Kind of a long story, but the family of my flute student have loaned me a cello for a few months.

Just had a quick play on open strings and a go at a scale, and it's got a nice sound - it's a Stentor student, can't help thinking it sounds better than a fiddle of the same standard would, but then it's a long time since I played a Stentor. Either way it sounds good to me!

If I can find someone willing to give me a few pointers then I may get a lesson or two, but I don't have the money or time to study it properly at the moment. So... if anyone has any "make sure you don't do this" or "make sure you do that" pointers for a violinist-turned-violist-turned-cellist who'd like to have some fun hopefully without developing any awful habits just in case I want to learn properly at a later date... that would be cool

Also... the bow with the cello has a LOT of hairs coming loose... Dad-of-student has said any maintenance, get it done and let them know how much, but is it truly terrible if I use the heavier of my two viola bows for the first instance??

So much fun, this multiple-instrument-itus...

Make sure you don't hold the bow like a violin bow! Look on the net to see how it should be done.
Basically, if you shake your hand out so it's completely floppy, and lift it from the forearm to the bow while it's still completely floppy and hanging loose - that's your hold. Little finger on the bow stick!

The left hand is far more natural than on violin, I think!

Just make sure there's no stiffness.

It's definitely worth getting someone to check your posture. There are loads and loads of things to think about - spike length, height of cello etc - and it's well nigh impossible to get them all right unless you know what you're doing.

Good luck - and enjoy!

Thanks cellocase.

I remembered that a cello playing friend is home from uni for the hols - I may ask if I can pick his brains while he is home!

Welcome to the world of cello playing, Sarah. I'd agree with what has already been said by other posters. I found the bow hold really difficult to master - still not sure that it's quite right, but it may due to my arthritic joints on that hand. Definitely ask your friend for advice. It's almost impossible to see what you are doing wrong for yourself when you first start and as you know bad habits are very hard to break.

Definitely ask for a check-up on the bow: even after 6years of playing i have recently started to have to keep checking due to slack hands etc. Also, make sure your fingers aren't too flat in the LH. Short nails with them pretty much on the tip is best (obviously changes slightly for different strings). Bow quite near the bridge - good habit to get into early.
But, most importantly...enjoy yourself It's a great instrument. oh, and don't be scared of it

I always have short nails - been playing the violin for too long not to!

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=sarahflute - couple of files of me fiddling around with it Friday. Bit rubbish though.

My left hand is all up the creek, I have realised from watching myself.

The problem with things being "more natural" than on the violin is that I have been playing the violin for *coughcough* years, so the way I hold a violin feels pretty natural to me - having a "more natural" position is something I'll have to work on a lot I suspect!

Okay - I have to be quick, but first reactions.
1 - I could be going mad, but isn't your cello a semitone flat? I think your G is an F# and so on!
2 - left hand - your thumb should never be round the other side of the fingerboard as it is on a violin. It needs to be right at the back in the centre.
3 - you're adjusting quite a bit as you play with your left hand to play the different notes. You want to have one single hand position which barely moves as you play 1-2-3-4. Sorting your thumb will make this A LOT easier! Ideally you want your 2nd and 3rd fingers at 90 degrees to the fingerboard, and your 2nd and 4th fingers leaning in to the centre, as they do naturally.
Got to go - will talk about bow later!
Hope this is helpful.

Okay, back!
Bow hand - mostly okay, but you're holding the cello bow like a violin bow! Your little finger needs to be just about ON the white dot on the frog of the bow. Thumb slightly hooks onto the little notch on the bowstick where the frog starts, so that if someone pulled the tip of the bow, it wouldn't slide out of your hand.
Also, you need to hold the bow much further back, with your hand on the frog.

So basically, everything's fine - intonation etc sounds good for where you are, and you're getting a good tone, but you're playing the cello like a violin - something you definitely need to watch! Get your cellist friend to have a look at you - it's important to nip that in the bud.

Sorry if this sounds overtly critical - it's not meant to be! Just my initial reactions from seeing the video.

Yes, I rather thought I was! It's hard to break habits of two decades

Thanks for the feedback, cellocase - much appreciated!!

It may well be flat, I didn't attempt to tune it to anything (my piano is a bit flat in any case ) I just made sure it was reasonably in tune with itself - bit afraid of breaking strings as they're rather more expensive than violin strings I haven't played it for a few days - recorded these scales on Friday afternoon just after I got my hands on it, more to have a look at what I was doing than anything else.

Thanks again - really really helpful!

Sarah is probably into Baroque cello then.

*Goes to check if she is using the spike or is supporting it with her knees*

It was flat, by the way!


I'll need to have someone check the angle of my fingers but having my thumb in the right place helps a lot


Can you clarify this for me? Or maybe send me to a picture on the web? The first bit seems to make sense - holding it closer to the hair, yes? And with the fingers more around the bow...? But I don't know what you mean by holding it further back...

PS - LH: I feel like my hand is further round the neck in order to get my fingers in the right kind of place - rather than being round the back with the fingers reaching round, as one plays the fiddle. Is that right?


