Folk Cello

A Proposed Reformatted Schelleng Diagram

2011-07-14T16:55:00.000-07:00

In recent days on the String Visions site, Dr. Cheri Collins has made the case that an understanding of Helmholtz motion and the conditions under which it is induced in the strings of a bowed stringed instrument can help violin, viola, cello and string bass students more easily understand how to achieve better tone. In particular, Dr. Collins has made the point that the Schelleng Diagram is an image that clarifies the bow pressure/point-of-contact relationship, showing maximum and minimum pressure limits, and areas which correspond to tonal qualities - such as normal, sul tasto, brilliant, raucous...

To aid in the discussion, Dr. Collins identifies five equidistant string Contact Points on the instrument - from very near the bridge to the end of the fingerboard. Identification of these contact points help teacher-student communication and assist the student in understanding which points on a string are associated with particular tonal qualities and the max/min limits of speed and pressure.

On a related "note", Dr. Collins has also discussed the Simon Fischer Secrets of Tone Production DVD (Which I have, by the way, and have gone through the exercises with my own teacher). Yes, between the diagram and the exercises, one certainly gets a better feel of how to control what happens between the bow hair and the string! My feeling is, for the price of a single in-person lesson, one has hours of DVD material to work with, take to the teacher, discuss, periodically review, and continuously incorporate into one's daily playing.

But now back to the Schelleng diagram. Below is an example as normally presented:

The Schelleng diagram has some intriguing characteristics for the well-trained acoustic scientist. But as a lowly cello student and non-scientist (but a former good high school math student 40+ years ago), I have some suggested changes to the Schelleng Diagram for helping to provide an intuitive understanding of the pressure/point-of-contact relationship.

At a casual glance, one would think the horizontal axis represents linear distance on the violin string, but that is not actually the case.

If I look at the numbers on the horizontal axis, I see tick marks at .7, 1.4, 2.8, 4.2, 7, and 14 centimeters (cm). Each mark is basically twice the distance from the bridge of the previous mark. That tells me the horizontal axis is on a logarithmic scale (base 2, in this case). On a violin, the 2.8 cm mark is ok, it corresponds to somewhere between Contact Point 2 and 3, but 7 cm mark is well over the fingerboard (the fingerboard ends at 5.5) and the 14 cm mark is near the mid-point of an open string. Scientifically this is interesting, but no musician reasonably bows a violin string near the mid-point.

Also at a casual glance, one would also think the vertical axis is a straight-forward linear representation of bow force. Actually, each mark is 10 times more forceful than the mark below it: .001, .01, .1 and 1. So that scale is also logarithmic (base 10, in this case). The bow force on the line at the top of the chart is greater than the line at the bottom by 1000 times!

So what I did was re-create the Schelleng diagram in an Excel workbook by plugging in some sample X-Y values and mapping them on a chart until I had something that approximate matched the original diagram:

Since I don't have raw data values, and the original diagram itself is an approximation, we should realize that this re-creation is only approximate. Also, in real life, with real instruments, and real bows, and real strings, and real rosin, and real players, these values can vary some.

Keeping the internal data the same, I took the chart and changed the vertical axis from log 10 to linear, and the horizontal axis from log 2 to linear. I then drew in vertical lines to represent the locations of the five Contact Points. And lastly, I reversed the axes with the idea it might be intuitively clearer to a violin or viola player if the contact points go from left to right, just as they do when holding an instrument:
I think this diagram provides a more intuitively clear picture of the pressure/point-of-contact relationship, as it actually feels. We can also see from this diagram that at Contact Point 2 we have the most widest range between maximum and minimum bow force. As we bow closer to the bridge, we must greatly increase pressure and become very precise in the placement of our contact point - very little room for error. Whereas we can see the difference in the max/min pressure between Contact Points 4 and 5 is really quite small.

So the question is, does this revised diagram correspond to your own sensations and feelings, or might you suggest even other changes?

Brea street fair

2010-07-28T15:08:00.000-07:00

Last night I played with two others in a street fair, of sorts, called Musician's Playground, in Brea, CA. The main attraction was the O.C. Wind Symphony, but for some reason our little trio got two out of nine pictures in the online local newspaper article: http://www.ocregister.com/news/night-259610-brea-free.html

Because of an intrusive canopy pole, the newspaper photographer opted to photograph us separately, but we were a trio playing together (at least trying to stay together despite the street noise and distractions):

I don't know if you can tell, but the hammer dulcimer player has very severe arthritis. He copes amazingly well. Where there's a will... What a guy! Good for him!

So now a still shot of my form is out in the open. I remember when that shot was taken. I was trying to blast out on that low D. I know, I know, Emily would say there's too much left hand pronation. I'm bad, I'm still resisting. I wonder if my bow hold passes the Emily test. Emily, are you out there?

Classical from before there was "Classical"

2010-04-22T06:18:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I was at a dance weekend in a lodge on Mt. Baldy. I had cause to pause and reflect on why in the world am I playing cello, and what am I trying to accomplish, and while I’m at it, what is it I appreciate about music, and admire about musicians, anyway?

Naturally, we had a live band, in this case - Bandáge à Trois, from Utah. I figure, from Friday evening to Sunday evening, they were on for at least 15 hours. When they were on, they played about 85% of the time. The remaining 15% was time when the “caller” (in olden days would be called the Dancing Master) was teaching the dance. While I was not present for all 15 hours, I was for most of it, and I never heard a tune repeated for more than one dance, and many of those tunes were quite distinctive; I would have recognized them. Tunes from all over Europe, in this case, French and Scandinavian tunes were particularly well-represented. Bourrees, branles, waltzes, jigs, reels, polkas, hambos,…. And for each tune within the dance, there was plenty of variation across repeats. A grueling test of endurance. I’m so impressed at their preparation, stamina, teamwork between musicians, teamwork with the caller, excellent tune choices for individual dances, stimulation to the dancers, and musical imagination. I’m still in awe.

That band and caller carries on a special and very challenging tradition that well predates J S Bach. I believe the adjective “classical” is more appropriate to describe what they do, than it is for a present-day so-called classical concert performance of rigidly-defined, fully-papered compositions for immense professional orchestras to silent, motionless audiences. Certainly Louis XIV would have hired this band in a heartbeat.

I wonder how much longer this sort of classical music --- much of it hundred of years old, from many countries, played by a live band, to dancers who actually go through the effort to learn and follow formally-defined steps, with partners, as part of a larger traditional music/dance community --- will survive?

Classical from before there was "Classical"

2010-04-22T06:18:00.000-07:00

Sunrise from orbit, bending Shakers, racing hawks, sailing hockey pucks...

2009-08-12T08:57:00.001-07:00

I read that some of us duffers are having trouble getting motivated to practice. I dunno, on the days I can get to it, which are most, but not as many as I want, it's still the best part of the day.

Back in my cellistic infancy and toddlerhood, I had precious little patience for figurative language describing how to play cello. I wanted to hear concrete specifics and bold assertions; exacting descriptions, ideas that could be tested and evaluated, on the essential mechanics of how the amazing system of interconnected levers we call "a cellist" works. No flowery verbal kaa-kaa. No vague "as-if"s or untestable clap-trap. Like Sergeant Joe Friday, "Just the facts, ma'am!"

That was then, this is now. Ok, I guess I've changed.

I've gone to a place where I can enjoy and appreciate inventive takes-offs that stray far from reality. That is not to say I don't appreciate the "factual" and specific information I gather along the way, it's just that my curiosity in that area seems satisfied. I know there's more I can learn, I know some (but certainly not all) cellists would disagree with me on just about anything (Old-timers here certainly have seen that). Of course, I know there could be substantial observable improvement in my form -- elbow moved up (or down), more bow there, less bow here, hand-shape here, open shoulder there... And I certainly need to fit in quantitatively more practice. But rightly or wrongly, I feel comfortable enough in that area that now I want to not just play "correctly", I want to play imaginatively. And at that, I really am just a cellistic infant.

Some of the figurative, or semi-figurative, language I've heard doesn't work for me, yet. Maybe in the future. So being an incorrigible student, I sometimes make up my own stuff.

Mercifully, I'll skip the racey ones. Some of you may have already read my old sunrise-viewed-from-space imagery. I picture the bow stroke as an immensely wide, gradually-arcing, constantly-moving horizon, and the string as the sun (I'm orbiting upside-down, naturally). When the bow touches the sun's line of sight in just the right spot, and they make just the right amount of contact, not too much, not too little, the radiating sun-string shoots brilliant rays of sound in all directions, piercing the black void, and brightly illuminating the entire bow with sound.

Korny and stupid? Yup.

I got more, even kookier, but I already know those. What 'bout yours? Maybe yours are more imaginative.

Anyone doing T'ai Chi + Cello?

2009-02-11T11:17:00.000-08:00

Last night was my fourth T'ai Chi class, more specifically, T'ai Chi Chih. Over two years ago I decided to look into it based on things said by Vic Sazer.

The classes are 45 minutes of soft motions, led by an 80-some year-old instructor. For the second time now, starting at about the 25 minute point or so, my arms start to get that feeling of lightness and effortless-ness that I've only rarely managed to feel behind a cello. Like my arms have lost some weight and the joints have had a squirt of graphite applied. I know at least a handful of you know what I mean.

One thing that concerns me is that "T'ai Chi Chih" is a registered trademark. Apparently it was "invented" by Justin F. Stone in the 70's. Hmmm.

As if I don't have way too much to do as it is, I hope to pursue this T'ai Chi thing some more, doing it immediately before some cello practices, IF I can keep my motivation and patience up for it. Has anybody tried it?

CTMS New Year's Camp

2009-01-27T12:50:00.000-08:00

Back about 4 weeks ago now, my wife and I again attended the CTMS New Year's Camp out at Camp Hess Kramer. I'm pleased to report that we won 2nd place in the New Years Eve Costume Parade (Rod Blagoyevich and Senator Wannabe), although I feel "Barbie at 60", who placed 3rd, should've won. She was hysterical. We didn't recognize the next day without her wig, heels, knock-knees, "implants", and other paraphernalia.

Thank you to the management of Hess Kramer, who make the facility to many different groups.

No cello classes, but still plenty to do, even for the non-musician, such as dancing, walks to the beach, a class in stretching (which I thought was particularly informative), a puzzle table, and a craft table. Also, various classes in guitar, playing for dances, shape note singing, etc. Also jams and song circles.

Carl, one of the campers, has posted pictures at
http://flickr.com/photos/cbernhardt/sets/72157612889085932/. Look though them and you'll find three pictures of a middle-aged cello duffer playing with others. Proof that I do get out on rare occasion.

Inspiring folk cello sighting

2009-01-18T08:06:00.001-08:00

Last night I attended a concert with Hans York as the opening act, accompanied by Myra Joy on cello. Myra Joy's a grad of San Francisco Conservatory (Must be a very very recent grad -- Are those kids getting younger or am I just getting really really ancient? You don't have to answer that in writing here) and has been playing with a number of groups. She related to me about how she got started: she just attended a local jam and was spotted by Shay and Micheal Black, and suddenly approached and asked to go on tour with them.

