The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 027 Gerardo Ribeiro: The Art of Listening

Episode Date: April 5, 2019

In this week's episode, I wrap up this series on the main teachers in my journey as a violinist with an interview with Northwestern University professor Gerardo Ribeiro, with whom I studied during my doctoral years. Professor Ribeiro talks to us about his experience studying with Ivan Galamian and Felix Galamir, how he uses mental practice, why we must develop the awareness to truly hear our own playing and assess critically what we are doing, and about the importance of taking ownership of our learning experience! I learned so much with Professor Ribeiro and I'm so happy to have him on the show!  He is full of insight and useful tips, and also has great anecdotes for us!  I hope you enjoy our discussion!   In this episode, Professor Ribeiro elaborates on: His experience studying with Ivan Galamian The importance of listening to ourselves Why moving can be detrimental to our playing Mental practice Why we must develop the awareness to truly hear our own playing and assess critically what we are doing The importance of aural skills   Gerardo Ribeiro Gerardo Ribeiro, Portugal's premier violinist, is recognized on four continents as one of the truly important violinists of his generation. With acclaimed recitals at New York City's most prestigious concert venues - Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall and the Metropolitan Museum - Mr. Ribeiro has also appeared at Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center, and is well known in major European, South American and Far Eastern concert halls. As a concerto soloist, Mr. Ribeiro has appeared with the Philadelphia and Gulbenkian Orchestras, the Montreal, Dallas, Lucerne, Lisbon, Porto, Barcelona and Cali Symphony Orchestras, the Zagreb, Antwerp and Lisbon Philharmonics, the Taiwan, Beijing, Belgian and Portuguese National Orchestras, the Radio Orchestras of Paris (O.R.T.F.), Lisbon, Berlin, Hilversum (Holland) and North Germany (Hannover) and other leading ensembles. Beginning violin studies at an early age, Ribeiro went on to earn Soloist Diplomas, with honors, at both the Porto and Lucerne Conservatories, later attending the Juilliard School, where he studied with Ivan Galamian, Paul Makanowitzky and Felix Galimir. Numerous awards in distinguished international competitions such as the Montreal and Paganini followed. First Prizes were received at the Vianna de Motta contest in Lisbon and the Maria Canals competition in Barcelona. After serving on the violin faculty of the Eastman School of Music, Mr. Ribeiro joined Northwestern University as professor of violin. He is a member of the Meadowmount Trio, ensemble-in-residence at the Meadowmount School of Music. Ribeiro has been awarded the Presidential Scholars Teacher Recognition Award from the White House's Commission on Presidential Scholars. Mr. Ribeiro is also on the string faculty at the Music Institute of Chicago where he teaches and coaches advanced students and chamber groups in the Academy program.   If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review on iTunes!  I truly appreciate your support! Visit www.mindoverfinger.com for information about past and future podcasts, and for more resources on mindful practice. Join the Mind Over Finger Tribe here!  https://www.facebook.com/groups/mindoverfingertribe/     THANK YOU: Most sincere thank you to composer Jim Stephenson who graciously provided the show's musical theme!  Concerto #1 for Trumpet and Chamber Orchestra – Movement 2: Allegro con Brio, performed by Jeffrey Work, trumpet, and the Lake Forest Symphony, conducted by Jim Stephenson. Also a HUGE thank you to my fantastic producer, Bella Kelly!   MIND OVER FINGER: www.mindoverfinger.com https://www.facebook.com/mindoverfinger/ https://www.instagram.com/mindoverfinger/    

You're listening to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 27. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice, and building a purposeful career. And now, your host, Dr. Renée Paul Gaultier. Hi, everyone. Last week, I spoke with violinist and violist Michael Klotz about the legacy of Svizaitlin, our teacher. This one was also really dear to my heart, so I hope you had a chance to catch it. Today, I wrap up this series on the main teachers in my journey as a violinist with an interview with Northwestern University professor Gerardo Ribeiro, with whom I studied

while completing my doctorate. Professor Ribeiro is the co-chair of the Department of Music Performance and the coordinator of the string program at the BNN School of Music at Northwestern. He's enjoyed a distinguished solo and chamber music career, and he's the winner of numerous worldwide prizes, including a 2001 Presidential Excellence in Teaching Award.

He's been a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Montreal Symphony, and the Berlin Radio Orchestra, among others, and he can be heard on the EMI and RCA labels. Professor Ribeiro was also Artistic Director of the International Institute for Chamber Music in Munich and a member of the Meadowmount Piano Trio. Before BNN, Professor Ribeiro taught at the Eastman School of Music and he currently serves on the faculty of the Meadowmount School of Music. Mr. Ribeiro studied at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian and Felix Galamier. In today's episode, Professor Ribeiro talks to us about his experience studying with Ivan

Galamion and Felix Galamir, how he uses mental practice, and why we must develop the awareness to truly hear our own playing and assess critically what we're doing. Professor Ribeiro is full of insights and really useful tips, and also has great anecdotes for us, and I hope you enjoy our discussion. Let's go to the show. Professor Ribeiro, it's so wonderful to have you on the show today. Thank you. Professor, I studied with you here at Northwestern for my doctorate, and I really feel like I learned so much from you.

So it's a real pleasure to have this chance to sit down with you and talk about practice and performance and share your knowledge with my listeners. So before we dive in those topics, though, I'd love for my listeners to get to know you better. So would you please tell us a little bit about your musical journey and how you got to where you are today and how your artistic path has unfolded? Well, I was born in Portugal and I first started violin with my father. He was an amateur violinist and my mom played the piano also as an amateur. and I would listen to them play together at night, usually very nice tunes and I like to

violin a lot and that's how I started. So my father had quite a bit of time for me so he taught me a lot of things like how to read, math and violin by age four. I could do all those three things and most importantly he taught me a lot of solfège which really helped me for all my life. so I started playing the violin at about age four and a half five when he saw that I had you know quite a bit of facility early on on the game I studied with the leading violin teacher of in Porto Portugal and I was very lucky that he studied with someone who studied with Galamian in Paris before Galamian came to America so he had the right bow grip the right or whatever you want to call it right, but yeah, that co-group that I should have had taken, but unfortunately,

