Elena Kopteva

Music is great at expressing emotions without a single word.





This week's video is a live, layered cello improvisation titled Rainy Day—a soundscape. It reflects my love for the rain - and any weather, really. Well, maybe actually apart from the intense heat.





What’s your go-to music or activity for a quiet, introspective rainy day? ☔


👉 Watch the full improvisation here:


https://youtu.be/wg-w1NiT1zs?si=lGw5a...

4 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

Elena Kopteva

Hello everyone,

I hope you are all doing well. I thought I’d share a few thoughts about the intentions I have for this channel.

I’ve long been interested in improvisation - I learned it while studying Tango, and it’s something I’ve always enjoyed introducing to my cello students quite early on. I did wonder whether there might be a more structured way to approach it, and I’ve recently come across Christian Howes and his Creative Strings Academy. It’s full of resources for strings—and I am now relearning improvisation. I thought you might like to join me as I go along; the video here is an exercise I’ve been trying, based on Pachelbel’s Canon, with the loop pedal I bought last year.

I will continue sharing Celtic music, largely from O’Neill’s and Matt Cranitch’s books. I like the idea of building a library of Irish tunes played on the cello, recording them as duets, and making the sheet music available. If there’s a particular tune you’d like to hear, don’t hesitate to mention it in the comments!

I also have a few collaborations planned — some improvised music with a violinist friend, and some lullabies and Celtic pieces with a cellist. Both are friends from my student days who’ve been kind enough to indulge me.

On the last note, I’m considering starting a small mailing list in the future, to share the occasional update, a bit of behind-the-scenes, and scores. I must confess I’ve never written a newsletter before, so I will have to learn as I go, and I’d be enormously grateful for any thoughts you might have on what you’d find interesting.

Thank you so very much for your support and for being here.

With best wishes,

Elena.

https://youtu.be/cveXSuF_oVo?si=8gg26...

4 weeks ago | [YT] | 1

Elena Kopteva

I’m having a bit of time off from uploading and recording new tunes this summer, since it’s difficult to stick to the schedule with vacation and spontaneous summer plans.

Having this break, though, is important for me to get inspiration for new content, and I already have many ideas, which I will get to in September.

I wanted to thank you all for being here with me. It is so humbling to know that there are people out there who listen to what I create!

For me summer is always great for recharging batteries, connecting with nature and just living before getting back to a stricter schedule. I also tend to draw and paint a lot, which is a new hobby of mine, and care for my small garden. It’s the best thing ever to go to the balcony in the morning with a cup of coffee to feel what the day and the weather will be like.

I’ve also gone to Menorca for the first time in July and it was incredible. I can’t stop thinking about how I could express this in my music. I’d love to try and create a musical travel sketchbook of a sorts.
I’m also thinking of creating a newsletter to share small updates like this one with you, but I think I will stick to this YouTube community page for now until I figure out the format.

Hope you are having a great summer so far. What have you been up to, what are your favorite summer activities? Have you travelled somewhere new? I’d be interested to know!

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 5

Elena Kopteva

What thumbnail do you like more for a new composition of mine? Let me know!

1 year ago | [YT] | 1

Elena Kopteva

This coming Wednesday I am posting a song I wrote about two years ago again, but with low whistle recorded by @urbanlovesrural I love how the cello and the low whistle sound together and am quite happy with the final result. In fact, I was so excited about it that I made a new video for this version, which I definitely like better than the one from two years ago.

We are also going to record some more music together, so stay tuned for more.

And I hope you like it, let me know in the comments!

2 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 2

Elena Kopteva

Jingle Bells - behind the scenes.

Here is little something to let you in on my creative process. There are many things I would do differently for this video.

For once, and that is note to self, I'd better remember to record with metronome. Otherwise I cannot quantize the accompaniment and have to try and account for latency during the recording with my playing (I should probably look into where that comes from, since there must be a fix or at least something to make it better).

Next, that is the image you get when your camera battery dies and you have to use your phone, set up, check everything several times and end up with an empty space on the right anyway. I like my shadow on the wall though, that is something I could use in some other video adding brighter lights. Some epic kind of music, battle with a shadow? I don't usually do epic, true, but possibly some tango? Although I'd have to find something that is public domain. Or just play something melancholic? I think all that would work. Maybe I could use candlelight for this. But I digress.

I am mildly annoyed by the fact that I forgot to turn notifications off on my watch. So if you zoomed in like they do in the series without losing the quality of the image, you could read the notification I got. It wasn't even a message from someone, I think it was something from Quora and I somehow had no idea I even subscribed to that.