Ms. Joy's playing for Hans York is understated, matching his voice and style quite well, I thought. For a video that shows her typical playing in song, see Listen to the Moon which was recorded in Fresno last May.

I'm adding her to my list of cellists to watch.

Cellistic New Year Resolutions

2008-12-29T07:56:00.000-08:00

One thing I find fascinating about learning cello, and did not at all expect, is the paradoxes. Now that I've met some of them, my hope for 2009 is that I allow myself to appreciate and revel in them.

Ok, for you they might not make sense. You know far better than me what is right for you. But as these years go fleetingly by, they are becoming for me the elusive essence behind learning and practicing the cello. Otherwise, at my age, lack of talent, and station in life, why bother? So here's my list (partly inspired by, but not to be blamed on, writings in Stark Raving Cello):

- To stop trying harder; instead, to just try easier.

- To play fast slowly; to play loud gently; to play slow fleetingly; to play soft intensely; to play easy things with attentive, loving care; to play hard things undeservedly carefree.

- Instead of frustration, to allow myself unwarranted pleasure and joy in visiting and re-visiting my weak areas, with unworried faith that it'll come together, whenever I eventually allow it.

- To hear musical forests, instead of trees of notes.

- To feel more, listen more, absorb more, hear more, sing more, dream more, express more, enjoy more. Worry, doubt, fear, control, and struggle (and ok, write!) less.

A grumpy weekend before Christmas

2008-12-24T06:53:00.000-08:00

I was asked to play at a local zoo with a folkie quartet that a violinist and I regularly "guest" with. No pay, not even gas money, but the zoo management is always nice and appreciative, so the band keeps coming back and sometimes they augment with the "string section". When the time came, I really didn't feel like going. It was to be outside, at night, so it'd be cold (by Socal standards, that is). I had other things at home I wanted to work on. I just didn't feel the group is playing well this year. The kids pretty much ignore us (only the occasional parent seems to show interest). It's noisy. There's nothing I play that's essential, it's all various accompaniments. And I'm tired of Christmas tunes. Also, it weighed on my mind this will be the first Christmas I won't be seeing my 14-year old daughter; she stopped coming to Dad's since February, hence a string of court dates, with more to come. So I came late and was real close to just not showing up.

I sat in the back in "left field" position. Too dark to see the sheet music, and I forgot to bring some of the non-Christmas tunes, so I working on very faulty memory. Ugh, what was I doing here?

Then at some point a very severely handicapped young man in a wheelchair, pushed by perhaps his mother, appeared in front of the band. And he stayed in front of the band for quite some time, rocking to the music and doing his best to see what was going on. Hammer dulcimers can be fun to watch and they were right in the front, but he seemed to be particularly looking at me. It was hard to tell, his motor movements were uncontrolled and jerky, maybe it was just my imagination that he kept staring at me. Then his attendant wheeled him around the band to the back next to me, where he swung his arm, as if bowing back and forth on a cello. He stayed there some time, doing his best to experience what I so little appreciated.

What have I done in my life to deserve be where I was, and he where he was? Nothing! Perhaps Dickens had a point about remembering He who made the lame walk and the blind see.

Little did I know at the time that there was a message on my answering machine from a Court-ordered counselor that my daughter wants to reconcile and re-establish time with me.

I hope this season brings all of you good things as well.

Carol of the Bells for 4 cellos posted

2008-12-15T10:57:00.000-08:00

As requested, here's the five parts to Carol of the Bells for 4 cellos: 4 parts, plus part 1 down an octave. Note: this might not be exactly the same as what Guanaco or Carol played; about a year ago I expanded it by a few measures and changed the harmony in a couple of measures. It's not enough of a difference that they should change, it would just cause confusion, but I don't think I have the original version around anymore.

So now, who else will prepare something for cello ensemble? We could have a cello blog library of arrangements.

O Holy Night for 4 cellos

2008-12-13T07:51:00.000-08:00

Those of you following Cellomania may have read the discussion about Carol of the Bells and O Holy Night. Below are the parts to O Holy Night. If you click on the image, the image will expand. I hope you can size it to something reasonable. If you want, let me know and I'll send you them as PDFs, or TIFFs, or JPEGs, or something).

Note that cello 4 is entirely pizzicato, the others are arco and require some very long, slow bow strokes. Cello 1 looks tough, but it can be done surprisingly easily, entirely in mid-string thumb position, just like a typical tune out of Mooney's Thumb Position Vol 1, except use pinkie (or ring finger if you extend from the thumb) for those high Es (Actually, I think it does sound a bit better if you can stay on the A string and and go in and out of thumb position as required). I had hoped to record it, and did record two tracks, but now a switch on my recorder is stuck. Maybe I can get it working before Christmas.

The Adventures of a Cello - Carlos Prieto

2008-11-12T06:23:00.000-08:00

I'm at home this week, recovering from surgery. It went well, but there's still more of the inevitable, but boring, healing period to go. Hurray for modern medicine, laser "vaporization" (Doesn't that sound, ummm, permanent!?), and Vicodin!

A few days before the procedure, my wife bought me a gift, a book with an included CD: The Adventures of a Cello by Carlos Prieto. The subject cello is a 1720 Stradivarius, the Piatti, known in the 19th century when it was in Ireland as the "Red Cello", and known to airline frequent flyer programs as Chelo Prieto.

I don't think I would have spent the money on such a book on my own, if I had heard of it. Ancient, mind-boggingly expensive instruments, while wonderful things I'm sure, don't especially intrigue me. It's just not the sort of thing that's meaningful to a novice player like me. I'm more interested in the evolution of ideas, the accomplishments of people, why things are the way they are. Well, that's really what the book is about anyway. The cello is mostly a literary device to tie many anecdotes and facts together. A gimmick, but a sensible gimmick to introduce cello history and make some dense material easier to absorb.

There's a review by Aaron Green over at classicalmusic.about.com which complains that "Only one third of the three hundred+ page book was devoted to the adventures of Prieto's cello. The rest was a well written history of cello making and its music.", as if that were a bad thing. I don't think that's fair. Seems to me, it's not a cello that has adventures, but rather owners, players, composers, and audiences.

So from the outset, it should be understood that the book is not single-minded; it serves multiple purposes (Take a look at the Table of Contents). The book introduces the reader who may know little about the instrument to its construction and history. It relates interesting anecdotes. It places into context the significant composers for the cello and their works, both past and present. It describes Senor Prieto's career, sharing his personal experiences with composers, performers, and the many folks he's met along the way. It promotes the cello. Lastly, but I think of most importance to the author, it promotes the classical cello music of Ibero-America, that is, Spain, Portugal, and Latin America.

Sometimes the long series of composers, and pieces, and concerts, and premieres, and concert halls get difficult to wade through. That means it's time to put it down and pick it up later. This is not a novel that one can just read from beginning to end. But since it's well indexed, I can easily find sections I want to read again and absorb better.

The Spanish language version came out in 1999, but the English version refers to events up to 2005 as the past, and at least one event in 2005 and another in 2006 as the future.

I have come away from the book and CD more aware that contemporary classical music must be alive and well in Ibero-America, driven by creative composers and appreciative audiences. That's not to say that Prieto and others with whom he works do not have a great deal of appreciation for the music and musician's of other nationalities. Quite the opposite. But they do take much pride in the accomplishments of the Spanish/Portuguese language artists. Particularly in the area of 20th/21st century classical, it seems from the book that they have taken the ball and run with it.

Now, anybody that knows me knows contemporary classical is not a major interest of mine. I'm just not that sophisticated. I have to say, though, the music on the CD is quite accessible, even for a bumpkin like me. The CD has 18 tracks with cello performed by Carlos Prieto. I don't feel any of the tracks are too atonal or dissonant or weird for my taste. Of the 18, I especially liked:

- The two tracks from the Bach's sixth Cello Suite. Since they are unaccompanied, you get to clearly hear the tone of the instrument. Yep, I'm impressed.

- The two tracks from Astor Piazolla, Milonga and Le grand tango. There's a lot to Le grand tango, I'm going to have to play that track quite a few times to more fully appreciate it.

- Cancion en el puerto by Joaquin Guitierrez Heras. I dunno, it's just soooo purrrty.

- "Presto with swing" from Eugenio Toussaint's Cello Concerto no. 2. Ok, I admit it, this is my favorite track of the bunch. Driving rhythms and jazz chords. Gershwin-ish/Bernstein-esque. Yeah, I can't help it, I'm just an unabashed Americano-phile.

So now I have a little more knowledge of 20th/21st century classical music. One person that I now want to learn more about, albeit unintended by the author, is Nadia Boulanger. Y'know, one bit of knowledge prepares the way for another.

Uh oh, I better go lie down before I catch heck from the Missus.

A Question for Adult Cello Students

2008-10-02T14:47:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday my wife and I put in some volunteer time for the Southern California Dulcimer Heritage's annual Harvest Festival. It has various workshops and concerts for mountain and hammer dulcimers, but also has room for other instruments. One of the workshop leaders was Mintze Wu, a fine professional, classically-trained violinist (graduate of Cleveland Institute of Music), a former member of the Azmari Quartet and on the Northern Kentucky University faculty. But now she's making quite a name for herself on the dark-side -- as a fiddler.

I attended her workshop. Wu showed how to take a simple, rather sing-songy tune (Road to Lisdoonvarna) and with some imaginative bowing and ornamentation, make it --WOW!-- very nice, indeed. I was the only cellist, and very welcomed by Ms. Wu. With some fingering adjustments I was able to get by about as well as the violinists (sometimes I've been over my head at these things). Wu made us individually play back what she teached, which put us on the spot, so I know other students had mixed results in getting it right as well, including one competent classically-trained violinist.

I also attended an organized jam workshop. I was somewhat fussed over by the leaders, who were delighted to have a cello in the mix. I was asked to start a tune and when I played the first few notes, I heard at least one gasp, presumably of delight ;-), emanate from the group.

My question is this: Given the almost embarrassingly welcoming treatment we can receive, and how one can easily play 1-5 bass parts until ready for more, why aren't there more adult student cellists venturing out to Old-time, Celtic, and other casual "traditional music" events? I know the cello students exist. Is it a matter of interest? -- adult students took up cello because they want to perform Classical, and that's that? Is it fear of playing without the trusty music stand and paper? Too much uncertainty and lack of structure? Is it lack of preparation and encouragement by the teachers? Fear of a lack of ear training or music theory? Too easy? Too hard to lug around that big case? Unfamiliarity with what cello sounds like in those genres?

In a nutshell, why don't cello students do like other instruments? It ain't 'cause we ain't got frets; violin and string bass (and some banjos) also ain't got frets.

By the way, we know cello and dulcimer played duets together in colonial Annapolis at least as far back as November 1752, so there is a tradition for this kind of thing in America, albeit sometimes appears to be forgotten.

Any thoughts on the subject?

Cello Chords

2008-09-08T14:04:00.000-07:00

Jim asked me to re-post my cello chord diagram from a year or two back (The server it had been sitting on is no longer). Here it is. Pretty simplistic, but a start for strumming accompaniments or boom-chuck patterns, and you can use the same chord shape, moved up or down the fingerboard, for other chord names.