Do you meaning in towards the centre of my hand... ?

Thanks for all the help, this is great

These might help on bow hold

http://www.cello.org/heaven/holdbow.htm

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~leonid/cello_bowhold.htm

I'm finding this thread very usefull having purchased a 'bargain' ( ) cello on ebay a few months ago and just attempting to play it now and again without really looking into if i'm even holding it right! After playing violin, I find the cello very awkward to hold. I too have the same problem with my thumb - placing it right round the neck of the cello instead of on the back and bowing it just feels like the most un-natural thing ever!

This guy on youtube has some good videos on playing the cello which I found very useful maybe you will too:
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=AlamoCityCello

Totally agree, it just feels SO odd. Though I think I am doing it a bit closer to correctly now. I have to lug the thing upstairs to video it though so may wait till I feel I'm getting somewhere before I come back for another diagnosis!!!

Thanks earplugs - will look!

PS, fellow violinists - is it me or does the cello bowhold feel incredibly insecure?? I feel like I'm just kind of grabbing it and it's very weird... probably still haven't cracked it

I found this video helpful - cellists, in your considered opinion(s), is this a reasonably good description that'll lead me in the right direction?

PS, Gliga cello next, Matt??

Wotcher floot! It does feel very strange at first. A good bit of advice I got was if you're holding it like a glass of water on the side, you're doing it right.

Enjoy!

Allan
(and get on yahoo sometimes, you big layabout...)

Ask nicely why don't you

Just trying to record again to see if what I am doing resembles what it's supposed to....

I lost count of the number of times I asked my daughter's cello teacher to show me how to hold the bow so I could help my daughter with her practice. I would look carefully at what she showed me, get home, take the cello bow out and immediately hold it like a violin bow.

My daughter went through a stage of holding it with only her thumb and first two fingers (which to me seemed very insecure) but her teacher said it was nothing to worry about, that loads of beginners do it and that the other two fingers would come back to their right place in due course - which they did.

What also seems very different to me is the wrist angle (even though I know you're really bowing with the arm).

I had Allan trying to help me via webcam earlier and I did apparently manage to make a very good hand shape on the bow.

Whether I will be able to replicate it later............

Well since I presume you actually played the cello with it, you stand a better chance of being able to remember than I did. I only ever got to hold the bow, never to play as my daughter started on an eighth size cello which was far too small for me to hold in any sensible way. (Her father used to joke that it was a self-garroting viola ).

- Liz posted a picture a long time ago of her playing a (relatively) tiny cello a la viola - can't find it unfortunately!

The cello I have borrowed is a 3/4 and I can't imagine managing to handle a full size

When I used to carry the 1/8 one round in its case people used to think it was a mis-shapen guitar.
She now has a 1/2 one which is too small for me but I can sort of play it, if I put the spike right out and don't sit up straight.

This one, Sarah?

Awww!

katyjay, you genius! I looked and looked, but couldn't remember enough of what was in the post to find it! Thanks!

I've just had a look at several of these clips and I think they are very good - clearly explained and illustrated.

You're welcome

I simply searched on the words "very big viola"

SuePea - cool - I hope I will be able to manage with almost no lessons to at least not pick up too many horrible habits!

kj: Didn't fink of dat dur... Bit thick today

Do you have a full length mirror that you can practise in front of?

No, I don't - don't DO mirrors , the only one I have is a small bathroom mirror which my mum bought for me because she was sick of me not having one when she visited...

I can see how it would be useful though.

Hoping to manage to wangle a quick lesson off a cello playing friend before he goes back to uni...

You can try my full size cello when I see you at Leicester

You're on!

The 3/4 will probably seem like a relief when I get back home

Someday i'll treat myself to one when a) I can actually play the cello and can afford it . A Gliga cello would just sound amazing if the violins are anything to go by! I'm quite happy with mine for the minute though, got a brand new one off ebay back in September for £80 delivered! Bargain of the century or what? I'll sit down and learn it properly once I finish uni for the year. My aim is to play the Bach prelude no.1 as my first full piece of music. Can play the first page so far so I don't think i'm doing too badly!

I will have to watch how I play more carefully so I start off right because i'd love to maybe enter myself for some graded exams in a year or two. The cello is such a lovely instrument, I almost wish i'd started it years ago!

Just watched the YouTube clip. You make a nice sound Sarah considering the stage you are at! One thing no one seems to have mentioned is position. The scroll seems to be sitting somewhere on your collarbone, unless the camera angle has distorted it. In fact the peg of the C string should be level with your earlobe. Your left hand will then be a lot higher up in relation to your body.
This might be difficult to achieve with a 3/4 cello I guess.

If you really enjoy the cello, do get yourself a teacher, it's worth every penny. Mine gave me lots of exercises in the beginning to get my bow hold right for instance, which is crucial.

Thanks immy - yes, I checked out some vids on position and realised I was holding it too low, being a 3/4 does make it a bit more difficult but I've been trying it with the spike right out and it seems to help...

Will try and post a vid of me attempting to play correctly sometime in the next few days!

