Cello Video Lesson: Approaching Dotzauer Etude No. 38 from Forty Etudes

Hello and welcome to the study challenge number nine and the last of the cycle of short studies for beginners and intermediate players. Today as the last study I wanted to suggest the study number 38 by Dotzauer and it's from his advanced studies cycle. It's not really that advanced but let's say it poses some challenges and the reason why I gave it to you because it's all about the dotted rhythm and dotted rhythm is something that's lots of students especially the beginners and let's say lower intermediate students really struggle with.

It's hard to give really good rhythm and good feel of the sort of this dramatic rhythm that is required in that sort of articulation. What is really interesting about this study is that it covers various types of articulations in the dotted rhythm. So as you saw at the beginning it mainly starts in legato and this in fact goes on for quite a long time but at the end it switches to so-called hooked bowings when you play down down up up down down up up and at the very end of that fragment the preliminary fragment I played it switches to separate bowings. So as you go on some of it is marked and some of it is left blank which I think doesn't really mean that Dotzauer wanted you to practice it all separately like from bar 28 onwards but actually he wanted you to probably try different types of bowings. One of those he suggests in the first half of the piece. I think it makes a lot more sense to think of it this way and you could either choose to play it all legato as the beginning so as you go on from the next fragment so after I just stopped playing you could just play or you could practice it. I think he wants you to really to choose he suggests all those articulations but it's kind of up to you or your teacher to choose the right one for you at the moment or simply mix and in fact in the edition you will download together with that video you will see that I suggest some bowings a mix of various types of articulations which you can as I said try separately on or exactly as I edited it.

So when it comes to the legato in dotted rhythm in a way that's really the easiest but it needs just really really strong left hand because the whole rhythm and the feel of drama will come from sort of this really articulated left hand so as you start it would be quite good to practice with just left hand so we really hear the action of the fingers on the string or it's that rhythm of the left hand that will give the definition to the notes and as far as the right hand is concerned simply you need to keep it quite legato but not too heavy and that should do the job.


It becomes a little bit more complicated when it comes to the hooked bowings it seems easy but the way it's normally written as you can see for example in bar 17 and 18 there is a dot on the semiquaver and lots of players confuse that so they think if there's a dot it means that I need to stop the bow after that dot which in a way is logical so you have a slower but it doesn't really work because you then have a feeling of almost triplet so it doesn't really keep the real rhythm and it's not really easy to play anyway so traditionally and this is the performance practice of those hooked bowings is that you simply stop the bow after the long note.

So if you play down down you stop after the first down so the first note is actually the one that is separated so you stop the bow then simply prepare your semiquaver and it has to play down up straight in without any any sort of break in between so actually that dot that staccato is achieved by separating the note before and simply playing it with a short bow but very much on the string and this way it will sound stronger and better rhythmically.

So I will present it one more time play the first note dot it minim sorry dot it's a quaver then prepare your D sharp and go from D sharp down bow immediately to E up bow similarly next one will be up down so in real tempo it looks this way you see that semiquaver to quaver dotted quaver T tone T tone it comes with a change of bow but it doesn't come with any extra staccato and that that way you will remain retain the strong sense of rhythm and articulation and that sort of staccato will be achieved by separating the note before and really just articulating strongly on the string without lifting the bow afterwards it is a little bit similar with the separate bowing so if you go if you look at the fragment and plate this is bar simply 19 but anywhere else later you can try that so in bar 19 you have it is it is very similar in a sense that you lift the bow after long note which is the dotted quaver then you prepare a up bow semi quaver and go straight to the down bow dotted quaver afterwards you have to leave the bow after the dotted quaver simply because if you don't do it you will end up playing closer and closer to the point so further and further from the here if you have a lot of them in a row like because let's say you play from bar 29 you simply wouldn't manage that so you have to shorten the dotted quaver by lifting it but actually it also helps there's sort of the ring of the sound it helps articulation because you can the sort of lifted dotted quaver simply resonates better if you if you start it well but then you still hear it ringing it adds in a way to the drama and if you try to do it by simply saving the bow it's not really the same I mean it's it's okay rhythmically but it sounds a little bit dead so you have to lift the bow vibrating possibly if you can bring the bow back to a similar place where you started and to simply lift prepare and so it is similar to the hook bowing in the sense that you have that gap in between the notes but in a hook bowing you don't actually lift the bow so I would say hook bowing is a lot easier than the one which is completely separated because it saves you the sort of retaking action of the bow which poses a different challenge because you have to retake come back to the place where you need to be prepared. And there's a lot of work actually and a lot of practice to make sure that you really start precisely always sort of start from the string prepare and obviously you use that bowing a lot in orchestras and sometimes you simply need to play it separately and for the drama I will play especially forte you will need that but but other than that if it's not really forte mezzo forte or mezzo piano or simply a lot of those notes very often is more practical to just play it down hook bowing is where you stop the bow prepare the next the semi quaver that a quaver but without lifting the bow so that sort of maybe it just squashes the surface of the dotted bowings and I may do a little bit more in the future on that but I think it's a good introduction sort of covers various types of those and I hope you enjoy that you find it useful and yes I will wish you all the best with your practice and perhaps we meet again in different cycle of studies or technical exercises

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

Thank you for your comment, question or request!

Comment/Question deleted successfully.

Post a comment, question or special request:

Comments or questions must be between 3 and 10,000 characters long.

You may: Login  or  

Otherwise, fill out the form below to post your comment:

Add your name below:


Add your email below: (to receive replies, will not be displayed or shared)


For verification purposes, please enter the word MUSIC in the field below

---