I sure do like Copland!

2008-09-03T09:15:00.000-07:00

On my way into work today I heard a Copland piece in it's entirety on the radio. There's not much 20th century so-called "classical" music that I can tolerate. Give me 20th century jazz, R&B, pop, rock, show tunes, dixieland, disco, anything over contemporary classical. Hmmpf! Classical? Not to my mind.

Ah, but Copland? Wonderful! He takes his time. He carefully builds and he gracefully recedes; 25 minutes that combine to make a whole piece. He blends and he separates. He's not afraid to be simple, and when he's complex he still makes sense. Enjoyable dissonance; dissonance that makes sense; that bright, straightforward, no-nonsense sound. I think I can see why he never wrote a cello concerto. I question whether it would have been accepted by the cellists of the time.

I can't remember who, but some famed musician of Copland's era said something like, "In Europe they clamor for more American music, but that's not what they mean. What they really mean is they want more COPLAND!"

I guess my taste is hopelessly unsophisticated. Yeah, even if I had talent, I could never be a classical musician; too simple-minded; too schmaltzy; too working-class. But in Copland we proletariat can find a 20th century composer for the common man.

Another "note"worthy blog

2008-08-12T09:03:00.000-07:00

Readers of Cellists By Night might remember that a couple of months ago I mentioned I enjoyed listening to morning disk jockey Dennis Bartel at the local classical radio station, KUSC (Yes, we are members).

I like his subtle wit and the way he makes transitions. From his comments, he clearly has an excellent in background classical music, but even more importantly, he has a solid background in all kinds of things. And he's a down-to-earth plain-spoken guy, not at all pretentious, unlike a certain other syndicated classical DJ I can think of.

Well, he has a blog: www.kusc.org/bartel. I recommend reading The Child is Father to the Papa (No douby y'all can guess who that's about). It goes to the heart of what makes a person, any type of person, great. And it just goes to show, aren't all the truly great musicians also autodidacts?

Goodbye to Cello?

2008-06-12T13:55:00.000-07:00

This has been building up a couple of months. My wife and I bought a bank-owned fixer-upper to move closer to where my daughter will be attending high school. Well, it's turned out to be more of a fixer-upper than we had imagined. We have to sink far more time and money into it than we expected. Mold is much more extensive than we were told by the inspector (kitchen is now completely torn out), poor original construction (crazy wiring, no attic access...), and even more poorly done modifications to the house by former owners. What's more, the 13-year-old we moved to be closer to, now is punishing me by refusing to come to Dad's anymore over my support of my wife regarding the snotty way my daughter talked to her. So my ex is taking big advantage of this to egg on and reward the daughter for staying away from Dad, use the opportunity to stop working, go back to court, get a change in custody, and up the child support and attorney fees to maximum she can get (We've only been to court 60-70 times since the kid was born; she's a paralegal).

I don't know how I'm going to get through the next few months. I'm can't motivate myself for, and concentrate on cello playing. So I terminated my cello lessons, and I may even end up having to sell my cello. I've informed the folks that I play with that I'll play at an event that I committed myself to next week, but that's it.

I expect I'll continue to occasionally monitor some of my favorite cello blogs. Maybe some months down the road things will start to come around, and I can relax again. But for now, every day presents too many problems I just can't solve.

Oo-ah-oo-ah-oo-ah...

2008-06-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

The subject of Starker's Organized Method of String Playing came up on Cello Chat about a week ago. I don't have access to the thread right now, but it might still be on the first page. Most of the posts dealt with the hazards of Do-It-Yourself. No one can understand the great mysteries behind the book without a teacher that apprenticed under Grand Master Janos or with one of his duly ordained disciples. My teacher's not in that exclusive club, she went to USC.

But I'm sorry, I don't find the goals of the book all that mysterious and inaccessible. It's sets of simple double-stop mechanical finger exercises, following a mechanical, non-musical sort of chromatic progression: first one finger stays put and the other two finger progress chromatically, then the first finger progresses one half-step and the two other fingers start over in the progression. Sort of like gears in a clock.

To complete the exercise though all the permutations of a single position, in tune, requires really good hand/arm position, finger independence, and very little unnecessary tension. Benefits: precise intonation; endurance from efficient, non-tense finger dropping; and knowledge of what notes are available in what position.

However, (1) I don't have the endurance to play a whole set well without tension. Also, (2) I have difficulty identifying and maintaining good intonation in a chromatic, atonal situation, and, (3) I get bored, and (4) I don't really absorb what notes I'm playing in such a mechanistic exercise, anyway. So, during the past couple of years I've made simplified versions that center around a key. It helps me listen and hopefully make musical sense out of the intervals. And if, at one time, I only play those that fit within a specific key, then rest, I can get though it without over-stressing and tightening up my fingers.

My previous post showed what I'm talking about (click here to see). On it I identify the a key and chord progression that the exercise intends to suggest. I see it didn't garner any interest on Cello Chat. Instead, I killed the thread. I seem to have a knack at that.

A home-made exercise

2008-05-28T13:01:00.000-07:00

This little home-made exercise is posted here for a discussion elsewhere, unless you'd like to comment here.

105 degrees F, so I'm told

2008-05-19T13:05:00.001-07:00

Whew, was it hot yesterday out on Paramount Ranch, site of the 48th annual Topanga Banjo-Fiddle contest. The quest for shade was, umm, indeed "paramount".

Our time to play was 11:00 AM, not the hottest part of the day but late enough.

I played ok, for me, which is to say not well enough to win, show, or place. But as we all say, it's the experience that counts. Right now, perhaps still tired and recovering, I'm wondering if that universally-treasured experience is always all it's cracked up to be.

There were some fantastic players there. People who think these players of fiddles, banjos, guitars, mandolins, and myriads of other instruments are just slouches that wouldn't be able to hack it in the classical world just haven't heard what some of these musicians can do. Sure, there are throngs of just-begunners and mobs of intermediate wanna-bes (like Yours, Truly). There's also quite a number of amazing performers, many of whom don't compete, they're just there for the fun.

At least three cellists competed in the "Other Instruments" category, in addition to finger-picked guitar (Finger-picked guitar is considered a separate instrument), harmonica, flute, dulcimer, and I forget what else. I was able to observe only one of the other two cellists and yep, he was better'n me (but even he didn't win). And, he made a smarter choice of what to play -- my choice was just too near the limits of my ability. Fool, fool, fool!

Y'know, though, what I'd really like to do for next time, whether it be next year or several years from now? Compete in the accompaniment category. I think that's where cello shines, but it's also something I like to do. Now, where am I going to find somebody crazy enough to (1) compete in the whithering heat of the day-long festival against some true virtuosos, and (2) let the likes of me provide accompaniment? Send any takers my way.

Teacher's advice for Sunday's performance...

2008-05-14T12:27:00.000-07:00

... paraphrased and set to a certain well-known melody by Charlie Chaplin:

Smile tho' your bow is shaking,
Smile tho' the notes are breaking,
When pitch goes way up too high,
You'll get by.

If you smile
Through your fear and stage fright,
Smile and arms will be less uptight,
You'll hear the phrases shin-ing through for you.

Light up your face with gladness,
Hide ev-'ry trace of sadness,
Al -'tho every glitch may tempt you to quit,

That's the time,
You must keep on grinning,
Smile, each note's a new beginning,
They'll find that piece is still worth-while,

If you just smile.

Contest time on Sunday

2008-05-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

Well, the weeks have gone by and next Sunday is the Topanga Banjo and Fiddle Contest (Yikes, expected temperatures may exceed 100 degrees F!). I will compete in the "Other Instruments" category with two accomplices. Are we prepared? Not as well as I would like, but we have worked quite a bit on it. Too many personal problems and work/home issues going on for me to have done much more. This morning's practice felt pretty good, though.

I didn't get out to Emily's, either, but I have had a number of lessons on it with my teacher, including one with the full group a few weeks ago, and another with the full group tonight.

What happens happens. My number 1 concern is keeping a steady, solid, dance-able rhythm going without speeding up. Whenever I drop concentration, the tempo creeps up and the pulse and articulation suffer. If we can just keep the tempo steady and manageable and together, I'll be happy.

Of course I'm not likely to win, that hardly matters, but the preparation work has certainly made a noticeable difference in my playing. It's given me a better appreciation of how the problem with my left hand is actually in my right arm.

5-String Conversion, Part Last

2008-03-22T13:47:00.000-07:00

"Ok, so what about the peg?", you say. Did I install another hole and peg? Well, I did drill a hole, but no peg. I threaded the D-string through a small hole, using a small washer that I bummed from my wife's supply of little hardware leftovers to prevent the string ball from slipping through the hole:

Actually, I did this all a few months ago and thought, "Great, all I have to do is tune this puppy up and I've got myself a home-mode 5-string, Laszlo Varga style (Anybody know how he made his 5-string? I know he used a 3.4 size cello for it, but that's about all I know about it).

Well, just as I was approaching pitch on all five strings, just within a quarter of a tone across the board, the neck snapped off. Bummer. The neck came off cleanly at the glue point except that the little tab coming up out of the cello back was sheared off. That is the structural main strength point. The glue under most of the neck has no mechanical advantage, it's that meek little tab on the back that does the real work of keeping it all together.

So I glued the neck back on with hide glue I found on the Internet, using a candle warmer to keep the glue hot. Then I attached a splint made from doorskin and three little screws, again raiding my wife's hardware leftovers. The split I attached with regular carpenters wood glue underneath. That stuff is much stronger than wood when it cures. Hopefully, that splint will never, ever part from the back tab.

So there it is: A project no doubt worthy of a spot on the Red Green Show. I think I can expect a congratulatory call from ol' Red Green any day now.

5-String Conversion Pictures, Part 2

2008-03-22T12:49:00.000-07:00

This pic shows the nut on the E-string side. It's hard to get the precision one needs. If there were a next time, I'd want to find a better way of making the nut grooves than using a serrated kitchen knife and a ruler.

And this pic shows the nut on the C string side. Yes, the E and and C strings are at the very edges of the nut and fingerboard. Wider would be better.

Still a couple of pics to go.

D-I-Y 5-string Conversion Pictures, part 1

2008-03-22T10:54:00.000-07:00

Now before we get into this, understand that the first attempt snapped the neck off the cello. I fixed the neck, more on that later, but I don't suggest advise doing this sort of a thing with anything but a junker (See, junkers really are good for sump'n!).

Here's pictures of my for-fun conversion of an inexpensive laminate cello to a 5-string. The key (so to speak) of the whole thing a guitar tuning machine installed in the middle of the tailpiece. I got the tuning machine from a guitar repairman at a local "Guitars-R-Us", who gave it to me on the condition I bring the completed travesty for him to see:

And here's a picture of the tuning machine from underneath. Because the underside of the tailpiece is curved and irregular I used a free sample of kitchen counter laminate on the underside to provide a flat surface for the guitar tuning machine. I used rubber washers on the topside and bottomside of the tailpiece to stabilize it the tuning machine so it wouldn't rotate:

Here's a view of the bridge (same bridge as for 4 strings). I filed all new grooves for the new spacings. You can see the old grooves:

More pics to come.

