My daughter has just broken her right arm and is absolutely distraught. At her last lesson her cello teacher had said she could take the exam for the end of the "1st cycle" which will take place in March. My daughter was really excited about this (there is no series of exams in France) and this is the first exam children take after about four years of learning (or in her case five). When the doctor told her she would have to have her arm in plaster she burst into tears saying "I won't be able to play the cello."

She hasn't got a cello lesson for two weeks because it's half-term but does anyone have any idea what her cello teacher will be able to do with her when lessons start again? And/or anything my daughter can do at home before her lesson?

I think it depends on how much she can move her arm.

If she can do pizzicato then she should be able to work on things like intonation, shifting, all the LH stuff. Including vibrato which she should be on top of. Scales/arpeggios would work, I guess. I know the French aren't that in to sightreading, but that might work out well pizz and is not a bad idea for anyone.

She might be able to do some bad bowing after a while as well (depends how restrictive the plaster is). That would break up the monotony but the teacher might not approve.

If she's unable to move it enough to do pizzicato then I guess it'll be listening to pieces or something, given that aural/theory is taught separately as I understand it.

Poor thing!

How bad is the break? When I broke a bone in my hand my plaster was removed after just six weeks and it only took approximately a week after that to ease the stiffness and get back to normal use. The muscles do atrophy but it can be surprising how quickly they build up again. Hopefully that should leave enough time for preparation for March.

I'm not a cellist but I'm sure her teacher will have advice, after the holiday, about technique she can still work on, with her left hand perhaps?

I shouldn't say this but I was driving a car and riding a horse with my cast on

I don't think the break is too bad. The doctor described it as a "motte de beurre" (literally butter pat) and having looked it up on the computer it is apparently really common in children and not really a break but more a misalignement of the radius and one of the wrist bones. It usually requires about four weeks in plaster.

She broke her left arm about three years ago and had that in plaster for seven weeks. I was appalled when the plaster came off because her arm was so skinny and wasted but she seemed to regain full use of it within about 24 hours and by the end of the week you could no longer see the difference between her two arms. This was during the summer holidays when we were away so didn't really effect instrument practice and she was younger any way and not so "into music."

I just felt so sorry for her yesterday, weeping because she couldn't play the cello - I hadn't realised it meant quite so much to her.

And Lottie she broke her arm falling off a pony. She had watched her sister going riding every week and decided she wanted to try. She is an accident prone child (who managed to knock out a tooth in a ballet lesson) so I did have some misgivings but having observed her sister's lessons I had decided that the pony's were well trained and calm and that the riding monitors knew what they were doing and that it would be unfair of me not to let her try since I let her sister ride.

Poor sausage! As far as I recall, the idea was not to grip anything for a while (there was a period when there hardly seemed to be a whole limb in the house). Viohazard spent the time singing his music, which he wasn't keen on, but which did quite a bit for pitch and phrasing!

I guess time will pass faster than she thinks, and at least she doesn't have to put up with hot weather while her arm is in plaster.

I broke my bone falling off a horse We parted company at a jump and he trod on me

My daughter's pony was only walking. The ponys are so well-trained that my daughter said when she fell off the pony paused briefly and looked at her and then carried on walking behind the one in front. My other daughter said that when her sister had gone, they just left the pony there and it carried on doing the same thing as the others despite no longer having a rider.

Oh dear, comiserations to you and your daughter.

Left handed work is obviously a good idea - my initial reaction is that she will probably find it much quicker and easier to pick her playing back up again than if it had been her fingering hand. Even if she can't bow, have you got some recordings of pieces that she either plays, or would like to play, that she could just finger to?

Is this the trombone playing daughter? Can she still manage that? My trombonist son even managed an exam with a plaster cast - he has very long arms and somehow managed but I appreciate that it is very different for the cello.

If neither are going to be possible for a while, could she amuse herself by doing something she would not otherwise have done.... does she play the piano at all, would she want to do some left handed piano work?

She hasn't got any CDs of pieces she is playing right now. I often play her part on the piano to help with intonation so I suppose we could try that. However, it would be helpful if she could hear what she is doing (I'm worried the piano might be too loud) as she had lots of shifting exercices to practise over the holidays. Her teacher was going to bring in a selection of pieces for her to choose a couple to work on for the exam (the first is an own choice piece) so I'm hoping that her teacher will play them all to her in her next lesson and as you say, she may then be able to practise the fingering for one (or two).


Yes, it is the same daughter. I'll tell her about your son and I'm sure that will cheer her up. I did tell her I thought it would be possible to play the trombone once the initial pain has gone as she has a tendancy to play with a bent wrist and her teacher kept saying to her that she needed it in plaster to stop her bending it. I reminded her of this (and that she could still keep working on the embouchure) but she was too upset about the cello for it to be much consolation. Last year she felt that her cello was stagnating while the trombone was progressing and she was so pleased when her teacher said she thought she was ready for the cello exam.


Piano is my other daughter's instrument and as there is quite a lot of sibling rivalry about instruments I don't think this would be a particularly good idea.

Hope the wrist is better soon. It's not easy when they are used to doing particular things and something prevents it.