Learning to Play the Cello

I Teach Cello because of Harvey Shapiro.

Harvey was a substitute teacher at Juilliard, filling in for Leonard Rose for one year. After my third lesson with him, Harvey told me to quit practicing because I was getting worse. I went home angry and frustrated. The following week, he told me I was still getting worse, and he was pulling me out of the orchestra. I couldn’t believe a substitute teacher had that kind of authority, but he did it anyway.

The thing is, I knew he was right. It felt like I was going backwards, but Harvey cared enough to tell me the blunt truth, which is more than I can say about my previous teachers. Through working with him, I learned an important lesson: playing in orchestras can be rewarding, but it can also damage your technique by making you tight in both hands.

How Harvey Fixed My Technique

A few days after pulling me from the orchestra, Harvey called me into his studio and gave me a lesson to stop being so tight. My shoulders were going up and down while I played, and he said I looked like “a bird trying to fly”. He always made me laugh during lessons, and I got better by doing what he said.

Harvey would say things like, “I am going to make you play better than you can play”. When he said this, I knew he meant it 100%. As I improved, I really did enjoy my lessons.

He wasn’t for everyone. He yelled at students and used colorful language that would get you fired at any university these days. But he knew how to say something memorable so I would actually remember what to practice each week.

Beyond Regular Lessons

Harvey didn’t just teach during our scheduled sessions. He gave me extra lessons during the week, and because he lived across the street from Juilliard at Lincoln Center, I got a few lessons there as well.

One time, he had me drive him to his farmhouse upstate New York. He gave me a lesson that started at 8:00 PM and stopped at 11:00 PM because my brain was cooked. He then started teaching over the phone to a student in Japan, he never seemed to sleep.

What Were His Lessons Like?

I was struggling with vibrato while playing high notes on the A string. I told Harvey my vibrato didn’t work there because my left hand couldn’t do it. He said, “No, it’s the bow”. He came over, grabbed the bow, and moved it closer to the bridge for that particular passage. I tried it again, and suddenly my vibrato had never been this good. I was smiling and Harvey turned around with a grin and said “Extroverting eh!”
That was exactly how it felt.

Later in that same lesson, I was playing a fast, fancy string-crossing section of the Brahms Cello Sonata. Harvey said, “You do that better than me.” I was in total shock, Harvey did not hand out compliments. According to his assistant James Kreiger, you really had to earn one.

But then Harvey told me to add vibrato while the bow was flying up and down at 100 miles per hour. I started laughing so hard I was crying. I was pretty sure no one could do that. Shapiro did not move or grin. He just repeated the command: add vibrato.
After trying for a while, I did it and as usual, he was right. The vibrato was possible and it made the passage sound even better.
The guy was really a cello doctor. His technical knowledge was amazing and his photographic memory was absolute.