And last but not least, I recorded four more songs on that day, then got sick and didn't have time to edit or post them until now. So now what, should I post them anyway during January? Or wait until next December? As you can see, I hate throwing away good work :)

Let me know and hope you are doing well. Happy 2024!

2 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 3

Elena Kopteva

Are you feeling festive yet? I definitely tend to for the whole December! Now, I can't say what I like is Christmas, because in fact I have never celebrated it before I moved from Russia, it has always been the New Year for me, while Christmas has always been mostly for religious people. However, here it feels natural to celebrate it as it doesn't seem exclusively connected to faith. In fact, with all the rush to get presents and celebrate one might actually forget it is, in essence, a religious holiday.

In any case, I love December and everything Christmas-related because you can focus on something bright and pleasant when the weather gets colder and colder and the light days grow shorter.

This year I thought I'd record a Basque song for the holidays. It is called Hator, Hator and I really like the lyrics. Here is the original and my translation:

Hator, hator mutil etxera Come, come home, boy
gaztaina ximelak jatera, Eat roasted chestnuts
Gabon gaua ospatutzeko Celebrate the Christmas night
aitaren eta amaren ondoan. Near your father and mother.
Ikusiko duk aita barrezka You'll see your father laugh,
amaren poz ta atseginez. Your mother happy and content.

Eragiok, mutil, aurreko danbolin horri. Tend to the fire, boy,
Gaztainak erre artean, While the chestnuts are roasting,
gaztainak erre artean, While the chestnuts are roasting,
txipli txapla, pum! Chipli, chapla, pum.

Gabon gaua pozik igaro daigun. Let us have a Merry Christmas.

You can listen to it this coming Wednesday here on my channel.

P.S. is this thumbnail an overkill? 😇

2 years ago | [YT] | 4

Elena Kopteva

I've recorded a new video where I talk about what you need to play the cello as a beginner. Cello lessons and tips is another type of content I would like to have here on my channel, as I love teaching people to play the cello.

It is a new experience for me to be talking in front of a camera, so I'm really excited! And it has been a long time I've spoken English for a length of time, so it felt a bit weird :D I also finally have a different setting for recording, which looks much nicer than the one I had to use before.

It is true that this video is different to the musical content that I post here, but if you have ever wondered what you need to start playing the cello or are just curious to hear me speaking instead of playing, the video will upload next Wednesday.

Have a nice end of the week and the weekend!

2 years ago | [YT] | 2

Elena Kopteva

I happily recorded quite a bunch of videos in advance (that is how I usually work because of a very limited time to record) and then got an error on my SD card... Thankfully, the audios are still fine because I record the audio separately from the video, but all the footage of me playing is gone...

So a question to you, what do you prefer? Audio of a piece paired with videos from Pexels, option 1?
Or, for example, just a static photo of me? Or something else? Let me know!

Я собралась и записала несколько видео наперед, и тут у меня совсем полетела SD карта... Хорошо хоть, аудио уцелели, поскольку я записываю видео и аудио отдельно. Поскольку времени на то, чтобы все переписать, у меня, видимо, не будет, вопрос к вам, что вы предпочитаете?

Музыка с видео природы, как в варианте 1? Или просто мое фото, как в варианте 2? Или что-то еще? Пишите в комментариях, буду рада предложениям!

2 years ago | [YT] | 1

Elena Kopteva

New year, at least, new school year is on the way, so I decided it is time to introduce something new into the videos I post.

I am starting a new series called Ambient Wednesday, and this coming Wednesday you can watch the first video of the series. The idea behind this is that all the music is completely improvised - no sheet music, no rehearsing, just improvisation, and later I add some midi instruments for accompaniment.

There was another video where I explored the same idea, but did not organize it as series at the moment. You can watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPdpL...

Have a nice weekend and see you this coming Wednesday with that new piece!

Новый год, по крайней мере, новый учебный год уже давно как начался, и я решила, что можно внести новизну в видео, которые я публикую. Давно хотела начать новую серию видео под названием Ambient Wednesday, атмосферная музыка на виолончели, которая будет выходить, как всегда, по средам, пока что раз в месяц.

Задумка в том, что музыка - полностью импровизированная, без нот, без подготовки. Я стараюсь записывать с первого раза, хотя иногда приходится что-то переписывать, но стараюсь этим не злоупотреблять. В этой же серии будут и другие произведения, в которых я заранее планировала структуру аккордами просто из-за жанра, а будут и более абстрактные произведения.

Я уже выкладывала одно видео с той же идеей, но потом не продолжила серию, так что оно получилось отдельное. Его можно посмотреть здесь:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPdpL...

Всем хороших выходных, увидимся в среду!

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2 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 2