I took my own handhold way, which made things very tough for the future when I finally came to side with Mr. Golomian, and then I had to change that. But I, early on in the game, won quite a few competitions in Portugal, and with the help of a very fine foundation in Portugal called Gulbenkian. I studied for two years in Switzerland before I came to study at Juilliard with Ivan Golomian. Those years in Switzerland were wonderful because I was playing just now and then on the Festival Strings Lucerne, which was a great, great orchestra that recorded for Deutsche Grammophon and in fact for the archive part of Deutsche Grammophon, which was very prestigious. And so I played in quite a few recordings with the Festival of Strings Lucerne,

actually even played a part on one of the four Vivaldi, Vivaldi four violin concerto. And then the great part that I was very lucky is that I would be on the road for like seven, eight days with people like Henrik Schering, Francesc Cari, Rostropovich, and you name it, others, you know. So it was great because there was nothing to do during the day. So I had a lesson with Francescati every day. So this was a wonderful thing at age 15, 16, to be able to be exposed to such wonderful musicians. So when I came to New York, I felt like I was a very accomplished person until Mr. Golombin made me play open strings and starting all over again, which I'm very happy did. I finally got the book rip I wanted and my left hand was I think in

pretty good shape. He didn't say much about it but he was after me with that book rip which it was very hard for about a year. It took me a year to finally get it and I think that's how long it takes when you really try to do something. Then I was studying with Mr. Golomian for about five, six years in New York. And at the same time, I studied with other people. I was very happy to being able to study with Felix Colomier, who was a great, great, great musician. So he was the man that really, really made me work very hard, much more so than even Mr. Colombian, because he was a perfectionist. Every phrase had to be done just right. And at the time, it was very hard to understand what you wanted and it took me about five years after I finished studying at Juilliard

after winning quite a few competitions to finally understand what you wanted and then of course that was a wonderful feeling. That's a wonderful journey. I love how you were exposed so young to all of these musicians that are you know such legends for us right now. Yes they were you know I was really very lucky because today we have wonderful people we have actually more people playing the violin and better than ever but I guess that tradition was so incredibly influential you know in in anybody's life so I certainly feel like when I practice and when I perform you know all these little time spent with those people were incredible the accumulation of knowledge you know from each one of them and one particular thing i remember is in terry t which

is only two three miles or rather two three kilometers from montreux in switzerland at the grand hotel that's where mr francis catty gave a course and so we were there for about eight days and every day we had to play and the students were terrific from everywhere including even at the time the Soviet Union so we had people from all over and that was my turn to play the Brahms concerto and that was after I knew him about five years before on those famous tours of the festival strings lucerne and Francesca he said you know I played the Brahms first movement And he said, you know, I'm so sorry, but, you know, you're playing a wrong note. And I said, and I became so red, I wish I would disappear with all those people there.

You know, how could you possibly play a wrong note on the Brahms concert after you knew that piece so well? And, see, this part here, can you play it again? And I did, see, it's there again. I said, what could that be? And they said, see, this E that you're playing is slightly, slightly flat, you know, that's a wrong note. So that really made me think that I had to listen to every possible thing I was doing and not allowing anything to happen. So there was a performance of the Brahms Concerto, which I played, that I was hoping Francescatti was not coming to. But he was there.

I said, uh-oh, I better play no wrong notes tonight. So I was very, very, very—I made sure that that E was in tune at least, you know. So he was very pleased afterwards. But that taught me a lesson. taught me a lesson that anything that is slightly out of tune is a wrong note and you know and if you start thinking that way then then I think you're on the right track that will that would teach you to listen that's for sure and you mentioned Mr. Galamian before and I find it hard to believe that anyone playing the violin in America has not studied with someone who

either studied with Mr. Galamian or also studied you know or had a teacher that studied with Mr. Galamian. He is such a force in the North American violence school. So could you please talk to us a little bit about the experience of studying with Mr. Galamian and what he taught you and his philosophy and maybe a little bit also about his methods? Right. Well, you know, Ivan Galamian was a legend to me before I came to study with him. Even in Europe, he was extremely well known. And when Isaac Stern came, whom I got to know, I played for him several times, you tell the folks in Portugal who were helping me, you know, my so-called sponsors there, oh, you know, the only place to study is either in Moscow with Oistrakh or Kogan at the conservatory or in America with Ivan Golombin. So that's all he had to say. So, you know, Isaacson was a very strong personality, so everybody took his words, you know, very seriously.

So I could not have gone to Russia. I wanted to, but I couldn't go because of political situations there with Portugal and Russia, you know, was still during the Soviet Union period. So the only option was to go to New York, which I did. And it was sort of a drastic move coming all the way from Europe a long time ago to study with Mr. Galamian. But, of course, I knew all about him. So many people talked to me about it and about him. He was a real legend. So when I first met him, I was a bit intimidated because he never said anything.

He barely said hello. And very short, he probably spoke for one minute in 60 minutes. the other 59 minutes you had to play so I was not sort of used to that but I figured that his mere presence inspire you know a lot of respect even if you said all the wrong things you would still be trying your very best to play your best so I think the secret with the Galamian was that I think all of us before we go to that lesson a will be extremely well prepared who is not such thing as going there and not being well prepared and trying to play as well as you could now you really work very hard and you play this as carefully as you possibly could and then

basically and and usually at the end of a lesson you say very little you'd say okay if you said okay it meant it was very good it was never oh you play beautifully this is wonderful and everything So I was used to that in Europe. That's the way in Europe things are. It's in America that they stress always the first positive. First they stress the positive things and then the negative things. But in Europe it was always the opposite. Everything was bad until, oh, by the way, this was not so bad, this, this, and the other.

So I was used to that. So it didn't really bother me, but I know it bothered lots of my colleagues who are not used to this. But throughout the first year, I studied with him. I came late from Portugal the first year I missed the beginning of Juilliard. So Mr. Calame was so incredibly happy. He said, good, now you can practice. That's all you're going to do. You're just going to practice.

