Day 595 learning cello : Etude no 5 op. 73 by Popper

3/1 2026

Etude no 5 , opus 73 by David Popper (from High School of Cello Playing).

Happy New Year!! I hope you had some great holidays and are ready for the new year :-)

I miraculously managed to practise almost every day in between all the friends and family gatherings and celebrations, and I even gave a small performance at the New Year’s Eve party! Great fun.

For the last two weeks I have been practising etude No. 5, which was given to me by my teacher before the vacation. I have my first lesson on Wednesday, so let’s see what she is going to say about this effort :D

This étude is HARD. It took me a couple of days just to be able to sight-read the whole thing—there are three clefs and a lot of thumb position. The étude is in A major and has a lot of half steps, which makes it very challenging to play in tune, especially in high positions. There is also demanding bowing, with lots of string changes and jumps over a string. I also tried to add some dynamics and make it sound melodic. Had a bit of a battle with this odd rhythm as well… my metronome was ticking non-stop.

I think I will continue working on this and maybe speed it up a bit, but the result is okay at this point.

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This is my cello journey. Day 1 was 19th of January 2024. I’m documenting my progress for fun, learning and motivational purpose. For more information please take a look at the channels description. Thank you for watching ❤️


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