Recently I purchased a new cello. This had not been in my plans, and was a surprise to me.

This actually is news, and I'm not repeating myself!   :-)

When I purchased a cello last year, I played quite a few cellos including some that were above of my price range. I wanted to see what others considered to be more ideal sounds. There was one cello that I remembered in particular because I didn't understand its correlation between price and sound.

20121216_oblivion0 Cellos!

A couple of months ago I took my cello back for a checkup. I found the other cello I remembered and played it a bit. Then I looked at the price - it was less than half of what it was before! So, I asked for the story:

The cello was made by a guy, Andrew, from L.A. that lives and works in Prague. As a do-it-yourself-er, he was building a new shop and was needing funds to put in the electrical panel. So he had called my strings shop and asked how he could turn existing cellos into cash. The answer was to drop the price.

I went home, and talked it over with Melanie. I was wowed when she said I should go for it, so I went back to the shop to take the cello out on trial.

The guy at the shop had said that Andrew's cellos produce an amazing sound after they were played in. I still couldn't hear it when I alternated between the cellos. However, just about everybody else decidedly preferred the new cello. Finally I made a recording of myself playing. It was then that I could hear the richness and crispness of the new cello. How interesting that at the playing position, I couldn't distinguish it as well! I decided to go for it and have been delighted with the instrument.

I had been playing cello quite a bit since my purchase the year before. But, I also wanted to take lessons, so I signed up with a teacher this fall. This change has been interesting because I hadn't been a music student since high school, but Ellen has been great.

I had an arrangement of Oblivion by Astor Piazzolla, a duet that I could play with Melanie. It was a good challenge.

20121216_oblivion1 The video didn't come out well enough to share.

 



But the sound is fine (except for a crash in the room).   :-)