So that's what happened. I started in November. That's when I first arrived. And from November until I went to Médamont the first summer, I worked with him in about 10 concertos. So I would play the first movement for a lesson. I'm talking about a big concerto. well, Wieniawski, maybe Vuitton, and then, of course, going up the ladder there, I would play

the first movement for a lesson and perhaps half of a Bach solo sonata. And second lesson would be the second and third movements and the rest of the Bach. And the third lesson would be the whole thing, the full concerto and the full Bach. So as you can see, there was not that much time to talk. he just had to play and um but i learned a lot although i felt that at the end of one year although i was doing a lot of of things if i if i came to think about it he would tell me two or three things that if you really paid attention to made a big difference but that's all you do you'd never repeat to what what he said because you'd get upset if you don't if you did not get it at the first first time he said it so that so the combination of having a lot of respect for him

being very well prepared and and going through a lot of repertoire I guess was a very very good year so then of course it was I was very happy to complement his teaching with other people that I saw there like Felix Calamir and I was very pleased that actually Mr. Golomian and Mr. were extremely good friends and every time i had to play a sonata to go for a competition you'd always say go to mr gallamere and work with him with that and and he was right he he was much better doing that type of the musical ideas but about colombian what i must say is that i think that what he did for you was you know to get your setup just right a setup that was as natural as one possibly could could have and with that natural feeling you could actually play

your very best because you would be playing the violin the same way as you would bend your knees when you walk you know everything seemed to work the flexibility was there the direction of everything was there even the breathing breathing it was is right you'd say you can you breathe here and then you inhale here and then exhale slowly here and that always worked he was a master of bow distribution um he would say things to you maybe two or three things that would actually help on the concert stage for for your entire life as an example you'd play the mendelssohn concerto third movement where you have the the passage on the third page i guess when you have all those notes up bow and you have to retake your bow you know the whatever and uh you know

people would of course invariably lose a little place and go to the frog so then galamin would say no no no you are going to stay not only you're going to stay in the middle but you are going to regain you are going to gain bowing and you are going to finish at the tip with the up bow strokes you know retaking so and he demanded that you did that for the lesson almost sometimes even for a studio class so you do that and you'll be very pleased when you do that and for sure in every competition every performance i i don't think i saw any galamian student student messing up that that passage because they are so used to doing that so it was very easy to remain in place to do the apostacado things like that or you second movement of the mendelssohn concerto the very long

high c you know that you have to do seven beats there so you'll be playing and of course you'll be counting silently in your head where you where you're being and then when you think it was five galamian would start out loud four five six you'd add always an extra beat so you already knew that that you was going to do that and sure thing every time you play the performance again i don't think there is a galamian student that does not remember that that that note actually possibly has one more beat so you better save your bow so that you don't run out of bow things like this yeah you did so many things like that that um that uh if you are you know very serious with what you are doing and you put two and two together it really helps you uh you know for for for your life for your entire

life um and another thing he did was that when you really did a good job uh you would say that's it that's all it counts you know nobody else matters you are the first one matters you go to the concert and if people don't like it it's too bad for them because you did a great job and you understand what you are doing and if you feel you did well um that's what it is so he was also incredibly nice when uh you would go to a competition and you did you would not win anything you know and you'd come there and and you you'd never say anything or said oh that was very good how did you play i said you played i i thought i played well i said well that's what counts bravo wonderful this and that on the other hand you could go play with the philadelphia

orchestra as i did and you came back and you would say oh how was it i said oh it was very good oh that's good okay now let's go on so he never really complimented you when you won a big thing and he never really put you down when you did not so i you know if you're i guess sensitive enough you can see that that was a very good feeling you know so and a positive feeling felt i also found that he was a very actually very sweet man you know in deep down and he really cared for his students even if the appearance that is that he didn't really care but he really did so yeah I enjoyed my years with him and again complimenting that that is teaching with other other people that eventually you study with with as well I think was a very good combination and when you're saying

that he would say something one time is this that the student would then go and practice until they got it right no i'm talking about things like uh like a about distribution issue if you were playing without really thinking or being aware of what you were doing and you really were making a stupid mistake it was really not smart then you'd get very upset because you felt that the student was not really paying attention so we are in a business that only the first time counts and and everything has got to be done right the first time and if you're going to repeat it 10 times each time is the first time and you should not you know just think because the first time was fine oh I'm just going to repeat this for the sake of repeating if wasting your time because

why you know just wasting really time might as well practice something else or or if you're going to practice pay attention 10 times to make sure that yes each time is that way and and then retaining that so I think he was upset if he did not retain something that he said or something that was similar that you should deduce that it would be that way and and you were not really doing it. So I think that's what it was. That's one thing that's really interesting for me to hear you say this, because I really get that sense, too, in your teaching, is how, because you were saying how Mr. Galamian wants to really raise the awareness. And I feel like that's what you do as well, because you always want us to listen really well and pay attention and be very

mindful of what we're doing in the moment. That's correct, yeah, you know, and you learn with your mistakes, you know, and I certainly learned with my mistakes. I remember going to competitions where I felt I really played well, and if I did not win first prize, I would say, oh, you know, maybe politics, maybe this, maybe that. I said, wait a minute, I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm really, this time, I'm really going to listen to myself, and then I'm sure that they have some good grounds there you know with whatever decisions they make and you know i was amazed that when i did that i actually won first prize and um and i said you know if i did not do that detailed work and listening to make sure that indeed everything was just the way i wanted

and i hope that what i wanted was correct then the level of the performance was so much higher so i said look if they don't give me the first prize this time i'm not even going to get upset because I'm happy that I did what I wanted to do. And another thing I used to do that was not very smart was before going into the stage, I'd be playing and I'd be playing. I thought everything perfectly, put a lot of energy into it. So when I would go to the stage,

I still would play well but not with the same energy I had before I went to the stage. So I said, you have got to save yourself for that. So the best thing is to really prepare yourself mentally And as long as your fingers, you practice five, ten minutes to make sure that your fingers are warm and probably not even the piece that you're going to play. Anything, just play a scale or an arpeggio, some double stops or anything

to, you know, feel warmed up and then relying completely on your mind. And, of course, if with the preparation for whatever you are playing, you're playing a piece that you know so well, you know, it's it's you know you can almost uh close your eyes and you know and the car drives by itself uh which is not a good idea of course um you know if you have the the muscle memory for it and then playing it by ear i mean you can look at outside the window and see that beautiful tree you don't even know what you just played was that the brahms i played or was that i cannot even remember so that's not a good thing you know you're relying completely on your muscle memory and playing it by

year. But on the other hand, it's not good either to be, you know, being so incredibly precise with what you are thinking, because you could actually get also confused. So the best thing is to have a good awareness of where you are, what's happening and where you're going, and not to project too much ahead or think of the past, even if something not so good happened in the past, that's past, past is past, just trying to get the performance to get better and better. And on the other hand, if you're really very nervous, your best way of calming your nerves is, no matter how difficult it is, like you play the Sibelius Concerto,

