Note to moderators: we do not have any of these for sale and will not have for some time even if it gets off the ground. This post is for research not advertising. I repeat, we do not have any tiny cellos for sale. OK?

Now, hopefully that will persuade the mods to let this post stand, so here goes:

I am toying with the idea of a joint project with a friend / colleague who is both a repairer and a professional cellist, to produce a line of large violas fitted with spikes so that effectively they become tiny cellos. The background is as follows:

Cellos can be readily obtained down to 1/10 size but anything smaller seems to be difficult. We know one Chinese manfuacturer who makes 1/16 size but ordering from China involves tying a lot of money up for a long time so we can't do it very often and we suspect most other retailers are in the same position. The wholesalers we use don't have anything below 1/10. Having young children start on a viola with a spike is not a new idea but the instruments do not seem to be readily available. Some shops sell small violins that have had some "surgery" to add a hole and make them sound more viola like and these seem to be popular.

We are toying with the idea of getting a spike specially made to fit the viola. We are debating between having the instrument strung with viola strings (best sound but an octave higher than a cello) or with cello strings (won't sound as good but at the right pitch). The instrument would fit in a stryofoam viola case and the size of viola used would be 17 or 17.5 inches. We could experiment with adding a hole to try to improve the sounds (compensating for the drastic reduction in depth of ribs).

The price would be more than the cheapest cellos but not completely over the top. "Off the top of my head" price, subject to what we find out when we produce the prototype, would be £350-£400 for the outfit. Varnish would be oil / spirit rather than sprayed-on nitro varnish, the instrument would be Romanian and the price would include a proper set up by the repairer concerned. The instrument itself would of course be made of solid wood with ebony fittings (with the possible exception of the spike bung) and would be fitted with some decent strings.

Question to Suzuki teachers - and please feel free to pass this on - would there be any interest in this project, do any Suzuki teachers out there feel there is a market for "cellos" of 1/16 size or below in this sort of price bracket?

Thanks

Liz

i'm not a teacher or anything, but here's my contribution )

i started cello having just turned 9 and have always been of fairly average height for my age. i think i started on a 3/4 size cello.

now, if a 2/4 size cello was fine for a 9 year old (the average age in my county for starting an instrument, as that's when you went to middle school and could have peri lessons there) then in my opinion a 1/10 size is silly. because a child playing a 1/10 size cello is probably too young to learn.

Suzuki teachers for violin go down to age three.

Liz

Our school cello teacher gets primary school aged kids onto full size cellos as soon as they can pick the case up

Small is beautiful!

My daughter (who is tall for her age) started the cello aged 6 1/2 and had an 1/8 size one. The music school where she has lessons has instruments they hire very cheaply but the smallest one they had was a 3/4 so we had to hire it privately. The instrument maker we hired it from said he thought it was better for the parent to hire (rather than to buy) the cello until the child was big enough to play a 1/2 size one. His reasons for this were that children grow out of the smallest sizes quickly and there is a limited market for selling them on; parents are often reluctant to buy until they are sure the child will like the instrument and not many children start the cello very young. (Although this last point, of course, is not valid if you live where there are lot of suzuki teachers which is not my case).

Just to put his commercial policy into perspective a little. After a year I bought a 1/2 size cello from him. He deducted 3 (of the 12) months hire from the price of the 1/2 size cello and has promised to buy it back at 2/3 of its price if we buy a 3/4 size cello from him.

Sounds like a recipe for problems!

Liz

Hiya

My brothers first cello was made like this. I am on a suzuki string courses now and there are 12 people with cellos this size. So i so think theres a market for them. But i do think that most of these cellos are hired rather than brought.

Musical Girl

Not a teacher, as you know !

Son's previous teacher had a daughter teaching cello, using readily-avilable commercial sizes, and I recall that she had 3 year olds playing at the annual concert. These are average-sized Japanese poppets, so no gorilla arms or infant Schwarzeneggers in sight.

It seems that even in Japan, where children start very young (2 is not THAT unusual) there is no great demand for sizes below 1/10 - I couldn't find any place offering those sizes even as a custom order service. (No doubt such services are available, but not so readily that I could find them by checking the major stringed instrument shops).

Cello sizes are not equivalent to violin sizes, right? According to Japanese shop guides, a 1/10 should suit children up to 105cm in height, which should mean that only the smallest just-turned-two-year-olds would have any difficulty. The recommendation for 1/8 sizes was for children 105-125cm in height.

(Scroll down for chart, green column at right gives recommended height range Japanese online vendor's size chart)

I assume that there would be some difference for individual children with relatively longer or shorter arms, back-lengths etc.

[quote name='elidatrading' date='Aug 25 2007, 03:21 PM' post='578712']
[quote name='violincjj' post='578699' date='Aug 25 2007, 02:13 PM']
Our school cello teacher gets primary school aged kids onto full size cellos as soon as they can pick the case up
[/quote]
Sounds like a recipe for problems!


It IS a big problem. There are others.

I have her cellists in String Ensemble with my violinists. They can't sight read at all since she teaches them their exam pieces (and not much else) by rote. One of the lovely kids told me I had printed the cello music wrongly since "Our cello music has 4 lines not 5 lines because our cello has 4 strings. One line is for each string."

Sounds like the instrument would be bigger than some of them!



Sounds like viruoso open string pieces, huh?? Even I could play those.....

Well you're not getting much feedback Liz. I suppose that might be negative feedback in itself.

I'm not a teacher and certainly not Suzuki but the one Suzuki cello teacher I know near me does seem to start children from 4 and sometimes 3. From talking to parents it appears she does a couple of things for instruments. She seems to have a few small instruments which she has aquired over the years and rents out at fairly reasonable rates to pupils. She also acts as broker/introduction service between her various parents so small instruments are sold on within her "community". This suits parents as the instruments retain their value, she knows what they change hands for and people feel they will get back what they paid as long as they look after the instrument and replace strings, do rehairs etc.

I think also that the Suzuki approach with regular group lessons with parents present naturally produces a network of parents which helps the resale of 2nd hand instruments.

I think having the correct size instrument is very important if very young children are going to learn cello but whether the Suzuki market is big enough in this country to make it worth your while is hard to say. Perhaps move to California!

Best of luck anyway

Could be. I think we're going to try a prototype anyway - at worst, it will have some curiosity value

Liz