D-I-Y 5-string conversion. Gottagogottit

2008-03-16T19:07:00.000-07:00

Yes, as Gottagopractice figured out on my previous post, I have converted my old laminate cello to a 5-string: CGDAE. She noticed the lack of vibrato on the E. What I think is also telling is the sympathetic vibration of the E string when playing As and Es on other strings. It's more noticeable between the notes. I made the recordings with Audacity and the sympathetic vibration is much more pronounced in the original recording format. The export to MP3 makes those subtleties harder to hear.

While I thought I preferred a dark cello (and I'm told my other cello is particularly dark), I find I do rather enjoy the brightness that the E string gives most of the notes on this cello.

Yes, I'm using the original nut, fingerboard, and bridge, with the strings squeezed together more and extending to the side more.

Pictures to come, but maybe not for a few days.

BTW, the cello broke in the attempt and required an unorthodox fix. All will be revealed.

D-I-Y Cello Modification

2008-03-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

I have an incredibly inexpensive (read downright cheap-skate), laminate CLO (cello-like object) that I started on, that I got off Ebay five years ago.

Well, I took it to the garage and subjected it to an unauthorized field change. An authentic luthier would be appalled, but then, at the price I paid for it, who cares? It's going to take some time to get used to it, but it is a kick to play.

I made a couple of quick recordings. See if you can guess how it's different from a regular cello... Yeah, yeah, I know, besides the fact that the cello's tone sounds like crap.... Yeah, yeah, besides the fact that the player is dreadful.... Something else.

A C scale

Si Bheag Si Mhor

The ABC's of Tune Finding

2008-03-04T13:43:00.000-08:00

Sandro's comment reminds me that some of you learning to read standard notation, with your noses deep into Suzuki, Schroeder, Essential Elements, or your orchestra repertoire, might not know there is another notation method worth knowing. Or, at least knowing of: ABC.

ABC is a method of notating music as plain text. No special fonts, or special software. Any simple text editor will do. Or, for that matter: paper and pencil.

It's not a totally new idea. In the 19th century, the Shakers notated the songs that they composed or received from divine inspiration (about 400 of them) as note letter names, with a method of indicating note length values, dotted rhythms, and the like. ABC is something like that, but with considerably more features.

See John Chamber's ABC Music Notation for a tutorial on ABC.

One of the really good things about ABC is that it makes it easy to share written music over the Internet. And you don't really have to learn ABC to use it. John Chambers has made available to the public computer programs that convert ABC into standard notation or MIDI files.

And there's a whole lot of folk tunes in ABC out there across the Internet universe.

So, Chambers also has a web page that will (1) search for ABC files by name or partial name, or by a sequence of notes, (2) produce a listing of the matches, (3) convert the ABC file to standard notation as a gif, postscript, or pdf, and (4) also convert the file to a MIDI, so you can hear what it sounds like.

It's absolutely great for looking up tunes that you want to learn. See JC's ABC Tune Match at trillian.mit.edu.

Enter a Contest? Why not?

2008-02-26T11:02:00.000-08:00

Perhaps foolishly, I've sent in my application for the 2008 Topanga Banjo & Fiddle Contest, to compete in the "Other Instrument" category. The date is May 18th.

I've attended the contest a number of years before as a spectator. I've heard some of the competitors, including some of the "Other Instrument" players, so I have an idea of the typical competition. Yeah, I'm going to have to be well prepared. And I'm going to play in front of hundreds of people. Yikes! (Of course, picnicking--beer-drinking--frisbee-throwing--sunshine-worshipping people are different from coat-and-tie---concert-going--indoor people, but still... Peoples is peoples!)

I've got a couple of friends to agree to accompany me. One on guitar (or maybe bodhran), the other on hammer dulcimer.

What to play? My original choice was a waltz called Leona Tuttle (the definitive Larry Unger version contains a delightful viola solo). Now I'm considering playing the set Seylan Baxter plays in a video at celloharp.com. They're not too terribly difficult anymore.

Still, whatever I select I'll want to do a good deal of polishing, so I'll be dragging it in to my teacher. I'll also want to take another trip cross town for Emily input in a month or so. You game, Emily?

3rd recital in front of LA Phil member

2008-02-24T08:55:00.000-08:00

No, it's not a folkie thing this time.

Last night I played in a student recital at my teacher's home. I was in shift 1 with six other students, starting at 5:00. Shift 2 started at 6:30. I played the Bach Arioso (from Cantata 165) and part 1 in the Gabrielli Canon a Due.

As usual, I was the only grown-up (Go team CBN!). And yet again, that LA Phil member whose 7 year-old or so youngster is a student was right up there in the audience -- in tuxedo because he had a gig afterward (His kidlet is really coming along). But this time I felt much better than the prior two times. Except for just a little bit of clumsiness in a couple of spots, the pieces came out as well as when I've practiced them, so I'm rather pleased.

I'd like to think I'm learning what body parts become less mobile when I'm nervous and learning to mobilize them more, but maybe I'm just getting used to the idea of him around.

Shift practice

2008-02-20T14:55:00.000-08:00

Another topic at the Emily lesson was shift practice.

The Bach Arioso, which I'll play at a student recital on Saturday, has a number of shifts up into the transitional positions. I was not consistent with my thumb, which limited the consistency of the shifts. For the shifts to 6th position, I don't need to lift the thumb up and over (If I was quickly on the way to higher positions, such as in a three octave scale, then maybe I would lift the thumb by then for speed). If I put the thumb in a consistent place and angle, whatever that is for me, then that helps the entire shift consistency.

Another thing I did was straightening and stiffening out the unused second finger, throwing the other fingers off. That's something my regular teacher corrects me regarding my pinkie. We hadn't gotten to the other fingers yet, but the principal applies. Nothing to be gained by tensing out unused fingers.

To practice the shifts, first make sure you know what the pitches should be. Then, in single down bows, practice the shift, sliding from one to the other, and back on the up bow (with thumb and unused fingers also traveling to/from consistent positions.)

Then, practice the shifts with a clear break in-between (No slide) -- just the first pitch---break---the second pitch. Do not correct by fudging, instead, observe whether the tendency is to be high, or low, and make it right the next time. It's really hard to resist just sliding it into place after the break.

Ok, so did following all that stuff Emily told me make my shifts now super accurate and instantly better? Uhhhh..., no. You might even say they took a bit of a hit, they got considerably worse for a couple of days following the lesson, what with all that to think about. Bad? No, good! It's like the guy I quoted said regarding talent. Sometimes change means working through an apparent set back in order to get to the permanent improvement (See? There was a reason for that previous post). All the stuff made sense to me, so I had to just work with through it. Now, I feel shifts are at least as good as they were, maybe better already, but I expect them to be considerably better yet, perhaps within a few days.

We'll see how it goes Saturday!

Regarding those with talent...

2008-02-19T10:34:00.000-08:00

I will eventually get back to describing the Emily lesson, and respond to the recent comments. Soon. But it's been a hectic and difficult weekend (read weekend with 13-year old daughter). In the meantime, I'd like to re-post somebody else's post I came across on a hammer dulcimer mailing list. It gets into something I'd like to eventually discuss sometime regarding embouchures ("Embouchures are related cello?" I hear you cry)?

Regarding those with talent...

Talent will only get someone so far. I have seen, not just in music but in
all areas, folks who have talent and who naturally get some things, but who
are unable to learn the things which will then take them beyond that first
flush of ease.

I recently took a class where the teacher talked about how he was asked to
change his fundamental movement. He had been involved in the activity for
more than a decade, and could do things much faster and effectively using
his current technique. He resisted using the new technique for quite a
while, and when he did change, he took forever to accomplish anything.

However... in a year's time, he was able to then move beyond his former
limits, and now admits that the new technique is fundamentally sounder than
what he had done initially with "talent."

My own son at some point was asked to change his embouchure, and it was slow
going after having played his instrument for so long. However, he eventually
got the hang of the new mouth shape, and can do things which he couldn't do
with talent.

Talent is great. Willingness to practice, to learn and to change count far
more, and will take one much farther.

In Praise of Simplistic, Silly Exercises

2008-02-13T14:30:00.000-08:00

Well, my slow vibrato wobbles (see previous post) were better today than yesterday. As a consequence, my vibrato on the Bach Arioso, which I'll play at a student recital on the 23rd, was noticeably slower and more expressive (Eat your heart out, Dean Martin!).

Y'know, it's easy to dismiss exercises like that simply as demonstrations for children -- try it out once, then fahgittaboutit. Ditto for cello hugs, circles, ski jumps, knock-knocks, bridge touches, spiders, one-finger scales, and various other exercises; many which were invented or codified by Margaret Rowell.

Maybe some things can be classified simply as one-time demos, but it seems to me, many are worth repeating -- often. Maybe I should do many of them more often than I do.

When I started cello, it seemed to me playing cello was more complicated than I could possibly understand. Now, I'm feeling it's simpler can possibly understand. The issues are not learning new, more complex behaviors, but rather dropping interfering behaviors. Getting down to the basic, pure, simple, expressive act that creates the desired sound. There is a beauty in the simple, free, easy, heartfelt act that is somehow carried and communicated by the sound.

Vibrato with Emily

2008-02-13T10:09:00.000-08:00

Gottago asked, so I have an excuse to tell.

Emily feels my vibrato tends to be too fast. Yeah, true, I sort of wind up and let 'er rip, Boioioioioioinnng, just leaving it boing on automatic pilot.

Emily had me do a chromatic scale (Duport-style: 3 fingers-to-3 fingers) with very slow, very wide vibrato cycles. I guess it was about 30 or 40 cycles a minute, if I remember right.

The important thing is to keep the motion always constant at the same boringly slow speed; neither speed up nor go into turn-signal mode. That's when you just flip from one side to another, pausing on a side: High...Low...High...Low... Not good, that's cheating. Ya gotta keep it in constant slow motion like a sine wave. Requires patience, it's so tempting to just flip-flop or speed up to get that bounce.

With a metronome, one can then take that slow vibrato pulse and double it, triple it, and quadruple it.

Another point is to maintain good forearm motion. Emily said I had good forearm motion, so that wasn't an issue. But at home, I found my forearm motion is not so good on the 4th finger. At the lesson, we didn't do 4th finger with the exercise, that I can remember. You know me, always finding some way to not do exactly as I'm told ;-). So now I'm trying to incorporate 4th finger in the exercise to see if I can cultivate the same motion I can get on the other fingers.

My lesson with Emily

2008-02-12T14:05:00.000-08:00

Last night after work I drove cross-town (LA) and had a lesson from Emily Wright, cello blogger and teacher in residence here in our cello blogosphere.

I took much away from it. Mostly we worked on shifting, but also some vibrato, breathing, and process. Now much to work on to absorb it. Emily wrote down the major points, which I reviewed at practice today.

And you you can probably guess what I found out at practice today: It sure is harder to have the patience to go slow when the coach is not around. But still, I'm convinced practice at glacial speed is what I need more of. I heretofore resolve to thoroughly embrace shifting and vibrato practice at glacially slow, terminally dull, mind-numbingly boring tempos (Oh yes, and all the while to BREATHE!). Y'know, how often is it that our teachers tell us to go faster? Pretty darn rare, so there's no need to hurry, anyway.