and you don't make a mistake from the very beginning until the first tutti. If that happens, then you feel fine for the rest of the performance. You shouldn't feel too fine because something can happen, but at least you're not sort of apprehensive, which could cut a little bit into the fun of the performance. This is great. You know, and I also love how you were talking that Mr. Galamion put so much emphasis on not so much the result, the outside results, but more about how you played and how you

think you played this emphasis on the music itself. And I think that's wonderful. You know, one of the things that I really loved about your teaching, many things. And, you know, earlier you talked about accumulation of knowledge. and I really feel like for me to come study with you after undergrad and master's and professional experience it was such a wonderful compliment to everything and and really push things even further and I think that a lot of it is because you you are so wonderful at explaining things very clearly the explanations are so clear and it makes so much sense and you are pushing us to to listen

as you mentioned several times, always. And what I see in your teaching philosophy is to think so much in terms of efficiency on the instrument, to make things as easy as possible and get the more results. So for someone who's never studied with you, can you tell us in a nutshell, what do you think is a good way to practice? How should students approach practicing? Well, actually, before getting there I just would like to mention that it is so incredibly important that you feel comfortable when you play the instrument that you know your left hand is placed just right you make a string crossing you you you do what you're supposed to do you are supposed to you know move your arm so that your fingers don't have the added strain of having to either extend or

contract from string to string so that the curvature of your fingers are as natural as possible at the resting time so that you really feel comfortable and natural about everything because if you feel comfortable and natural about all these things then you can really concentrate on the music that you are doing i mean i see so many wonderful students who play beautifully but if you look at that bow grip for instance you know or the left end of something that is not so good i said my this poor person is must be working so hard to get these results you know because it's not natural it's just simply difficult you know there are the people that make a boat change and instead of following the direction where the arm came from they go always

on a vertical movement at the boat change. I mean, where does that vertical movement come from? You don't play up and down literally vertically. You come horizontally. So when you make that boat change, that motion that you are going to do is more a lateral one, you know, sideways than up and down. And things of that nature, things that don't make sense.

You know, so if I have a student who, you know, comes and plays very well but that happens you know I try to mention these things if it's a student who comes you know wants to maybe audition for Northwestern let's say and comes just once you know I say look I think you should be thinking about this and this and that you do whatever you are but I think this would make everything much more natural and easier for you so then you can then can concentrate on the music. And then I would suggest that cleanliness is very important. Everything has to be clean.

So you just have got to listen. Intonation, of course, has got to be good. Things get in trouble when the very first note is out of tune and you have to make sure that that note is in tune. That famous scene on the Brahms concerto, obviously I was not listening to that. Very important because the intonation is how you relate the last note you played with the one you're about to play, and so on. And then, you know,

you have the student that for everything, wherever they go, they bring a, you know, a recording device. So why are you going around with that recording device? You know very well, it's not very good. Why are you even wasting time listening to that? I don't care if it's terrible or almost there. You know, when you feel, you know, I really think everything is there, then tape yourself and then see if indeed it is as you think and not wasting time even with and some people never record themselves they should you know so so i think and i mean i've been doing the teach i did solo playing for like 10 years and then i started teaching and and when i first started teaching it was very hard because i couldn't understand the way someone couldn't do something that

obviously, to me, was so easy. But I looked around, I saw my friends and very well-known people that actually were teaching too. I said, well, I better get interested in this and try to help. I always really wanted to help people. And so then I really started going down to their level and see why something was happening. Of course, sometimes, obviously, they were not paying attention and in that case i really lose my patience i said okay look go either look for someone else or else you have got to understand what i'm saying and do something about it i cannot do it alone you have to help you know and so but then when they are trying then no matter how much difficulties they have i'll be there to help them because why not that's my job and i enjoy

sometimes bringing someone who is really not very good to start with to to a great level of playing That's what I've been doing for so many years. And as long as there is good cooperation on part of the student, I'm all there to help them. I'm trying to think of maybe even new things to help them. I think that one big problem is that, like I did, you know, I remember that. I said, my goodness, I practice slowly, you know, the, I don't know, the second page of the Tchaikovsky concerto. You know, when you go da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, you know, and you practice for the intonation and you do everything and you know everything is fine. And actually you can play it in tune, in tempo, but it sounds like an etude.

So I always felt like I did that many students, when it is slowly, it's supposed to be boring. And just to practice intonation or this or the other, string crossing, whatever it is, which is natural and one should be doing that. But what I feel is that most people don't practice the performing of a piece at a slower tempo. They only practice at a slower tempo. They never sort of perform it at a slower tempo. And one of the things that really helped me immensely is to performing the piece, whatever you're going to play, at a slower tempo. There was a time that I would be filling in for someone

or playing the Tchaikovsky concerto here or the Brahms there. So these are pieces I played probably, I don't know, 50, 60 times with orchestras. But if you don't play them for a couple of years, then you better practice a little bit. I think I could still go there, pick up the violin and play it. And I don't think it would be, I think it would be good. But I was not sure. So I would not ever go to the stage not being sure. So what I would do and what I usually do, I get the metronome and I start practicing the piece at a slower tempo.

So really slow. It might take me three, four days to get to tempo. But when I get to tempo, it's ready to go to the stage and perform. So four days is not so bad, you know. And rather than, you know, trying fast and go slow and then again, oh, this passage is not so good. Let me try this. On the long run, I think you lose more time. so and then stopping the metronome at a given tempo that is slow and do it you know with with everything in it just as if you are performing it i this has helped me so much i have tried it with quite a few students and with great success so you know most students or most of us i all including myself we when we practice okay practice very well now i'm going to play the brahms concerto and you think it's going to be beautiful because you practice so so hard and then you find it difficult to keep that good level you know high level of playing and it's i think because you never really try to do that at a slower tempo you know bringing everything in you know the

the interpretation of it with the technique the cleaning cleanliness the the intonation you name it all the things that the sound the bow distribution everything and that's what i would that's what i do when we talk about mental practicing i mean i don't want to be practicing for five hours the day i have to perform in the evening so i can save my my fingers my arms my body i can you know lie down i can even put the tv in the hotel room without sound and i can be playing in my head the old concerto and when i do that it's not just the notes no it's the bowing the fingering the positions i am at and so that when you go to the concert nothing really should go wrong it might but usually it doesn't you know so and i think that is a security that you have to

have and i think it's good first to try that you know not with a concerto but maybe with a piece you know so that you can see you know you're going to go to the stage to play a piece you'll be there for five minutes, ten minutes at the most, and that is a good thing. That's what I do, for instance, you know, with my students when they go to Meadowmount every summer. I mean, that place is so incredibly difficult to perform. I was more nervous to play there than a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra. I literally was.

