Mid Life Cello

No, I’m not a virtuoso yet. That’s the title of a charming little documentary film by Biana Kovic, a cellist and teacher in New York City. Biana enlisted 89 year old Matty Kahn to learn to play the cello in one month. The film tells that story, along with some side interviews about the good things that happen when older people learn to make music.

As I watched Matty learning the rudiments of the cello, I could see my father, who is 92, learning new things on his computer. There’s a bravery in their generation that I wish I possessed. They feel their limitations every day, but they happily forget them and push the limits, unafraid of failure. If they are frustrated by their slower progress, they don’t let on. Watching them inspires me to try as well – now when I am not quite so limited – and to be thankful for whatever years remain for me to learn and grow with music. I’m glad I titled this blog Mid Life Cello. I’m only a little over halfway to the age of Matty, or my father, and I’ve already started the cello!

My mother, at 85, still plays the organ in church. When I started learning cello, I didn’t tell her about it for the first month. I imagined her laughing at the idea. Of course, she didn’t laugh. She thought it was wonderful. And she admitted that she’d always dreamed of playing the violin. She’s been a big encouragement to me. Matty Kahn’s brother-in-law laughed. But her nieces and nephews thought it was great. “Encouragement is a wonderful thing,” says Matty. And so it is. If at first you don’t find encouragement, look somewhere else until you find it. And be quick to give it away to someone else who needs it.

Biana Kovic specializes in teaching adults in her New York studio. She made the film to encourage teachers and seniors everywhere to do what she and Matty did. We are a high-tech, high-speed nation that has no time to waste teaching an old person something they may never be good at, and may only enjoy for a few brief years. We want to invest where growth is sure. But that is not really who we are. That is just the industrial/commercial us the marketing department and their advertising tells us we are.  I’m glad there are still many real people, like Biana, who see the precious treasure that our parents and grandparents are, and want to invest in them.

The little cello has been so much fun – I rarely get the big one out anymore. The guitar tuners worked OK, but I wasn’t really happy with the way they fit on the pegbox, and I didn’t like the look of them, especially as I have grown more attached to the cello! Since I knew this cello was a keeper, I was willing to spend a little more and get some nice pegs.

My son has Perfection Pegs on his violin and they work well. I thought I would get some for the cello, until I discovered the Wittner Finetune peg. These pegs have gears in the knob, rather than in the shaft. The gear ratio (8.5:1)  is double that of the Perfection Pegs so fine tuning is easier. The pegs are made of plastic, but the molding quality and finish are very fine, so they don’t look like plastic.

These pegs use a simple, but ingenious mechanism. I couldn’t figure out how they worked until I found the patent and Google translated it from German. The gearbox is a self-locking design due to the use of two gears of slightly different tooth count (labeled 92 and 94 in the drawing). The planet gears engage the two gears simultaneously and, as they rotate around them, the two gears slowly rotate relative to each other. The tension of the string cannot move the gears, but the knob turns them freely. Perfection Pegs press in to lock using a friction brake concept that isn’t needed with the Finetune pegs.

I bought a set of the larger (8.6mm) violin pegs for $60 and they fit my little cello perfectly. They press tightly into the normal peg holes and don’t require any cement. The G peg doesn’t stick out far enough to bother my neck. The cello stays in tune very well. The pegs will move if you bump them, but in normal handling they don’t budge.

I cut off and sanded smooth the extended ends of the pegs and I think they look great. I guess the visual appeal of the cello has become more important than I would have expected. Must be a subliminal association with the pleasure of making music!

When I bought the little cello, I restrung it almost immediately to viola tuning – CGDA an octave above a normal cello. This tuning has worked great for me – it seems to make the most of the acoustics of the small bodied instrument – but I was not entirely happy with the particular strings. I started out with this setup:

C – Unknown brand original 1/8 cello D string

G -Unknown brand original 1/8 cello A string

D – Spirocore 4/4 cello high E string

A – Elixir .010 plain steel guitar E string

Of these, the Spirocore string is just perfect. It responds happily to the lightest stroke of the bow and the tone is sweet and smooth. The guitar E string is shrill and metallic and requires a light and careful bowing to sound tolerable. The C and G strings, recycled from the set that came on the cello, are very thick and unresponsive. They require a heavy bow stroke to get going, especially the bottom one. Considering that the original C and G strings are even fatter, I’ve no idea how little kids are supposed to enjoy playing the thing! I hate flabby cello strings!

So I started a series of experiments to find better strings. I figured I’d start with the string I liked the least and work from there. The A string proved to be a stubborn problem. First, I tried some classical guitar E strings – nylon wrapped with nylon. But they don’t work with a bow at all. Too smooth and slippery. I even roughed them up a bit with some fine sandpaper, but still they hardly make a peep. Fortunately they were cheap!

The problem is the combination of string length and pitch. This is the high string on a viola, and the vibrating string length on even the biggest violas is 3 or 4 inches shorter than on my 1/8 cello.  I bought the longest Thomastik Dominant viola A string on the chance that it might be long enough. Of course, it wasn’t. The string was into the silk several inches below the nut. But I put it on anyway to see how it sounded. Tightened up to pitch and stopped below the silk with my finger, the string bowed easily and sounded very mellow – quite unlike the shrill guitar string. So I was convinced that a nylon core string was the answer, but where to find one long enough?