The lesson was well worth the trip and effort; I feel re-energized in certain areas. Thank you Emily, hope to see you again soon!

Folkworks: 2005 The Year of the Cello

2008-02-04T08:54:00.000-08:00

I read Maricello's recent post concerning playing in a band. I guess I'm pretty lucky. I'll be performing this weekend on washtub bass, cello, and recorder, at a local sandwich shop with a couple of others who play hammer dulcimer and guitar (We wish we could find the right fiddler to join us).

Given the comments that followed Maricello's post, I thought now might be a good time to post a link to the Jul/Aug 2005 issue of FolkWorks magazine. Scroll down to Larry Wine's article on the "Acoustic Renaissance" in which he declared 2005 The Year of the Cello. Not that I'm saying it's too late now, just that cello-awareness has been building even in non-cello folk players. Also note the featured Klezmer band, Warsaw Village Band, has a cellist.

However, I don't think that the typical way cello is taught is conducive to getting an adult ready to play in a band. That may change some in upcoming years.

But I'm not a good one to express and explain that point of view since I came into the game with a pretty solid idea of how I could fit into a folk-ish band, and I had the washtub, and experience on trombone, such as in Dixieland music, to fall back on. For those of you that would like to play in a small group something other than pre-printed classic chamber music, what do you wish a teacher would teach you?

New Years Camp last week

2008-01-07T11:32:00.000-08:00

Wife, daughter, and myself had a great time at the annual New Years Camp conducted by the California Traditional Music Society, in Malibu CA. I hope I made a some sort of tiny contribution toward bringing cello awareness back into the traditional music fold.

No, that's not us. That's a photo of the Swannaonna String Band, taken in 1895. I saw it at New Years Camp, but we weren't all that much different. More women. More casually dressed. Nicer buildings. More vegetation. Anybody know the name of the cellist?

I saw some old photos of Klezmer bands with cello, too, that I hope to find online.

I was surprised that non-cellists are starting to know the names of some of the cellists in the field. One woman who plays in the San Francisico Scottish Fiddlers club told me years ago they were no cellists; now, because of the popularity of Natalie Haas and Rushad Eggleston, they have more cellists wanting to join than violinists.

Track of the Wrist

2007-12-20T16:08:00.000-08:00

Uploading an image for future use.

The kid's got a lot on the ball

2007-12-16T07:08:00.000-08:00

Here's the sitch: He's now in his second year of elementary school orchestra. Tomorrow he auditions for elementary honors orchestra which, I gather, is school district-wide. There's 4 cellists in his elementary school orchestra, he's the only one trying out for honors orchestra.

Besides scales, the piece he is to play is the cello part to an orchestral arrangement of All The Pretty Little Horses. While it doesn't go above D one leger line above bass clef, I was has surprised at how hard it is rhythmically (This is for elementary school kids?!). A couple of meter changes, syncopation, 16th note runs, some portado, some pretty tricky stuff, considering. And he was told they want the A's longer than 16th notes on the D string.

Too hard for him (and me!) to just play through, so we did the Julius Ceasar thing in quite a few spots: Just a few notes several times, then just a few more notes, then put them together several times, then add a few more notes....

For a kid who hasn't had lessons, he doesn't seem to have 1st-position-itis. He just zips up to 2nd and 3rd position easily, likes it's no big deal. Hits that A to match the A string pretty well. There are other areas, though, where lessons will become critical. My opinion is that he needs to get the left arm higher for lower strings, a higher right arm to keep the point-of-contact from creeping up on the long down bows, get further back on backward extensions, take care to keep 2 finger from going sharp --- the usual suspects. But that's for a possible future teacher to decide.

I gained an increased appreciation of how hard it is to put directions into words, especially on the fly in the middle of things. Like with the syncopated rhythms, one can try to explain 'hold the A until after beat 1, then on the 'and of 1' play the Bb, then on the 'and of 2' play the C,...", or one can just say "It's: bah bah bah..." I get too tongue-tied. I'm more suited to the bah-bah-bah method (I think he was more comfortable receiving the bah-bah-bah method, too).

I certainly could see how, to be able explain things, one should not just know how to do it, but rather observe other teachers explaining things at that particular student level.

I hope he does well tomorrow.

Asked to coach a 12 year old boy

2007-12-13T10:40:00.000-08:00

My sister-in-law called last night. She wanted to know if I’d be willing to come by on Saturday for a coaching session with a 12 year-old boy who’s auditioning on cello on Monday for a school “honors” orchestra. My sister-in-law has known the family for a long time, likes the boy and has “baby-sat” him often in the past, and the boy has apparently been playing cello for some time, but has never had a lesson.

Well, what could I say? Of course, I’ll come by. Naturally, I hope to motivate the parents to get the boy private lessons with a real teacher if the boy shows genuine interest. I’ll stress that I’m not at all qualified to teach.

Still, I’m quite looking forward to meeting a fellow traveler, even one 42 years younger than me, seeing how he does, and talking cello. I think it will be fun.

But since he’ll be meeting me, of all people, maybe some prayers for his cello-istic soul would be in order here.

Ok, now at last -- Seven Things about Me

2007-11-20T16:42:00.000-08:00

Long ago Mike tagged me on this, so it’s way overdue.

1. I’m father to a fine 13 year-old girl. Perhaps parenthood defines who I am more than anything. She’s bright, difficult, draining, independent, delightful, disappointing, impossible, dependent, talented, frustrating, inspiring,. . .

2. I’m happily married for 4 years now. While M doesn’t play an instrument, it’s M that helped re-kindle my interest in getting back into music, but in a different way. M kindly accepts, and even encourages, me in this cello pursuit.

3. I was in the Navy for seven years. Oh yeah, I’ve seen much of the world --- mostly the unimaginably immense watery part. I served on two ships, the USS Bradley and USS Chicago, and as an embarkation instructor at a Marine training command. I really liked those days as an instructor. Marines is good people.

4. I’m a computer professional. The computer world is so incredibly large, so incredibly diverse, that a label like that means absolutely nothing. So let me refine it – a former IBM mainframe, former OS/2, now Unix computer professional using a message brokering system to connect numerous disparate computer systems dealing with law enforcement and criminal justice for a very large metropolitan entity. (Yeah, it’s an occupational hazard; after enough years we all start talking like that.)

5. I’m a Penn State alumnus, class of ‘75. Hail to the Lion!

6. My wife and I are considering buying recumbent bicycles. Anybody out there familiar with them?

7. I’ve been through over 12 years of near constant litigation to maintain contact with my daughter (I currently have her about 1/3 of the time). I’ve had 70 or more court dates since 1996. My ex will not again attempting to reduce my time and increase my payments, so and I must return to court yet again on December 5th. Naturally, my opinion of Family Law courts and attorneys is pretty darn low, and the senseless conflict drains my spirit and my faith in humanity. But these things are also a part of life.

So why bother?

2007-10-29T11:37:00.000-07:00

Also copied from parts of a Cello Chat post:

So, if we have so many disadvantages, then why bother?

Well, of course, there’s The Tone. Ain’t nothin’ like it; it adds class to a flock of tinkly dulcimers, strummin’ git-tars, twangy bangos (spelling intentional), and squeaky fiddles.

It turns out it’s actually a good thing that cello’s not just an octave violin. How wise were those early designers! Because of its octave-plus-a-fifth lower tuning, it can perform in one or more of several roles ---

Played by a beginner: (1) it can take the role of string bass (plucked or bowed), (2) it is well-suited for song-speed melodies in typical vocal keys, and (3) it can play back-beats, “potatoes”, and simple groove rhythms in pitches well removed from the melody.

For the intermediate: (4) harp-like strummed/plucked accompaniments, (5) rich harmonizations in that beefy, baritone, octave-plus-a-third to an octave-plus-a-sixth or so, range below fiddle-keyed melodies, (6) beautifully airs in that tenor range one octave lower than fiddle pitch, and (7) some fast tunes in fiddle keys --- either one, two, or often, a combination of both one and two octaves below fiddle pitch

And for the advanced (to which I aspire): ( 8 ) exciting and driven groove patterns, and (9) tunes and harmonizations all over the fingerboard, from deep in the low grumblies to the upper areas of the treble clef staff. Will I get there? Who cares! The joy is in the journey.

For (1), you’ll want to learn to identify chord changes, at least in the root notes. I’m not great at it, but I know if I listen and experiment with it quietly, I’ll eventually get it. After a while you get to recognize certain patterns right off the bat, like I-IV-I-V I-IV-V-I, or VI7-II7-V7-I, or i-VII-i-VII(or v)-i.

Regarding (2), ever notice that songs for general singing, like in a hymnal or Christmas book, typically extend up only to D or E? This works out very nicely for cello learners still limited to 1st and 2nd position. There’s no shortage of written tunes in that range. Try playing/recording well-known Christmas Carols and your intonation limitations will become all too obvious.

For (3), some books address this, but so does watching others and using your imagination: doo-wada-doo-wada-doo-wada... or boom, ka-chk, boom, ka-chk-a-chk, boom, ka-chk… or whatever. Copy and experiment.

But for these you need to know some basic theory. Be able to spell any chord. Read or figure out tunes by ear. Understand how chords migrate to-from the tonic. Select the right note for the situation.

Time spent with a teacher following any of the commonly available methods, like Suzuki, All For Strings, Essential Elements, Feuilliard, or whatever, provides a physical foundation and you gotta have that foundation. Remember, if you can’t yet play Vivaldi, you can’t yet play typical fiddle tunes, anyway. It can come, but it’s gonna take time on the instrument with formal lessons and playing formal stuff.

Ok, now I’ve got my pontificating urge out of me. I hope to soon answer the question and comment on some of the books with which I'm familiar on the good lists Jim and Marilyn have provided.

Fiddle vs Cello

2007-10-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

This post is copied from my parts of a recent post on Cello Chat, in response to a newbie asking for book recommendations regarding folk music. "Folk music" can mean a lot of things, but I think he probably means fiddle tunes on cello.

Over the past four years of participating on those chat boards I’ve seen quite a few beginners interested in the folkie side of cello come, and then disappear. Off-hand, the only one I can think of that has really stuck with it besides myself is Maricello, who unlike me, is sensible enough to not stick foot-in-mouth there on Cello Chat, as I do [Note: I forgot to mention PFS. Hey, PS, how are you doing on that?].

What Maricello and I have in common is a solid background with another instrument, we take classical-type lessons regularly, practice near daily, keep in touch with and play with the local fiddle/folk instrument community, listen to the folk-type cellists, research and think for ourselves, and realize this is a slow process that will take some years to develop.

I think it’s fair to say, of the usual folk instruments, fiddle is, by far, the hardest. The coordination, ear training, precision, and touch requirements well exceed that required for the fretted instruments, like banjo and guitar. A mandolin or harp, for example, can make nice tones (in tune!) if picked or plucked by a total novice. Not so, the bowed fiddle (and the cello!). Still, a highly motivated and reasonably talented adult, taking fiddle or violin lessons, and practicing daily can be decent enough to play in jams and keep up with a good number of tunes in a year. A violin student that has, for example, completed Suzuki 1 and 2 well, is ready for fiddle tunes.

