Rick Mooney - Cellovangelist
Competent and confident, Rick Mooney will conduct dozens of students in the cello choir during the upcoming Cello Festival. Over a single weekend, the master teacher, arranger and composer will meld a diverse group into a harmonious ensemble.
But 40 years ago, as a college freshman majoring in music, Mooney was neither competent nor confident. So ill-prepared was the teen for the career he envisioned, that his cello teacher sat him down one day to deliver harsh news: Find something else to do with your life.
“That,” Mooney remarked of the painful incident, “is probably one of the best things that ever happened to me.”
Disheartened, Mooney switched his major from music to math, and began planning for a career in computer science. Still, the cello beckoned.
Not wanting to abandon an instrument that had accompanied him throughout much of his life, he opted to minor in music. He landed in the cello studio of Eleonore Schoenfeld, an educator so renowned she was the subject of a film entitled, “Born to Teach.”
“I started university with a teacher who was teaching some of the highest-level players in the country,” Mooney recalled. “He was an excellent musician and a wonderful cellist who could coach an already well-prepared student operating at the highest levels of music-making. But he couldn’t actually teach me how to play the instrument.
“When I got Eleonore,” Mooney recalled, “I got a teacher who could suddenly, truly, address the issues I had, and help me to become more successful.”
Schoenfeld built on the skills Mooney already had, and taught him how to analyze, learn from, and correct bad habits. She gave him repertoire he could play – and doled it out in an order that helped him become steadily more proficient.
Her approach to teaching now is his – with a twist. Every time Mooney sits next to a cello student, he relies on the mathematical training he initially pursued to broaden his career prospects.
Explained Mooney: “Math organizes the way you think, and when you do it enough, that way of thinking becomes automatic, a habit. You don’t have to do something special, or kick yourself into some mode.
“These days, I couldn’t solve a calculus problem if my life depended on it; those are skills that you have to keep up,” Mooney said. “But math trains you – it trained me - how to think, how to put stuff in order, in logical steps, and come out at the end with a solution.”
At his home studio in Southern California, Mooney works with students of various ages, abilities and intentions. But when he teaches at an institute, such as Cello Fest, his focus changes.
“I don’t have to be responsible for making institute students well-rounded cellists,” he said. “What I get to do is diagnose what I consider to be the thing that’s going to help them the most right now – and work just on that.”
Mooney used to travel widely to teach. Today, he boards a plane far less often. Yet every year, in the depths of that capricious annual interlude known as Chicago in winter, Mooney departs sunny Southern California to teach at Cello Fest.
He does so for two reasons: A commitment to his Chicago colleagues, and his appreciation for the way in which they have prepared their students to learn.
“It’s not just that the kids here can play the instrument well, but also that they have been taught in a way that makes them receptive to new ideas, and has given them the ability to implement those ideas,” said Mooney. “But I have been other places where students were actually unable to do the things I asked them to do.”
For Mooney, a highlight of the institute is directing the cello choir, an ensemble of players from Book 4 and up who do not regularly perform together.
A cello choir is similar in some ways to other ensembles, such as orchestras. But it also is unique, because a single instrument, the cello, plays all parts in all musical registers.
“But we wouldn’t do cello choir to the extent that we do if it were not for the fact that it is just so much fun,” Mooney said. “You have the fun of playing different repertoires, different harmonies and being in a big group with colleagues.”
Mooney said he selects music for the choir that the students easily can play, which allows him to focus on refined musical nuances, not technique.
“I don’t think of the cello choir as a place for skill cultivation; that happens in the lessons,” he said. This is where they get to use all of those skills they have worked so hard to learn.”
In addition to directing cello choirs here and at the summer institute he runs each June in California – the National Cello Institute - Mooney also arranges music for cello choir, and composes some of his own.
A heavy metal-styled piece entitled “Pain and Pleasure,” inspired by the cello and drumming ensemble Apocalyptica, is a crowd favorite. But obtaining legal permission to use copyrighted music can be daunting. And even if he could get permission, Apocalyptica members are highly-accomplished cellists; much of their music is too difficult even for intermediate students.
“They’ve got long hair, they bang their heads, and their hair flies around,” he said of the group. “But I wanted to put something together that was more suitable for a student group.”
Performing in student groups can be powerfully motivating, Mooney explained. “I’ll remember forever the first time I played in a really good symphony orchestra, playing a really good piece – that sound, that feeling of excitement. So now, we get our five-year-olds in cello choir and give them a sense of playing in a big ensemble. And it’s fun. It’s just fun.”
When students hear peers playing at high levels, and performing varied repertoire, eyes open, imaginations churn and standards rise, Mooney said.
“If you never see this kind of playing, or hear this kind of playing, you don’t even know it’s possible, so you think that what you’re doing in your house is just fine, thank you,” Mooney said.
Nearly every child who plays an instrument wants, at some point, to quit. Festivals and institutes can reignite both a child’s passion and a parent’s commitment, Mooney said. Such workshops offer young players a sense of accomplishment, perspective, camaraderie and motivation on the winding road to proficiency.
“If everybody could play the cello it wouldn’t be special and you wouldn’t have to practice. That doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, and it doesn’t mean you can’t do it,” Mooney said. “But playing cello is not something you can just sit down and do. You have to work. That means it’s a long, long road, and you have to enjoy the process.”
