for the permanent residents there. I finally got my chance this year, when I had no opportunities to play for humans. I grabbed my "outdoor" cello and my mobile studio (all the technology I needed, attached to a chair), and got to work caroling for the animals.  Apart from a few memory slips and my noisy buttons (I really need a cello bib for my "outdoor" cello!), it was a huge success! Even if the animals weren't sure how to feel about it, I had a bl ..read more

In the beginning... My new virtual studio This picture was taken mid-March, just after that one crazy weekend where all  my imminent and future gigs simply evaporated.  I couldn't blame the powers-that-be. Their decisions were difficult and meant to keep everyone safe.  But my musical life - as I had known it - was over. Or on pause?  No one really can say what the future holds at this point. My husband saw it coming. He runs a wildlife rehab center, and he had been planning for this since February.  He had stages of practical protocols which he had been implementing ..read more

Happy new year to you!  I am really hoping 2021 will be much better than 2020. What a challenging year! But we made it.  Whew.  One of the challenges I continue to learn from is teaching online. It has been fun, and I am enjoying the ability to teach anyone from anywhere. Not just Atlanta.  An interesting aspect of teaching online is the amount of miscommunication I have been having with my students.  Luckily, I have had time to draw a few cartoons to share with you the funnier disconnects I've experienced during  lessons.  Have you experienced any misc ..read more

I wanted to share with you my latest adventure at AWARE. Since I started volunteering there four years ago, I have wanted to play my cello for the permanent residents there. I finally got my chance this year, when I had no opportunities to play for humans. I grabbed my "outdoor" cello and my mobile studio (all the technology I needed, attached to a chair), and got to work caroling for the animals.  Apart from a few memory slips and my noisy buttons (I really need a cello bib for my "outdoor" cello!), it was a huge success! Even if the animals weren't sure how to feel about it, I had a bl ..read more

In the beginning... My new virtual studio This picture was taken mid-March, just after that one crazy weekend where all  my imminent and future gigs simply evaporated.  I couldn't blame the powers-that-be. Their decisions were difficult and meant to keep everyone safe.  But my musical life - as I had known it - was over. Or on pause?  No one really can say what the future holds at this point. My husband saw it coming. He runs a wildlife rehab center, and he had been planning for this since February.  He had stages of practical protocols which he had been implementing ..read more

Do you encounter passages in orchestra that you feel certain are impossible to play?  ​Do you diligently practice them slowly, but it doesn't seem to help one bit?  When you rehearse with the group at tempo, you can't seem to even move your bow as fast as it needs to go--and forget about the left hand!  It is almost as if your brain melts and you are paralyzed by the sheer rapidity of the notes flying by... Sound familiar?  It does to me! Well, before you throw your cello in the corner and set it on fire, you should try faking! Here's a video all about what it means to "fake" in o ..read more