Proper Popper
Practice Project

“I’ve been using this in my practice for my cello teacher and I just learn it all so much faster.” —High school student

Are you a teacher with a student (or students) who could benefit from studying the complete Popper Etudes?

I would love to work with them on the Poppers. More importantly, I’d like to help them level up their practice.

And I’m humbled that you’ve read this far and are interested in entrusting some of their cello development to me. I do not take this responsibility lightly.

Here’s the thing.

The students who will find the most success with the Proper Popper Practice Project need your help, too. I’m going to provide all the tools, community and support that I can, but ultimately I will see them a fraction of the time that you do.

They know you and trust you. They need you to motivate and guide them in this endeavor in a personal way that you can only know from the years you’ve already spent working together.

So even though this course is completely stand-alone from your lessons, it will still take some of your time and brain space. I intend to keep technique itself out of the course as much as possible, so if they have technical questions they may well come to you for guidance.

In return for that extra work, and as a thank you, I’d like to give you $250 per student that you encourage to enroll.

If that makes you feel uncomfortable in any way, I will instead donate that money to a nonprofit in your name and send you a copy of the invoice.

You can direct your students to
CelloLoft.com/proper-popper-practice-project .

They’ll have a place to enter that you referred them.

If you’re interested, can you please fill out the following form.
I’ll email you back within 24 hours and we can take the next steps.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Can a student effectively study with two teachers at once?
I did. For my last two years of high school I studied with two great teachers - one for repertoire and one for technique. And I wish Zoom had been a thing back then, because it was a two-hour drive (one-way) to study with one of them.

Though, again, they’re not studying cello with me so much as having an in-depth tutor on how to practice. I suspect that for a few weeks you will see slower progress in their weekly lessons as they adapt into the Popper experiment, and then once a few of the practice experiments click with them, suddenly they will take off and you will be stunned at how fast they progress with you.

Will this interfere with their normal practice?
I make it clear that the expectation is to add on 90 minutes per day… and again, I think in a few weeks time you will be amazed at your students’ progress. Our course will occupy a different place in their practice time and is designed to make the time they spend practicing your music more effective.

Will you change my students’ technique?
Well… yes and no. Using Richard Aaron’s edition of the Poppers will change their technique - it lends itself to a particular way of playing. And of course I have my own variation of that technique: I’m a technical minimalist and I’m interested in helping the students in my private studio find the simplest form for their motions.

But the point of this year-long course is not technique itself, it’s how to practice technique. The feedback will be on finding more performance success using effective practice rather than, say, whether or not their right hand should be pronated.

In all the videos in which technique is discussed, my frame is: “If you subscribe to this kind of technique, you might double-check that your [thumb] is doing what you want it to. if, instead, you subscribe to this kind of technique, you might check in that your [wrist] is doing what you want it to.”

What kind of a twisted person wants someone to play all 40 Popper Etudes?
Mark Twain said, “A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.” So, I guess Mark Twain ;)