I was scared to death the first day, the first time I had to go there and play on that stage. I thought that was an awful thing going to happen. you know thinking about that date is like it was a death sentence you know it really was i mean i was obsessed with it you know because it had a you knew it had to be right because if it was not right all those the other kids 200 would be there okay you know it it was that atmosphere so and if you would go there and you played it just right then then you felt so good that performance gave so much to you then you anywhere you'd go you'd feel so much more comfortable i was very comfortable

when I played with the orchestra after playing that same thing. I played Sibelius Concerto at Meadowmont one week before I went to play for 10,000 people with the Philadelphia Orchestra when I was 20 years old. So I actually felt more comfortable playing with the orchestra than at Meadowmont. I mean, it's ridiculous, but that's the way it was. So my students now at Meadowmont, I feel that they are very scared.

I know that. They don't say sometimes, but they come to me, oh performance is tomorrow you know and they say okay you'll be fine just go there do the best you can you know and so if it is a first year student first summer student I never really put them there to play a concerto or a long piece if they are really novices at this you know they're not very experienced I would put them playing maybe for about 12-15 minutes where they can play two pieces they can play a slow piece and then something challenging and once they do that they are ready next summer to play a full concerto because the the ice was broken they are really

into it and they have everything that they and then they know all how these things we just talked about how to practice what they have to do in order to go there and not be so scared that's the The only way they can face the performance is to be incredibly well prepared. Right. And if something goes wrong, then it goes wrong. Nobody's going to, you know, I always say this story. When I was about six or seven years old, I went to my little town's circus. You know, the circuses used to go from town to town.

And then in the trapeze, you'd see those people going back and forth, you know, making acrobatics there. and then you have to time very well how would you jump from one place to the other so you could hold on to someone's feet or hands, whatever it was. Because if you didn't, you'd die because there was no safety net underneath. And when I saw that, my goodness. Or in the circus, the circle that goes around with someone there and they throw knives and it goes, you know, without touching those people. I mean, this is ridiculous.

I told my students, look, at least if you miss, you will not die. but other than that you should feel like you would be on the circus under you cannot miss you just have to do everything you possibly cannot to miss yes there's so many great things in what you said as always it's so true that sometimes we practice slowly but without the emotion we're not thinking of the sound and then it doesn't translate as well in tempo that's for sure and one thing you mentioned and that I feel you are so great at is mental practice and that's difficult mental practice is not an easy thing to do when you practice mentally in your case do you do it with the score or is this something that you do by memory and do you feel or maybe a better

way to approach this is if someone has never mentally practiced how would you recommend they go about it i think they should you know just mental uh do the mental practicing on a short piece you know maybe just one page and know exactly what is there uh and then from there going fast going to a more substantial you know piece and so on i would mental practice as slowly as necessary you know and not that's not so good for your mind but what else can you do You have to train your mind to digest things and then your mind will then do the rest, you know, later on. And so if I'm going to be playing the Tchaikovsky concerto that evening or something, I said, you know, I have nothing to do. I'm in the hotel room, you know, might as well let me play this whole thing in my head, you know.

And I said, I'm a little lazy. I don't feel like doing a thing in tempo. I know, I don't think, even if I'm lazy, I'm going to do it right in tempo. and i better not miss a thing so and then i i uh then i play it in tempo in my head with my mind always a fraction of a second ahead of where i am and uh and depending of course on the speed you know maybe a bit further ahead and on a faster temp than a slower tempo and the whole idea is to know exactly what am i going to do that evening everything will be there and if you do this invariably you go to the performance and you are not as nervous because you have that mind there

that is helping you but as i said before you cannot overdo it because if you overdo it you can start really doubting yourself or guessing yourself and then oh my good what's the next note coming so when that happens to me so i'm thinking too much let my mess my muscle memories take over for a bit and let me relax about it and then but usually when things go very well from the beginning then the rest usually is correct you know i do a lot of that work on it like i remember playing things like camera concert and things of that nature you know or the bear concert the things that you don't play all the time but now and then in your career they ask you to play that and you play it for the first time and invariably it's a good orchestra it's not just you know an

old way it's not a small performance by any means like the bear concerto you know i learned it very quickly because i had to substitute someone to play it and i used the music because i could not memorize that not not when i was 48 years old i was not going to memorize that to play what's the sense if i can go there and i can really play it very well with the music why not doing that because with my students i said look when i was your age i played everything by memory and you should because when you play by memory a you know everything very well and the way you listen to yourself is different than if you're looking at the music you know you must lose something when you're looking at the music but at my age i felt like i could look at the music and

still listen to myself i made myself do that you know so i thought and i still think that the performance really did not lose much because i was looking at the music maybe a little bit i don't know but um but the point is i did not know that that the bear concert but i memorized it anyway so what i would do is i would be going in on a transatlantic flight or something like that and this is answering your question from before if you have the score or if you don't have the score uh or your part at least you know i certainly could not memorize the full score of the bear concerto but the the solo part i could and i knew exactly where the orchestra was so i would know what what to do but not to the utmost detail like the conductor probably should know um but what i

always did was having the music on my my hand and hopefully never open it and if there is something i did not know i would be still very stubbornly trying to figure out what it was and then after maybe a minute if i couldn't say i give up i really can't then i would open the music and i to go oh there it is oh i never forgot that that's it that then i so if i only had three or four times i had to open the music that was not so bad because process of elimination then right that would be the the easiest and most efficient way i guess to learn things but as you learn things quickly you forget them quickly you know i never forget 1975 at the sibelius competition in finland I went to the competition, and I did not win anything.