For cello, make it at least four years (for fiddle tune melodies, that is). I suggest that’s one reason why it’s not a usual folk instrument. Some may dispute it, but for us, typical fiddle tunes are as hard, or harder, than a typical fast movement of a Vivaldi sonata, or a typical student concerto/sonata piece that you’d find in, say, Suzuki 5.

Why? First off, it’s the keys the tunes are usually played in. Virtually all fiddle tunes make full use of the E string (Why? ‘Cause it’s there!). We ain’t got E strings, so we shift --- lots and fast. True, for some tunes we can put it down two octaves, rather than one octave, from the fiddle, but that gives us slower response and often that gets just too slow, thick, and muddy.

Also, it’s the speed. From my own simple-minded approach, there are two basic types of folkie tempos – singing tempos and dancing tempos. For me personally, dancing tempo is where it’s at, but that’s 100-120 beats (foot steps) a minute. For reels and polkas, that’s usually four eighth notes per step. For jigs, we get a break --- only three notes per step, but they also tend to be at the upper range of dance tempos. So we’re looking at 360 to well over 400 notes a minute. It’s going to take quite some time to even be able to perform major scales at that speed, yet alone tunes, yet alone tunes that require constant changes of position, yet alone be anywhere close to in tune.

Why are we so slow? Well, for one thing, the strings are much heavier and much further from the fingerboard, so it takes us longer to finger, and longer for the string to respond. Secondly, our bow arm is not in an optimal position for speed. With their down arms near their side, fiddlers can bow single notes or shuffles very quickly by merely opening and closing their elbows a small bit. With us, we have to either awkwardly hold our arms far out to the side, or move the entire arm from the shoulder for that fast bowing.

Also, without using open strings, a fiddler can play diatonically without shifting. We cannot. We cannot go to, say, 5th position, and just stay there, unless we use the thumb, which is a quite advanced technique.

We have lots of disadvantages, which I think partially explains why there as so few successful professional cellists in the folk world.

But then, we have some advantages too, so if I haven’t scared you off I’ll write about those, maybe tomorrow.

Low Bowing Shoulder

2007-08-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

On the esteemed Cellomania blog, PFS wrote “The more relaxed the shoulder, the better the tone. Maybe Terry could explain the physics behind that.” This was in a discussion that touched on keeping a lowered shoulder. Umm, thank for the vote of confidence, PFS (I think).

I can’t exactly explain it in such a rigorous and exacting manner that it would be published in a scientific journal, but I think I can explain it well enough that it makes intuitive sense. But keep in mind, two years ago I didn’t understand it. This was something that had to be demonstrated to me, physically, for me to get, mentally.

If I rest my hand on my trusty ol’ computer keyboard and raise my shoulder, what happens? I put a more downward pressure on the keyboard. Straight down. To a neophyte cellist, this seems like a good way to add a little so-called “weight” to a cello string, too. It’s so instinctual we tend to do it automatically, without even knowing it.

One of several problems with that instinct is that the string is not horizontal, but rather at a 45 degree angle or so. The force coming from a raised shoulder is straight down, rather than into the string. That straight down force doesn’t help the rosined hair help move the string sideways very well, and not only that, the straight down force interferes with the string’s sideway motion when the string slips from the rosin hair, giving us crunchy distortion.

If instead, we pull towards ourselves, something like what we would do rowing a boat, the force is more into the string, rather than down onto the string. We get freer sideways string motion. Not only that, but we can pull on that “oar” without stiffening our shoulder, arms, and wrist, allowing fluidity in strokes, bow changes, and string crossings.

So for me now, raising the shoulder when bowing a cello makes about as much sense as raising a shoulder when pulling on a boat oar. I'll bet not many people have a problem with a stiffened, tense shoulders when rowing a boat, even though they're putting a lot of force into it. Why? 'Cause they're too busy rowing! But then, what'ch y'all think?

Basic Cello Chords

2007-08-27T09:01:00.000-07:00

[Posted a few weeks ago on Cello Chat, re-posted here for archival/later reference]

The subject of playing chords like a guitar comes up once in a while. I've started a simple chord chart that still leaves much to be desired. I lifted the diagrams from a tenor banjo site. Tenor banjo is usually (but by no means always) tuned one octave higher than cello. Unfortunately, many fingering combinations that are easy on a small fretted banjo are just not practical on cello.

I only included the most common major and minor chords, with the root as lowest note, for jams and sing-alongs. That means some are three-string chords. I also omitted 7ths because the tenor banjo fingerings a that site were mostly impractical for cello, but it should be easy to figure out how to do a 7th from the major fingering.

Note that the numbers represent frets (ours are imaginary), not fingers. Mostly it's barred finger 1, 2 for minor/3 for major, and 4.

For the 4-string chords, often you can play the 7th with finger 2 on the A-string. For the 3-string chords, you can play the 7th with finger 4 on the D-string.

Accompaniment examples with chop

2007-07-31T15:30:00.002-07:00

As I proposed in the previous post, here's a few examples accompaniment examples. Of course there can be many others, and many variations just on these, as well as patterns without chop (Which I think should be the usual).

I've put them in two categories: One set appropriate for a reel, polka, or other duple meter tune, and another set for jigs and some hornpipes (if done with a triplet meter).

Chop – Bowing down & up, as well as left & right

2007-07-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

In response to mycatmarti, here’s what I know about chop – that percussive chk sound that some cellists put into their playing at times. The effect is somewhat similar to the slap that old-time/bluegrass bassists sometimes do. Notable practitioners of the technique include Rushad Eggleston, Natalie Haas, and Dr. Renata Bratt.

In the DVD “Chops and Grooves,” Eggleston joins fiddlers Darol Anger and Casey Dreissen in demonstrating the technique. Dr. Bratt describes the technique some in her Book/CDs “The Fiddling Cellist,” and gives more examples in “Celtic Grooves for Two Cellos” which includes some of the patterns Natalie Haas plays.

Chops are not played alone, but together with normal notes as part of a rhythmic pattern called a “groove”. I will attempt to explain how the technique is performed, but direct observation and instruction with someone already adept at the technique is far better. To begin, I’ll describe four types of chop:

The hard chop is executed by bringing the bow straight down hard, just an inch or so from the frog and close to the bridge, striking the strings (usually the C and G strings) from above at an angle and skidding to a stop. The skid into the string across the windings produces a chk sound. This is the most common chop.

A soft chop can executed in much the same way but by bringing the bow with less force, and further from the bridge.

Another chop, the up-bow chop, is a yet softer sound. It can be executed by scraping the bow back up off the string, usually immediately after a hard chop. The result of a hard chop followed by an up-bow chop is a chk-a sound.

Yet another type of chop is the ghost chop. The ghost chop makes no sound, but that’s ok. It’s just a light bounce off the strings as a place-keeper, to physically maintain a constantly flowing rhythm in the hand. As Rushad puts it, "Feel the boogie."

I think the most important thing to point out about the chop is that a little goes a long way. Too much gets annoying real fast.

Here an audio example with chop from a CD by Dr. Bratt, with Rushad and guitarist Jim Lewis: a pleasant rendition of that good ol’ standard, Cripple Creek. Notice how well they integrate chop into the normal notes.

Chop is relatively new, the exact technique for executing chop has not been codified, so there’s considerable variation in the way the motion is executed. Rushad uses a lot of finger motion, extending his fingers down quite straight in order to strike the strings. Natalie, on the other hand, uses her her whole arm to bring the bow down, with virtually no finger action that I can see.

From observations at a New Directions Cello Festival workshop lead by Natalie with assistance from Dr. Bratt, the problem most beginners have with executing chop is that the bow bounces off the string instead of sinking into it. If the bow bounces off the string, there’s no chk sound.

Why the bounce? I've found that the bow bounces when the the wrist is too tense. If the wrist is tight, like a stretched rubber band, well sure, the bow/hand/arm combination just bounces right off. To sink into the string on a chop requires a wrist that gives; one that acts like a shock absorber rather than a spring.

Those who ride horses Western-style will understand exactly what I mean. Especially at the trot, a beginner's butt bounces unmercifully against the saddle: SMACK– SMACK – SMACK… Ouch!!! Why? Because the rider’s calves are tight. Beginner’s legs act like rubber bands, propelling frightened, hapless novices up into the air with each horse stride. And what goes up, must come down. Hard. The competent rider bounces very little because his calves stretch but stay relaxed, acting like slack, compliant shock absorbers, ever yielding to the horse’s motion. So too, with the chop. The wrist must yield; in just the right way.

I find I cannot chop well with finger extension alone, as Rushad seems to do. I need a whole arm approach. Something like the motion of slapping one's thigh with the heel of the hand.

Watch Natalie in this YouTube video (The chop pattern starts about one third into the video): Fraser and Haas. I’ll think you’ll come to the same conclusion I do. Note that, unlike Rushad, she strikes the string far from the bridge. Her petite, light bow arm and hand come down so easily and effectively her C string usually clacks against the fingerboard. Powerful --- but no bounce.

If there's interest, I'll post some groove patterns in music notation.

Who's who in Folk Cello

2007-07-24T14:52:00.000-07:00

At times I'm amazed at the number of people that play cello at some level. And so many that are really very good! Many are college trained to some degree. And many that play professionally or semi-professionally at one level or another. And there will be no shortage in the foreseeable future: so many children study cello!

Yet, it seems to me, in the folk-related genres there really are very few widely-known cellists. I have some ideas on why this is so; some of those thoughts may be considered fighting words if expressed within some circles, but I'll float some of them in a future post.

Ok, so who, exactly, is out there, playing/recording at a professional level in a folk-related genres? Well, here's some names, listed in categories of my own choosing. Perhaps readers will want to add a few (names and/or categories):

The Classicists: Those whose playing is generally consistent with mainstream classically-oriented cello.

- Abby Newton Performing since 1973. Contributed to over 70 recordings. Largely Celtic repertoire. Currently with violinist David Greenberg and harpist Kim Robertson playing "Baroque-folk."

- Nancy Blake Performing since 1974. Married to well-known fiddler/mandolinist Norman Blake. Also plays guitar and other instruments. Largely Americanna repertoire.

- Barry Phillips Performing since 1980's. Cellist/arranger/producer working with a loosely affiliated group of folk musicians centered around Santa Cruz, CA. Repertoire has spanned many traditions and countries of origin.

- Yo-Yo Ma In addition to so many unique projects - Americanna with Mark O'Connor & Edgar Meyer, and with Alison Krause; Central Asian with the Silk Road Project.

The Young Groovers: Those who emphasize driving rhythms and rock-influenced groove patterns.

- Rushad Eggleston Also a singer/songwriter. Works with some very well-known multi-genre fiddlers. Includes some jazz, blues, and other more modern idioms.

- Natalie Haas Plays with Alasdair Frasier, typically as a twosome, Mark O'Connor, and others. Repertoire is largely 18th/19th century Scottish, with some 20th century compositions consistent with that style, but modernized by her high-energy bass/rhythm grooves.