I had a quick go on my friend's cello this morning and he thought I was doing OK, no terrible habits and making quite a nice sound. - so thanks Allan for the online tutorial the other day! - if I can find a teacher who will travel to my house then I might have a few lessons, but I don't have a car and someone else's cello + public transport seems like a baaaaaaaad idea! In the meantime I'm very grateful to you guys and my Real Life ™ cello playing friends... I'll do another recording soon and you guys can let me know if anything is drastically off...

OK, I tried to do another recording.

I'm still not 100% confident about the bowhold, sometimes it seems to work fine and then it'll go all to pot.

Left hand I think is better although looking at piccies on a cello website I'm wondering if I'm bending my thumb too much, somehow I had it in my head that was right but now I'm thinking maybe I just made that up (!), and I think it actually makes life harder... d'oh!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway... any constructive feedback as ever much appreciated.

Sorry it's all scales again, I don't have any cello music - nearest I have is Bach suites arranged for viola, and I think sight-reading solo Bach in the wrong clef might be a tad ambitious

OK it'd help if I remembered to include the URL...

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=sarahflute

Which ones are the cello vids will be obvious

Only one has appeared but I uploaded a few, including slightly dodgy versions of Amazing Grace and The Lord's My Shepherd - I wanted to record something with a TUNE(!) and thought of these, plus I guess I can re record them at a date and see my progress (I hope...)

Anyway... hopefully the others will appear at some point, the ones where I'm wearing a pink jumper are the old ones.

What a good idea...your attire could become gradually more formal as you improve until you are in full concert garb.

I know how you feel. My daughter's cellos came from a luthier in the university town where I teach. Getting home involves two trams and a train. When I got the 1/2 size one, it seemed so huge compared to the 1/8 one that I wasn't game to get on a peak hour tram with it and walked to the station instead which takes an hour! The train was fortunately not crowded but I still didn't know what to do with it and, although I had a spare seat for it, I was worried it might fall over if the train stopped suddenly so I spent the whole journey (1hour 20 minutes) clutching it.

great idea!

kerioboe: sounds like a nightmare!

Wow... is everyone all so talented?? I can barely stay in tune after 6 months of viola lessons and here comes Sarah-flute after only 7+ months of self-taught cello playings...

<sniff... sob... too depress now... gonna go crawl into bed in my old granny flannel pajama with boxes of chocolate and watch daytime soap operas...>

Don't forget that Sarah is a violinist and many of the skills (especially intonation) are transferable. It took me the best part of two years to be anything like reliable on the cello - according to my teacher pianists are not very good at intonation because their instrument comes ready tuned, so they have not trained their ear to listen properly. Now if I land on an "off" note at lest i can tell if it's out of tune! My teacher also said that it's like playing darts - at first you think it's good to hit the board, then you get better and nearer to the centre, eventually ending up with a bulls eye every time (well, that's the theory. I'm not that good at darts either!) If this is the first instrument you have played the same would apply - you just have to be patient and you will get there. Another tip is to get hold of a tuner, try to tune up/play correct notes without looking at it, then see how close you are and adjust accordingly.

I just watched your videos and your position looks much more accurate than first. I can't say much more than that because i'm not even sure myself what it should be like, it just looks right

Just a quick question. Does it matter what fingerings you use? I notice that on your video you go from 1 to 3 and then 4 instead of using 2 where 3 would be (this probably doesn't make sense but what I mean is, do you not play it like the fingerings you use on the violin i.e. 1,2,3,4? This is the way i've been playing it so far and not thought anything of it. Note to self *This is why lessons are a good idea*

The "normal" distance between fingers on a cello with the hand stationary in first position is a semitone whereas on a violin it is either a tone (wider gap) or semitone (narrower gap). So, for example, where on a violin A string the first 4 notes of A major are fingered 0, 1, 2, 3 on a cello the equivalent is 0, 1, 3, 4. Hope that makes sense. I guess an adult with sizeable hands could perhaps play a 3/4 cello with violin fingerings but it would be a bad habit to get into I would have thought.

Sue's 100% right, having played the violin for SUCH a long time, I'm at an advantage in many ways on the cello, even though I have to fight against my violinist's habits too!

Thanks for the go on your BIG cello Sue

And earplugs has answered the fingering question. No way could I reach those positions with 1-2-3 - and the two times I've played a full size (both in the last few days, ) the stretch was noticeably bigger even though it's only a 1/4 of a size different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZySP20qjxd4

I think I'm probably lifting my left hand fingers up too far...? Cellists??

I attempted to get both hands visible but not sure how successful that was. Difficult to get the camera far enough away.

(.... the vid is taking a while to go "live"...)

Yes, your fingers do look high, Sarah. Your LH thumb looks as if it is straight and parallel to the neck for most of the clip. It should be at right angles and slightly curved. This will come right if you keep your left elbow well up and keep your fingers curved. Don't move your hand around either. Remember to keep your bow "in the string" ie don't let it lift up, then you will get a more consistent tone. Your bow hold looks OK, I think - it's difficult to be sure as it keeps moving out of the picture!

Thanks Sue!

I'll keep working at it...