I emailed a few dealers and even a national string distributor, but received no reply or a polite “I can’t help you”. I guess my requirement is so odd that’s it’s not worth their effort to think about it. Next, I did a survey of all common bowed string instruments, thinking there might be one with longer strings at the right pitch. And voila! (viola!), the Tenor Viola da Gamba has a string length just a bit longer than my cello, and the highest string is the G just below the A that I need. Super-Sensitive makes Sensicore perlon core strings for the Gamba, and they’re readily available and inexpensive. Woodwind and Brasswind carries the G1 string for only $5.42. A few days later, my A string troubles were over. The Gamba string is perfect. It’s a tad thicker than the Spirocore, bows easily and sounds sweet and mellow like the Spirocore.

Next, I turned my attention to the C and G strings. These were not as troublesome as the A string, but I hoped I might something more playable. I went through several varieties (string experiments can get expensive!). First, I bought more Sensicore Gamba strings of the lower pitches that were close to the ones I need. While the A string is perfect, the lower strings were terrible. The perlon core strings were fat and flabby – worse than the fat 1/8 cello strings.

Next, I bought a set of Helicore 1/8 cello strings, thinking they might be like the Spirocore string that I liked so well. Same problem. These rope core strings are limp and rubbery, just like the perlon core Gamba strings. I was getting frustrated. It seems you can’t judge a string by the catalog description. “Bright and responsive” may not mean what you think it means!

Alas, serendipity won the day. When I bought my big cheap cello, it came with two sets of top-of-the-line Merano strings. I assumed these were junk and replaced them with D’Addario Prelude on the big cello. So I had all these cheapo strings lying around, and I noticed that they were pretty slender for cello strings. Maybe they might be responsive, too? I put the D and A on my little cello, and voila! (not viola!) they worked beautifully. So much for “you get what you pay for”. I still don’t know why there is such a huge variation in the thickness of strings that all play at the same pitch, but these strings are so easy to play and they sound lovely on my little cello.

One of my goals was to settle on a good combination of strings that I could easily replace when needed. Merano strings seemed a bit of an off brand, so I figured I’d try to find their equivalent in a popular brand. Super-Sensitive Red Label seemed to match the description – “Bright and responsive” – right? wrong! Sure, they were not as flabby as the Helicores or Gamba strings, but they did not match the cheapo Merano strings. There is also a Red Label high E string, that only costs about $8 (compared to $30 for the Spirocore), so I tried one of those, hoping for a less expensive alternative. The string was close, but not as nice as the Spirocore.

So for now, I have a winning string setup – a rather motley set of different strings at wildly different prices…

C – Merano 4/4 cello D string ($13 for a full set)

G – Merano 4/4 cello A string

D – Spirocore 4/4 cello high E string ($30)

A – Sensicore tenor Gamba G1 string ($5)

The moral of this story is that you can’t tell what strings will work until you try them on your instrument – and you can’t tell which will be better from the price tag or the catalog blurb. Strings have so much effect on the sound and playability of an instrument that I suspect that many a trial of several cellos or violins is really a string trial in disguise. Granted, my setup is an oddball, and maybe more unpredictable than a standard violin or cello, but I do understand now why so many cellists have mixed sets of strings. When you choose one brand for all four, the string construction will be similar for the four and you may lose out on tone or playability at one end or the other. As you go from synthetic core to steel rope core to solid steel core, the strings get brighter and thinner. The fatter, mellower strings on top work well with thinner, brighter bottom strings to yield a more balanced and consistent bowing behavior across the cello.

It’s been such a long time since I’ve posted anything here – I thought it would be good to add a bit of an epilogue. I say that because one chapter of the cello story is closed for me, and I don’t expect to write here other than responding to comments. I really do enjoy the comments – it’s great to hear that I’ve encouraged someone else a bit.

The chapter that appears to be closed is the engineering chapter. Since I settled on a nice set of strings for the little cello, I haven’t done any more tinkering. I’m not reading much about cellos and violins, and I’m not reading music, either. I have no ambitions to greatness. The work required for that is beyond my motivation!

What I do is play the little cello a bit almost every day, and I am very thankful for that pleasure. I don’t practice the cello, because I’m not preparing for anything bigger. My short, daily session is the main event.

I wander between tunes that I’ve learned already, tunes that I’ve heard and want to try, and improvisation. The latter is the most fun. I can handle the bow well enough now that it nearly always sounds lovely to me, even if I can’t play anything very difficult. I’m an adagio specialist!

I keep the cello out on a small table in the corner of the dining room. It’s easy to pick it up and play for a few minutes and be done. There’s no effort to get ready. I don’t have to tune it very often. I don’t have to rosin the bow very often. Hey – I usually don’t even tighten the bow hair!

I suppose it’s about like grabbing a cookie from the cookie jar. Just a quick comfort, and one I look forward to every day. Whatever cello playing is for you, make sure it’s what you want it to be. Don’t do it to satisfy someone else’s expectations, and it can be a great joy!