Up and coming college student: Ariel Friedman. Plays/records with her sister Mia, and with Hanneke Cassel.

The Folk Singers: Those who are predominately folk-style singer/songwriters.

- Lindsay Mac Folk/pop singer/songwriter with jazz & rock elements. Her songs are often stories, sometimes autobiographical.

- Caroline Lavelle Sings and writes in the English/Irish tradition. Also has performed with Loreena McKennitt and with the Chieftains in what she describes as Chamber-Folk.

- Ben Sollee Appalachian-influenced singer/songwriter. Also performs in a quartet with banjoists Abigail Washburn and Bela Fleack, and fiddler Casey Dreissen.

The Educators: Those who are primarily educators. At present, I have only entry.

- Renata Bratt President of the International Association for Jazz Education String Caucus, chair of the 2007 American String Teachers Association Alternative String Styles Steering Committee and vice-president of the Kuumbwa Jazz Center Board in Santa Cruz. Writes articles, books, records CD, and conducts workshops for students and teachers. Researches and teaches techniques commonly employed by folk-oriented cellists, but omitted from classically-oriented cello pedagogy.

The One-and-Only's: Those in a category all by themselves.

Sean Grissom, the "Cajun Cellist". Fiddle tunes and music similar to fiddle tunes, strongly influenced by Cajun-style fiddling. Features double shuffles, blues notes, and slides.

There they are, until you give me more names to add. I have not included studio musicians that to play on some folk-related recordings, or on folk band tours, but rather have a focus in music written and traditionally played by regular, non-classically trained folk. Nor have I included players like Denise Djokic (as much as I like what she does) that play formally-composed classical music that was originally inspired by folk music.

So who else should I have included?

Most Influential Musician of the 20th Century

2007-07-12T19:07:00.000-07:00

Last night I excused myself early from a small group practice (they only wanted me for my washtub bass playing, anyway) so that I could run home and see a PBS documentary on legendary guitarist/recording artist Les Paul. I already had some idea of his significance in the evolution of music genres, music technology, and the recording industry, but I found out he's even more important than I had realized. He was first to figure out how to do so many things that are common place now. Plus, he's a genuine real nice guy.

At 92, he still plays in a night club in NY. Plays well, too. No, not the stunningly fast, virtuoso sort of things he astonished the world with in the 40's and 50's, but he's still classy, artistic, and a joy to listen to.

First to over-dub. First to make and play solid body guitars. If not the first to make garage-band recordings, he certainly gave the idea respectability. The Capital records he made with wife Mary Ford were recorded all over the house -- bathroom, kitchen, living room anywhere. They even went out searching for homes for just the right acoustics. Capital publicized the fact that just husband and wife, working by themselves, recorded so many No. 1 hit records just in different rooms of their home, not even bothering to drive down to the studios.

So, Most Influential Musician of the 20th Century? What about bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones? What did the Beatles play at their first gig? --- How High the Moon. Keith Richardson, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, B.B. King, and so many others idolized, were inspired by, and longed to be like Les Paul.

Even though Paul playing might usually be nominally categorized as "jazz", I think it's fair to say it was Paul's imaginative new techniques and his over-laying of guitar tracks to form a new type of all-guitar orchestra that made the guitar the dominating instrument of the 20th century, clearing the way for Rock n' Roll, Rhythm and Blues, Country-Western, and leading into what would become Heavy Metal, Punk, and other off-shoots.

Trip to Pennsylvania canceled

2007-07-07T15:58:00.000-07:00

Father - daughter problems. I'm pretty sad about it, but, I can't fix it. She's 12 and impossible.

Farther Than the Sun

2007-07-06T18:16:00.000-07:00

Readers of this blog back some time ago might remember that the event that put me over the edge and drove me to try to learn cello was a Chieftains concert with Caroline Lavelle sitting in on cello as something of replacement for pianist/harpist Derek Bell. The six of them were having a great time on stage.

Most folks probably never heard of her, the Chieftains "discovered" her busking, someplace in London, I believe.

Here's a video of her in Monterrey with a guest cellist of her own on YouTube (If you'r confused at first, that's because it starts out with a BMW ad)

Farther Than the Sun

Snap went the Cello

2007-07-05T10:07:00.000-07:00

My starter cello which served me for 3 years, and for which I paid a whopping $139 (plus $40 shipping, don't forget!), is now in two pieces. I'm sad.

I was in the last stages of proof-of-concept for my grand D-I-Y 5-string conversion scheme. I was gradually tuning the five strings up to pitch. The G string was still low. As I turned the G-string peg, the neck neatly snapped off. Foop. Oh well, for now it's a disproof-of-concept.

The break is nearly all on the glue boundary, only a little spot of wood separated. Maybe it can be glued back. But if it's glued back, can the joint be made substantially stronger? Should/can the old glue be removed?

I'm leaving on a week trip to PA soon, so it'll have to wait.

CTMS Summer Solstice Festival

2007-06-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, Mrs. and I drove up to the California Traditional Music Society's Summer Solstice Folk Music, Dance and Storytelling Festival. This year it was held at the Warner Center Marriott in Woodland Hills, CA.

In previous years it was held on the grounds of Soka University in Calabasas. Soka has moved to Orange County; those beautiful garden grounds now belong to the State of California. I don't like it in the hotel. As large as the hotel it is, it's too crowded. Too much overflow of sound from one group and workshop into another. I was playing in an outside jam session and a presenter came from around the corner and said the guitars and dulcimer and fiddle were OK, but the sound of the cello carried too much and interfered with their story telling. I moved further around the corner of the hotel building and tried to play quieter. Still a problem; I had to move inside to a different session. These darn, booming, excessively loud cellos! ;-) I was told that inside four walls the problem is reversed and it's the high fiddle notes that carry too much.

In the main lobby I participated in some of the scheduled jams. In the Blues Jam, I took an improvised solo chorus and I didn't do well. I rushed it and it came out sounding, well, dorky. A while later I tried again and the results were very different. Somehow, that one clicked. A fortuitous accident! When I finished I heard several compliments and at least one participant gave me a big thumbs up. One particpant later told my wife I done good. Move over, horns and git-tars, cello can play the blues, too!

For Maricello, who seems to be an East Coast counter-part: Absolutely, I have that book. Great stuff. I've worked on a few of the pieces. Maybe soon I'll play one in public. I also have the Ferintosh CD. Very different, in some ways more serious and artistic. The three make for some interesting chemistry. Let us know in your blog how it goes at Scottish Fiddle Camp.

The Lady that Brought Cello Back

2007-06-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

In 1973, an upstate New York band named Putnam String County Band (Note that word order) was, to my knowledge, the first American band of its kind for generations to make significant use of cello. The young cellist was Abby Newton, next door neighbor to the fiddler, the now very well-known Jay Ungar.

Ms. Newton went on to play in over 70 recordings in the folk idiom with many well-known fiddlers and singers. Her recording featuring herself on cello, Crossing to Scotland, superbly demonstrates how cello can hold its own as a solo instrument.

On YouTube, here is a recent video of Ms. Newton with David Greeenberg on fiddle and Kim Robertson on harp: Celtic Colours

The role of cello in Serenaders

2007-05-27T08:17:00.000-07:00

So what sort of parts did Henry Bogan play in the Serenaders? Bass notes. The standard one-and-five. Sometimes arco, sometimes pizz.

This was a time when fiddle was king. Out of 14 tracks, the fiddle is the only one that plays any sort of melody at all on 22 of them. The tenor banjo plays a short bit of melody on one track, and only tenor banjo (no fiddle at all) plays melody on one track: Before I Grew To Love You (I didn't detect any cello at all on Before I Grew to Love You, only tenor banjo and guitar).

The bass played, as played on the cello, does add an element that is distinctive. Bogan "propelled" the band by starting the arco notes just a smidgen ahead of the beat, yielding a "vRrruump vRrruump" sound that resembles tuba. Because tuba is slow to respond in the lower register, tubists need to stay on top of the beat. Bogan also stays on top of the beat, in keeping with the '20s style.

Another noteworthy item for me in listening to this recording is how the cello, guitar, and tenor banjo function together as a section. This ensemble knew their place, as accompaniment, and played tightly together. This style, of course, would become more emphasized in the Big Bands, where tightness as a section and as a full band became crucial in the quest for the driving but tightly-together rhythmic precision of Swing. It seems to me a contrasting style that would come a couple decades later is Bluegrass, where each individual plays a different and soloistic part, even when playing accompaniment.

A Texas String Band with Cello?

2007-05-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

When we think of depression-era string bands, we typically don’t think of cello. However, one influential band, the East Texas Serenaders, did indeed include a cellist. The Serenders are considered by some as a prototype Western Swing band, setting off a departure from standard “old-time” fiddle repertoire with a smoother, more syncopated, and more modern style.

So I recently purchased a CD of their recorded works, from 1927 – 1937, off the Internet and have been trying to learn what I can about them.

The Serenaders lived and worked in and around Lindale and originally featured left-handed, long-bow style fiddler Daniel Huggins Williams with Cloet Hamman on guitar, John Munnerlyn on tenor banjo, and Henry Bogan on cello. Later, Shorty Lester replaced Munnerlyn, who had moved to Houston, and his brother Henry Lester was added to the group.

Bogan originally played bass fiddle, but switched to cello; the bass didn't travel well on top of the car in bad weather. Like most bassists prior to the 1920’s, Bogan played with just three strings on the instrument. Naturally, Bogan and the other band members were not full-time musicians. Bogan worked for a time on a ranch near Happy, Texas, in the Panhandle, served in the Navy during World War I, worked for Wells Fargo, and worked for the post office in Mineola.

The recorded pieces consist of waltzes and rags, or rag-like melodies; mostly composed by Williams, but some by Hamman. The influence of rag-time, jazz, and pop music is strong and clear. Some of the tunes can be found today in David Brody’s Fiddler Fake Book: The Three in One Two-Step, Ozark Rag, Mineola Rag, and Beaumont Rag. Their Shannon Waltz can be found in the Smithsonian Collection of Classic Country Music, annotated by Bill C. Malone (Washington, 1981).

The Serenaders' last recordings were made in 1937. By then, the era of Western Swing Big Bands like Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and Milton Brown and the Light Crust Doughboys was well underway. These highly poplar radio swing bands would go on to attract larger crowds in many parts of the country than the convential swing bands of Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and the Dorsey brothers.

I'll have more on what the Serenader's sound like, including an opinion of the role of cello in the group, in a few days.

Observations on du Pre's playing

2007-02-27T18:07:00.000-08:00

I don't know that watching and listening to du Pre will give me any insight into her psyche, but she sure is fascinating to watch.

Duets with her Teacher

One short section of the documentary shows du Pre playing duets with William Pleeth, with du Pre playing a relatively easy 2nd part. This part was apparently filmed sometime after 1967 (when she was 22) because du Pre is wearing a wedding band.

Du Pre engages in exaggerated body movements, up and down, side to side, and twists, with very strong, forceful bow strokes. She appears to bounce off the seat; her cello a moving target. It brings to mind Horst's words, "... she played with brute force, sacrificing sound quality and technical precision." I'll say!