Learn more about RIck and the National Cello Institute here
But 40 years ago, as a college freshman majoring in music, Mooney was neither competent nor confident. So ill-prepared was the teen for the career he envisioned, that his cello teacher sat him down one day to deliver harsh news: Find something else to do with your life.
“That,” Mooney remarked of the painful incident, “is probably one of the best things that ever happened to me.”
Disheartened, Mooney switched his major from music to math, and began planning for a career in computer science. Still, the cello beckoned.
Not wanting to abandon an instrument that had accompanied him throughout much of his life, he opted to minor in music. He landed in the cello studio of Eleonore Schoenfeld, an educator so renowned she was the subject of a film entitled, “Born to Teach.”
“I started university with a teacher who was teaching some of the highest-level players in the country,” Mooney recalled. “He was an excellent musician and a wonderful cellist who could coach an already well-prepared student operating at the highest levels of music-making. But he couldn’t actually teach me how to play the instrument.
“When I got Eleonore,” Mooney recalled, “I got a teacher who could suddenly, truly, address the issues I had, and help me to become more successful.”
Schoenfeld built on the skills Mooney already had, and taught him how to analyze, learn from, and correct bad habits. She gave him repertoire he could play – and doled it out in an order that helped him become steadily more proficient.
Her approach to teaching now is his – with a twist. Every time Mooney sits next to a cello student, he relies on the mathematical training he initially pursued to broaden his career prospects.
Explained Mooney: “Math organizes the way you think, and when you do it enough, that way of thinking becomes automatic, a habit. You don’t have to do something special, or kick yourself into some mode.
“These days, I couldn’t solve a calculus problem if my life depended on it; those are skills that you have to keep up,” Mooney said. “But math trains you – it trained me - how to think, how to put stuff in order, in logical steps, and come out at the end with a solution.”
At his home studio in Southern California, Mooney works with students of various ages, abilities and intentions. But when he teaches at an institute, such as Cello Fest, his focus changes.
“I don’t have to be responsible for making institute students well-rounded cellists,” he said. “What I get to do is diagnose what I consider to be the thing that’s going to help them the most right now – and work just on that.”
Mooney used to travel widely to teach. Today, he boards a plane far less often. Yet every year, in the depths of that capricious annual interlude known as Chicago in winter, Mooney departs sunny Southern California to teach at Cello Fest.
He does so for two reasons: A commitment to his Chicago colleagues, and his appreciation for the way in which they have prepared their students to learn.
“It’s not just that the kids here can play the instrument well, but also that they have been taught in a way that makes them receptive to new ideas, and has given them the ability to implement those ideas,” said Mooney. “But I have been other places where students were actually unable to do the things I asked them to do.”
For Mooney, a highlight of the institute is directing the cello choir, an ensemble of players from Book 4 and up who do not regularly perform together.
A cello choir is similar in some ways to other ensembles, such as orchestras. But it also is unique, because a single instrument, the cello, plays all parts in all musical registers.
“But we wouldn’t do cello choir to the extent that we do if it were not for the fact that it is just so much fun,” Mooney said. “You have the fun of playing different repertoires, different harmonies and being in a big group with colleagues.”
Mooney said he selects music for the choir that the students easily can play, which allows him to focus on refined musical nuances, not technique.
“I don’t think of the cello choir as a place for skill cultivation; that happens in the lessons,” he said. This is where they get to use all of those skills they have worked so hard to learn.”
In addition to directing cello choirs here and at the summer institute he runs each June in California – the National Cello Institute - Mooney also arranges music for cello choir, and composes some of his own.
A heavy metal-styled piece entitled “Pain and Pleasure,” inspired by the cello and drumming ensemble Apocalyptica, is a crowd favorite. But obtaining legal permission to use copyrighted music can be daunting. And even if he could get permission, Apocalyptica members are highly-accomplished cellists; much of their music is too difficult even for intermediate students.
“They’ve got long hair, they bang their heads, and their hair flies around,” he said of the group. “But I wanted to put something together that was more suitable for a student group.”
Performing in student groups can be powerfully motivating, Mooney explained. “I’ll remember forever the first time I played in a really good symphony orchestra, playing a really good piece – that sound, that feeling of excitement. So now, we get our five-year-olds in cello choir and give them a sense of playing in a big ensemble. And it’s fun. It’s just fun.”
When students hear peers playing at high levels, and performing varied repertoire, eyes open, imaginations churn and standards rise, Mooney said.
“If you never see this kind of playing, or hear this kind of playing, you don’t even know it’s possible, so you think that what you’re doing in your house is just fine, thank you,” Mooney said.
Nearly every child who plays an instrument wants, at some point, to quit. Festivals and institutes can reignite both a child’s passion and a parent’s commitment, Mooney said. Such workshops offer young players a sense of accomplishment, perspective, camaraderie and motivation on the winding road to proficiency.
“If everybody could play the cello it wouldn’t be special and you wouldn’t have to practice. That doesn’t mean it can’t be fun, and it doesn’t mean you can’t do it,” Mooney said. “But playing cello is not something you can just sit down and do. You have to work. That means it’s a long, long road, and you have to enjoy the process.”
Learn more about RIck and the National Cello Institute here