If there is something that I've learnt this week other than the basics of cello playing, it would be the very title of my post. Not that I didn't know this before, but it has been nice to have a reminder. I'm talking about real, physical pain and that can stop you in your tracks. On Monday, a blister started to form on my hand from drumming and the way that I hold my sticks - just on the left hand though, so might right hand technique must be perfect. I popped it and it's starting to heal nicely now even if it is still painful, but then it gets better. During my practice on Thursday, two more of these menacing devils developed - one rather large just above a join in my little finger and one at the base, I popped these last night and have been suffering quite a lot today. Playing bass with the level threes was challenging this morning, though not as painful as expected - it was only for half an hour.
During our recording session today when we were recording the grand piano, we had to set everything up. The twisting and screwing of microphone stands was extremely difficult yet some how I still managed and held back the tears whilst swearing under breath. Later when we were recording percussive hits using sounds from the piano, unnoticeably... things started to get more destructive to the health and wellbeing of my hands. I had been using my right hand to replicate the sound of a bass drum. It did hurt, but I didn't take any notice. It wasn't until the end of the session that I noticed a part of the skin on my little finger was hanging off and it wasn't until I got back into the studio upstairs that I noticed I had a rather large bump just below my wrist which has since become very bruised. One thing I don't feel is irritation. I'm not irritated by the fact that I have caused damage to myself, heck I hardly knew that it happened. This shows to me that I put in my all and that I must have thoroughly been enjoying playing percussively on such an incredible instrument to manage to completely ignore the pain. It wasn't even a matter of tolerating it, my brain had literally not registered that there was something wrong until afterwards. I probably could have continued and sprained my wrist and I still wouldn't have known.
It's amazing what you can do when you're running off inspiration and the right amount of sleep. I went to bed rather early yesterday after a long day practicing and then working on my essay for several hours. During the session today, I was constantly reminding myself of the piano guys and asking myself, "what would they do with an open top grand piano?" and of course put the answers forward into practice.
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