But I got the prize for the contemporary work. So I had to play for the BBC about four days before that, and that was a very important program. It was one of those 35-minute programs, played Chrysler recitative on skirts, Paganini Caprice, this and the other. So I was very busy with that, and I was ready for the Sibelius competition except for that piece that I did not know. And I have that piece here. I can show it to you.

and so I literally finished the broadcast there for BBC in London at I think was 8 30 or so in the evening then I just went to my hotel room in London because my the flight to Finland was the following morning and I said okay that's it I you know I was young so you know if I didn't sleep all night it was not the end of the world I you know I I used to do that and it didn't sort of bother me that much you know not like today of course so I decided okay that's it so I asked the person downstairs okay can I have a room where I can practice and say oh sure you can go whatever so I went there and I practiced all night that piece I really practiced that piece and then on the next day three hours four hours that took to get to Helsinki I was looking at the music and

trying to memorize everything so the minute I got to the very nice people I was staying with I went around, I practiced. I practiced that piece. That's all I practiced. I didn't practice all the other things that I knew very well, you know, Tartini Devil's Thrill Sonata and Sibelius Concerto, obviously, and all those things. So that's all I did.

I practiced that piece because I had to play it. What was I going to do? It would be a scandal if I wouldn't play that piece, you know. I memorized that piece, and when I was supposed to play it, about five minutes before I was about to play it, And so I told the people there that were calling the candidates to go to sell. Please don't call me until about two minutes before I go to that stage.

Can you please do that? And then he said, OK. So I practiced that piece. I could actually play it all the way through, you know, just barely. But I could. So, OK. And he said, oh, it's time. Oh, OK.

And I was going. I was still playing on the corridor as I was going to the thing. I just stopped a little bit to get in and went there, played the piece. and I actually won the prize for the piece. So then they wanted me to stay to play that piece for the finals. How in the world could I play that piece for the finals? As I learned it, you know, the next day I didn't even know it started. Because it was so quick.

That was a real muscle memory, playing it by ear type of thing. I did not have time, you know, to analyze anything. And just went there. I was lucky that I was able to play it. I guess so well that they gave me the prize. I mean, I would be very happy if they didn't give me the prize because then I'd be done with it. But then I told them, I'm sorry, I'm not going to stay for the finals because I just did not want to go through all that again. I still had another three days to prepare it, but that's just to show what we all can do.

It's just an amazing thing what we can do, things that we don't even know. I think we probably are operating at maybe 35, 40 percent of what we actually can do. That's what I tell my students, some of them, you know, I think you are operating at 5% of what you can do. Just think about it, do something, and then you'll see you'll be able to do so much more. Yeah, and I feel like some people, and I'll include myself in the pack, but I find my mental practice is actually exhausting, and it's so easy to skip it because we feel like we're accomplishing so much more

if we're playing, playing, playing. and we skip this really important tool which is mental practice because I find it very exhausting it's taxing for the brain and I think that we don't like to have our brain so active but what I tell the students I hope that I get wiser with time so now I try to actually understand what I'm doing when I'm practicing but it's like having several set of spare keys so the muscle memory is one and then understanding what you're doing what's on the page is also another set of keys so that if you if you're on stage and your muscle memory goes your brain is right in the moment your brain knows where you are and can jump in or the opposite if you're if you're having a memory

lapse to have the muscle memory take over and just keep going but I feel like sometimes we neglect to have the whole spectrum the whole picture both muscle and mental yeah you know I think that And also, as I mentioned before, and then you commented on my having all these wonderful contacts with all these wonderful people. You know, I mean, I saw Francescotti having a memory slip. I saw Grumio. Grumio also was one of the people that played with us. He played the Haydn C major concerto, which was one of my favorites. He has the most beautiful recording of the Haydn C major concerto. And can you believe that he actually had a memory slip on the second movement, on a beautiful line, thinking he just, he really was going there for like three measures all over the place, and then he found this way, and he played.

But then on the other hand, you'd have someone like Eric Schering. That man never made a mistake, you know, and that's part of this all business of practicing because I got to know him pretty well since I knew him since I was nine years old. Because, you know, in Portugal was very good because I had lots of friends that when someone came, oh, by the way, we have so-and-so that you should listen to, blah, blah, blah. So I was always very lucky to play for all these people. And the only reason is because they would come there, and the people inviting them knew them very well, and that's how I got to know them. And then I really maintained contact, and it was no problem.

But with Eric Schering, I really followed his career quite closely and saw what he did before he went to the stage, his way of thinking and everything, and he never really missed anything. So performances that are memorable for Inza are really performances that I heard when I was about 15, 16 years old. And these are the ones that I can really remember. I lived in New York for so long. I heard Oistrakh and so many people. But I never forget when Eric Schering played the Beethoven Concerto in Lucerne, Switzerland, at the music festival there. And I can say that it was perfect. It was like he was in his living room and playing without making a mistake or his recording.

It was the same thing as the recording. It was perfect. So I always thought, even at that age, my goodness, how is that possible, you know, to go there and play so incredible? I mean, not one note out of tune, not a scratch, no, nothing. You know, everything so poised. You know, he never moved. That's another thing. People these days, they all move because they think it's part of the show.

and i always tell them you know when you move you don't you know brusquely especially if you if you move suddenly during that particular thing you you really don't hear yourself you lost you lost you lose track of what you do and physically if you do something brusquely it can really interfere with your playing because there are lots of people that that do a lot of moving because they like it or whatever and yet they play well why because when they move everything that is involved like the upper torso it's all proportionally related so you know the the right arm doesn't get out of track with the left because you move not when you move you make sure that those two things are still and that's why it sounds pretty good you

know but on the old days I mean I have never saw Leonid Kogan move at all or sharing in the performance even stern didn't move that and nobody really moved that much this is a something of today you know and um or or isaac stern in his really good days playing the bartok concerto with schulte also in lucerne i was 16 years old it was perfect and so how can these people play like this you know so it was a that's something that i couldn't you know that's why i think i did many people say it did but i know i didn't but this is what really i think made me think well and especially when i started teaching i said wait a minute i learned a lot from teaching i said these people are playing really not really good it's so so many little things how in the world

can't they not hear this you know i know they're small things but you should be able to hear but they they're not used to it you know and so i think with the practicing even before mental practicing is very important to you know clean up everything to a point where you know and being aware of that you don't need a tape recorder to uh to see if it's that good or that bad you know and another thing that helps a lot is when you uh start making CDs that's the ultimate thing you know you learn something and you learn a lot then you know all these things that you already new when you go there then oh my goodness i'm not even doing what you know nearly what i should be doing because you make like four takes and each take should be acceptable but there is one that

is special you know that note or that little phrase and then of course that's the one you're going to to uh to choose but if you make quite a few cds i made like 10 or 10 or 11 cds of different concerti then you're really going to even learn how to practice even better then you have to be really efficient. You know, you cannot just, you know, waste your time and everybody's time when you are taking all, making all those takes. Yeah. All comes to how well you're paying attention, right? Absolutely. Professor, I'd like to keep you here all day, but I know you have quite a big studio and many lessons to teach later today. So can we do a round of rapid fire questions before I let you go? Sure. So we talked a lot about playing and practicing, but what is one

or more other skills that you think students today should acquire in addition to learn how to play their instruments? Well, for us string players, there is no question about that oral skills will be the most important thing. I'm so upset that I missed the Heifetz summer courses that he had in California. I was going to go, and then I couldn't because I had a concert and things did not happen. And you know what he did?

