Mike Block

[upbeat music] Hello, fellow opus creator.

Today's amazing guest is my good friend, cellist extraordinaire, Mike Block.

Mike is a Grammy Award-winning cellist, singer, composer, and educator with Yo-Yo Ma's Silkroad Ensemble.

He's also the inventor of the Blockstrap, which lets cellists stand and move while they play.

I am genuinely so excited for you to hear this conversation.

So without further ado, let's get into it.

[swoosh] We are here with my dear friend, someone I admire and tr- have true friendship love for, Mike Block.

Thank you for being on the Mindful Opus Podcast.

Fantastic.

Um, I had an emergency kind of God, Mike, um, that I kept in touch with our, our drum set player, just in case I had to adjust a tempo.

I could just let him know, but honestly, we didn't need to, didn't really need to use that.

I think maybe once a little bit of a increase in energy is what I asked for during one of the dance scenes.

I did.

I did the global workshop with them.

And I was able to study with Mike Block and the members of the Silk Road Ensemble.

We brought Sandeep Das here, Tabla, and the orchestra played with him last year.

But actually the practicing thing is not talked about that much.

And I was really thankful to cellist Mike Block, who organized this thing in the pandemic.

I did a few sessions for them called the guided practice sessions.

And I really had to sit down and think for the first time ever, like, how would I teach practicing? Like, This is the stuff that I do for myself, but I don't really do it with my students unless they specifically ask me to show them what to practice.