He had people coming there. as we all know he was a very eccentric man but of course it would have been terrific to play for him and see what he had to say and right there all you did was practicing performing and oral skills you know solfège ear training sight singing and this is so important to us i i can see that there are so many students that are at leading institutions you know and that really cannot count and they cannot hear and good players you know and it's amazing to me and said are you doing okay in our skills oh i have ace well only ace all the time how could that be i said go to that i don't know how they do it these days but going go to that listening lab and

drill and drill and drill you know intervals sing them before you hear what the real thing is you know what the interval is and and really try to really get into that because it would be such a plus you know for string players to be more aware of rhythm and intonation oral skills that's a great one you've mentioned several performances so far but is there one in particular that stayed with you throughout the years well those old performances i think will stay with me until forever you know i mean the beethoven with the sharing and the artistry you know isaac stern at the artistry but those two performances they were were terrific it's something i never i'll never forget i'll never forget how about um how about a favorite tool in the practice room

mirror and metronome mirror and metronome those are excellent excellent one how about a favorite book that you would like to recommend well i guess there are quite a few possibilities i i like to read a lot about uh you know biographies because i think it is i mean from the from the people you know composers that you are playing at the moment you know i think you can get so much from you know very elaborate ones not just one page you know to see what they did or and and the influences and listen to other music. So if it's a musical thing, I mean, a book based on music for what we do,

I think Flesh is a beautiful book to read, too. And Galamian is very concise. I like it because of that. You know, the attention span these days is so short that I tell my students, you know, I'm sick and tired of telling you how to do this stroke on the spiccato. It's pretty much like it says on the Galamian book.

The good thing is the columns there are about three inches wide, and it's maybe four inches long. So you can read that in 20 seconds. Yes. And if you read that, maybe you'll understand what I'm trying to tell you, and read it slowly, and read it three or four times. And usually it helps. You know, I like that book because of its practicality, and I think it really explains.

And, you know, in that book, that's the only book, if you read, if you see, where he catalogs all the Boeings that you see. And he used to say that all the time. You know, he was in Paris, and he was with Lucien Capet, you know, the famous French pedagogue, and they were together. They worked together, and Colombian got all these things that he have that he brought here in with Michael Rabin, Perlman, Zuckerman, and all these, you know, all those from Lucien Capet. Everything is Lucien Capet. You'd go to him, at least once a month, you'd speak of Lucien Capet. I really strongly tell my students to go there and see. Of course, they never do, but they should, and I should make a print of that and put it on the stand.

Try to do this poem. Try to do that poem. It's very interesting. It can bring a lot of variety to the piece. I agree with you, too. This book, I've read it at least three times, but I could use a few more reads. Every time I revisit it, I look at notes that I took, and I think, oh, I forgot about that. You know, I never read that book from beginning to end.

And I think I read it all because I need to go here, I need to go there, but I never really read it. So there might be some things there that I never read. professor how about a piece of advice that was given to you and that you would like to pass on to the listeners i think what i would say is to as you sing and when you sing most likely you are going to do everything naturally if you know what you are doing right so if you sing and you do something naturally you are thinking maybe of maybe one or two things to do the same thing when you play the violin you have to be able to you probably have to think about 20 things to get the same thing because everything is so i think the piece of advice was i think it was the

the concert master of the concert cabal orchestra about 20 years before where he was one of the judges at some international competition and then we had all these uh big reception afterwards and i happened to be sitting next to him so he came to me and he said do you know that you play out of tune and i said you know i i won a prize on everything you know in the competition he said really i said i was stuck nobody ever told me that yeah you know it's so tiny but you know when you when you um play uh you know at some point when you play a note a note is slightly off and then you you play in tune the rest by that note that was slightly off and i mean of course you know the dinner and the reception and whatever they had i didn't care for it i certainly was not even

you know happy with my price or the reception or the nice food and all that because i was thinking why that's a new one imagine someone telling me that i'm playing out of tune you know i remember that from francisco i said again you know so it was so tiny but i and then he came to northwestern to give a master class. Not at my invitation, someone else invited him here. And so I told him, do you remember about 12, 13 years ago,

you told me that I played out of tune after that? And he said, oh, I did? Oh, I'm so terribly sorry. I said, no, no, I'm very happy that you said that because I really recorded myself and I really was, you know, just a concert that I played prior to her telling me that. And I think it was the Sibelius Concerto.

And I literally spent hours and hours and hours looking for what he was telling me if it made sense. And I think I noticed something. So I really think I noticed something. And, you know, if he said that, it must have been true. But nobody ever told me that. So I said, may I play something for you? And then he said, oh, sure, I'll be happy. So I played for him.

So do you notice anything now? No, now it's just right. You know, but, you know, I lived with that for 12 years until it came. See, these are the things, you know, the best advice is if someone tells you something, you don't say, oh, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Oh, you know, this and that. Really verifying it, you know, and always making sure. So I never really forgot that.

So probably that was the best piece of advice, you know, probably. It really shaped a lot of your work following it. how about a quick actionable tip that listeners can implement today in their musical lives they really should tape themselves to see indeed what might be wrong there you know and one thing that happens you know is like you know when they play Bach fugues you know invariably is always a problem there and a piece of advice to do and either they crunch that those chords too much or maybe not enough depending how they want to play bach of course these days anything is possible you know and you have to sort of accept how people feel and as long as it is well

done then it's fine but um i think that listening is very important so that uh i mean what i did is mr galamian was very upset well it was telling me you know that bach fugue is never that good you know that's all he had to tell me I mean that coming from Kalamian means it's terrible I mean you better do something about it so I said what else can I do I still have my old bow grip that I was trying to fix I'm sure that was part of it so I went to my room you know from the from the lesson said what am I going to I don't know what else to do I'm really doing everything the way I think it sounds to me sounds good and everything so what I did you know that was these were many years ago i had this tape recorder that weighed something like 30 pounds you know those days they

you know what you put in a little pocket today was 30 pounds then and all i did is i put the the recording button uh on it i didn't tape myself i just put the recording button and i played a chord to to to check it out and i put there the needle could not go to the red level you know otherwise i'll be crunching you know the chord because he said i was crunching the chord all the time so and i said okay and i played i knew that needle i knew exactly what i was so the needle the most would have been that so then i played a few looking at that needle from the beginning to the end so it was you know pianissimo piano metal whatever the dynamic range and i knew exactly where that needle would be or here i want this i want that there and i look at that needle as i

played and i could notice that my arm was really different you know and actually i could see that it sounded much better that needle never went to the red to the red thing because it almost did but it never did not once you know so i went to mr galamin for that saying that fugue is wonderful today what did you do i mean of course i could not explain that to him because he was hard of hearing and he was uh and you'll never pay attention so if i said oh you know i had my tape recorded they said yeah okay fine you know he didn't really care he was happy that i actually did it but that's what I did as a student. So I'm hoping that students these days would think a little bit for themselves and inventing things. Because those days, I don't think the teaching was as good as it

is today. I mean, everywhere you go, I think the teaching has gone, it's the quality of the teaching, generally speaking, is so much higher than 30 years ago. I think the teaching became so incredibly good. It's the students now that we want to take advantage of this good teaching. And in my day, I felt even with Mr. Galamian, we had to invent things ourselves. He said something, and he was never that specific. That's one thing about it. He was specific in the sense of saying everything like in his book.

Two, three things, and that's it. You know, you couldn't really have an opportunity to discuss things with him because it was hard to communicate, you know. And then Galamier was the opposite. You'd say, don't you know there is a million ways to start that note and finish that note I said yes okay I think I'm doing it and then 10 years later I figured out oh the poor man I must have made him so upset because I had I didn't know anything even after winning international competition I still did not know anything I didn't know how to play a Beethoven

sonata just the right way the way you wanted you know finally I found out but on my own you know took me about 10 years but I found out by age 35 I I thought I knew how to play everything just the Columbia to want it. It's so important you said it earlier too in the interview when you were talking about how you need the collaboration of the student in their own learning experience and it's so true I think that sometimes we wait for the answers to come from outside when we really need to dig deeper inside and figure it out for ourselves so to see the teacher as a guide that shows us where to go but we need to do the climbing ourselves so it's very important it's very important that we reassure things but we expect at least some work from the student otherwise

if we see that the student either does not understand then we teach it again I'll do it as many times as necessary but once they understand if they don't do it then it's almost goodbye you You know, I mean, why wasting time with people that don't really are trying hard enough? You know, they really have got to try. And if they cannot do it, but you see that you can see if I always tell my students, look, there are there is not such thing as right and wrong. You know, it would be great if you all played the right things, then I will not have to waste my time or spend time. But most of the time is we are going to be on the pad in between the one that you are doing everything to be right. But it's not right there because you still need the time element.

for you to get into it you know but everything you are doing is the correct thing so you are using the right finger patterns so that the the intonation is is is better now if you don't follow those finger patterns you can practice 10 hours a day and it's not going to be in you know better in tune so if they really do their work then it's a pleasure teaching even for people that are not necessarily terribly talented you know the ones that are very talented you don't You say two things twice, and they do it, and the ones that you have to say ten times, and it is better. And better is where most students are.

It's the better until it's really good. But if there is no better, then it is, I think, very upsetting to teach. You come home at night, and you are tired from people that are not doing their work. And if they have tremendous amount of difficulties and still not good but better, then you feel good. I'm never tired when I get home at night when I see that the students are doing their thing.

But if they aren't, then it's not that you're tired, you are depressed that, you know, obviously what you're saying is not being done, you know. Right, yeah. Professor, as always, you always have the great insight and so much knowledge. And I'm so grateful for everything I learned from you and very grateful that you're on the show today.

So thank you so much. Thank you. It was a pleasure teaching you. And after the two years that we spent together, I thought, and when you came the third year, I think it was the end of the third year to play. I remember the Strauss Sonata and, you know, that program. And it was such an incredible progress. And the good part is what we were talking today, you know, you know, we listen and the recording, I'm sure could be almost a recording, which is precisely what we all want. I think it had the interpretation that you wanted to give.

It was exciting. And I remember when you first played for me, if I'm not mistaken, was the Sibelius Concerto. Yes. And you played the first page, and I said, how in the world cannot René hear all these little details, right? And then we talked about that, and I think then it was wonderful progress. And after listening, you don't have to be a better violinist to play that well.

All you have to do is to, you know, to be aware of it. And, you know, and then once the awareness is there, then right away the playing will be so much better. Absolutely. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you guys so much for listening. I love studying with Professor Rubero and I learned so much from him. so I hope you enjoyed this conversation with him. You can find the show notes for this episode and

more information about Mr. Ribeiro at mindoverfinger.com. And as always, I would love to connect with you and know what your favorite takeaway from today's show is. So please join the conversation on social media. Let me know what inspires you, what specific questions you have about mindful practice and what other topics and guests you would like to hear about in future episodes. I am Mind Over Finger on all platforms. If you're looking for a community of mindful practice enthusiasts, join the Mind Over Finger tribe at facebook.com slash groups slash Mind Over Finger tribe. There you'll find inspiration, motivation and support as well as information and discussions on how to take your practice to the next level and enjoy the process. Next week,

I have a great conversation with Joshua Roman for you. We talk about his popper etude project and challenge and about building a meaningful and fulfilling career. If you've enjoyed this episode, please take a minute to share it with a friend and head over to iTunes to rate and leave a review. If you get value out of this conversations, it's the best way to pay it forward and to help other people find out about the show. And while it is a passion project, and I'm loving every minute of it, it is a lot of hard work. So your kind words make it all worth it. A big thank you to my fabulous producer, Bella Kelly. And again, thank you for listening. A bientot. Thank you.