Pleeth seems to be completely at home with this behavior. I have to wonder, were these motions her idea, or did Pleeth have her do this as a way of warming up? Might this have been Pleeth's instructions to students to prevent tentative playing?

I have to think so, because most teachers with any sort of pride are not going to want their students seen doing something wrong. I have to think this is part of exactly what Pleeth taught her to do, and this was something they had done many times before.

Then there's that distinctive left hand position. Both Pleeth and du Pre often have the left hand base knuckles slanted out from the side of the fingerboard at about a 45 degree angle, even in first position. The hand is at the same angle to the fingerboard at 1st position that it would be at mid-string or further. And so, du Pre often extends 2nd finger forward rather than 1st back, even in 1st position, although she does extend 1st finger back on occasion.

I can see how it is helpful in large shifts; her hand simply falls or lifts with no change in orientation to the fingerboard. But she sure has to move a lot to get 4th finger back into the game. No wonder she engages in such wild body movements!

Du Pre's Bow Changes

Zambo, at one point, writes "if you know well how to throw, then you know well how to make an excellent bow change!"

I'm not so sure that's completely true, but in watching the du Pre DVD one can see elements in common; especially if you put it on slow motion. Du Pre curls in tight for the wind-up. Shoulder, elbow, and wrist bend and fold in close to the body. Then wham, she punches it all back out. It all unfolds, from the torso out like a horse whip uncurling, until it hits the end, bounces back and comes rolling in tight again. Hypnotic to watch.

My teacher once told me her quickest learning adult student had been a boxer. I can see the similarities there. See, I should've paid more attention to those late night boxing bouts my dad used to watch when I was a kid.

Latissimus Dorsi

When I first started cello, I didn't understand at all how back muscles were relevant. In the last year, I can't understand how I could not have understood.

One of the things that make watching women cellists more interesting than men is the relative lack of clothing. Now here me out on this. With a sleeveless gown one can easily see the lattissmus dorsi muscles, which insert into the upper part of the humerus (just beyond her underarm), become taut and then loosen. Constantly working. The Elgar portion of the video provides some especially good views from, what in the Navy we would call, her Port Quarter: From behind on her left by about 45 degrees. One can easily see the muscle under her arm extending down to where her bra comes around the back, alternately tighten hard and then release. I think if you wanted to explain to someone what the back muscles do on cello, this would do it for you.

So, maybe someone here can see the video or the Schubert Quintet video (I've yet to see it but intend to soon) and provide some additional comments, if not soon, in the next few months or whenever.

Jacqueline du Pre In Portrait DVD

2007-02-20T17:41:00.000-08:00

(This was also posted at CBN, with minor changes.)

I’ve rented the 2004 DVD “Jacqueline du Pre In Portrait” from Netflix. It is a combination of two BBC films, both produced by Christopher Nupen in the late 1960’s, and both with recently filmed introductions by Nupen describing the circumstances of the films.

Knowing virtually nothing about Ms. du Pre, I’ve always skipped over the JDP Wars of the past on Cello Chat. I thought maybe this DVD would give me some insight into why du Pre is so greatly admired, and, so intensely disliked.

Well, the book certainly fulfilled Part I, that is, I can clearly see why she was so popular and is still fondly remembered. On Part II, i.e., why she is so intensely disliked, it failed completely. So, I still don’t get it.

I’m not complaining. To be sure, Nupen’s DVD is completely pro-du Pre. None of those sordid details of her personal life are mentioned, and I’m just as glad they aren’t. Instead, the DVD celebrates her accomplishments and is an entirely pleasant way to spend an evening. Other than introductory and background information, the bulk of the DVD is du Pre playing the Elgar Concerto with the New Philharmonia Orchestra, and du Pre with Barenboim and Zuckerman playing the Beethoven “Ghost” trio. I’m not as big a fan of most classical music as many of you, but I liked the DVD so much I’ve ordered a copy from Amazon.com.

Nupen’s opening remarks to the Elgar Concerto documentary describe how du Pre fit in very well with what the BBC was looking for at the time. The documentary was an opportunity to use a newly invented silent 16mm camera. For the first time a cameraman could film very close to musicians without camera noise. The extreme close-in shots of du Pre playing the concerto photograhed from within the orchestra, and various other scenes taken within tight places, such as her playing in a train, and in duets with William Pleeth, would not have been possible before.

And, well, du Pre is fascinating to watch: Whole body motions, facial expressions, distinctive and graceful arm flows. Soon, maybe tomorrow, I hope to describe describe what I observed about du Pre’s playing.

Links to my last reference

2007-02-15T20:19:00.000-08:00

Sorry Seylan, I seemed to have foolishly assumed that everybody would know what I mean by CBN - the Cellists By Night Board maintained by the Internet Cello Society. I meant to put the links in.

The posts in question are Beginnings of a Musical Theory Board Game? and Herr Bach's Wild Ride.

My best writing yet?

2007-02-15T08:52:00.000-08:00

Perhaps inspired by Peter Schickele, and after a week and a half of sorting and clarifying things in my mind, I made a couple of humorous posts on CBN regarding a "Transit Map" illustrating normal and alternate chord progressions. The first post displays and explains the map, the second uses the map to walk through the Prelude of Bach's 1st Cello Suite.

Even if no one ever reads and understands them, I'm really pleased with those posts. Maybe the best writing I've done on those boards since starting over 3 years ago.

Yes, I know, they are really difficult to read. I'd guess it would take someone over an hour to absorb them, and that's only if they already have enough musical theory background.

And yes, it was a lot of effort, not in the writing but in the thinking --- away from the computer. But I wouldn't have gone through the thinking if I wasn't intent on writing it down, and I wouldn't have been intent on writing it down unless there was the possibility someone out in cyberland would read it and taste the same little hint of insight I feel I had.

The need to share ideas, even wacky home-brewed ideas, is a powerful thing.

A Road to Cello - Chapter 5

2007-02-11T08:22:00.000-08:00

Yes, we are finally approaching an end to this terribly long-winded story.

After hearing Barry Phillips' cello on that CD, I became more aware of cello on a few other tapes my fiance had: Barry Phillips on Northern Lights and Orison, and a few a couple of other tapes with other cellists.

Then, about one month later, my fiance and I attended a Chieftains concert. Before the concert I was aware of that fact that Derek Bell, long-time harpist with the Chieftains, had passed away the preceding October. The Chieftain's U.S. concert tour went on without that formerly crucial member.

When we arrived I was surprised to discover that, for the most part, a cellist substituted for Bell --- Caroline Lavelle. Ms. Lavelle did not play in everything, but in quite a bit of the Chieftain repertoire. She also sang a few solos accompanying herself on cello, standing, with an exceptionally long endpin.

She played pizzicato bass, bowed bass and middle harmony lines, and even fast melodies. I was particularly struck at how she played Give the Fiddler a Dram (sort of a Chieftains' "theme song") with them, at tempo (which is very fast), zipping up and down the fingerboard with apparent effortless. Hey, I thought, fiddle tunes that go beyond 1st position can be done at tempo!

As you might imagine, the typical crowd at a Chieftain's concert is more, ummm, expressive than the genteel, well-heeled audience at a typical Classical concert. As the concert develops, both audience and performers get caught up in the excitement. As part of that, the cello rocked! While flute and Uillean pipes and fiddle player made great sounds but, as seen from a distance, hardly moved, Ms. Lavelle physically propelled the band "Down The Old Plank Road".

Ok, maybe fate was telling me something here. I had to at least try the instrument out, even though I doubted I could sustain the effort for more than a few months. I visited a few music stores, not knowing which stores carried cellos, and didn't see anything appropriate. Then I looked on Ebay and saw slews of cheap cellos. Since I couldn't imagine that I would keep it up more than a few months, maybe weeks, and if I did keep going, I could get a real instrument without losing much of an investment, I bought cello and bow on Ebay for $139 + $40 shipping. Of course, at the time I realized I should get a teacher, but I had no idea where to find one. Later.

I know, I know, I did exactly, PRECISELY, what scores of Cello Chatters warn NOT to do! At the time, I had no idea Cello Chat existed. Shucks, I didn't know anything at all when that big box landed on my front porch.

Houston, We Have a Problem!

2007-02-08T19:25:00.000-08:00

First, I want to say: Hi Maricello, Wecome. I want to get back to Maricello's question of ornament in accompaninent. I'm thinking the answer is mostly no, but maybe we can think of some exceptions. Maricello has her own blog, Cello Centered, at maricello.blogspot.com.

Ok, as promised, I have seen Peter Schickele's DVD, Houston, We have a Problem! Yes, there are quite a few lame gags and excessively silly spots. But for me, there's also quite a few worthwhile laughs, too.

Professor Schikele, while also a serious composer, has been a major recording artist in the field of musical satire for 40 years. His shtick, in case you've been living under a rock those 40 years, is as the discoverer, biographer, and researcher of the previously unknown 18th century composer P.D.Q. Bach, love child of Johann Sebastian.

The DVD is of a recent concert in Houston. The orchestra that participates and plays along with Schikele's merry antics is identified only as Orchestra X. Except for the conductor, and an elderly beret-ed accordian player, the orchestra is all college kids. Clearly, they are having a blast. It's all the more enjoyable to remember being that young and having that much enjoyment out of band. Ah, to be young, with boundles energy, a sense of humor, and no pretensions of maturity to maintain.

For me, the best part of the DVD is the Unbegun Symphony, which only has a 3rd and 4th movement. P.D.Q. is alleged to have never written an original note in his life. While some composers are known to have stolen a theme or two from other composers, P.D.Q. is the only composer to have composed major works entirely on tracing paper. The Unbegun Symphony is a sophisticated pastische of well-known classics and popular songs of the past. It opens by interweaving a section of the Mozart Jupiter symphony; Du, Du Liegst Mir In Herzen; and Cieito Lindo all together. One of my favorite spots is when the the horns are playing that well-known part of the 1812 Overture while the lower strings are playing Schubert's 9th Symphony and the high strings are playing You Are My Sunshine. Smultaneously. Great stuff.

Also a treat were the vocal duets and trios in Odden and Enden on the bonus features portion of the DVD. Also, the interview of Schickele on KUHT. Schickele relates how he started these shenanigan's in college as a composition student, such as discovering that a part of the Bach cello suites goes together perfectly with the then-popular pop song Brazil.

The New Horizon's in Music Appreciation skit, however, along with other portions of the DVD, get just too silly. Sight gags were added that wouldn't have made sense in an audio recording, but are just too much over the top for my taste.

Below is a list of the pieces on the DVD:

“Desecration of the House” Overture

Schleptet in Eb major, S. 0
- Molto Larghissimo—Allegro Boffo
- Menuetto con Brio ma Senza Trio
- Adagio Saccharino
- Yehudi Menuetto
- Presto Hey Nonny Nonnio

Iphigenia in Brooklyn, S. 53,162
- I. Trumpet Involuntary
- II. Aria: “When Hyperion”
- III. Recitative: “And Lo!”
- IV. Ground: “Dying”
- V. Recitative: “And in a vision”
- VI. Aria: “Running”

“Unbegun” Symphony
- III. Minuet
- IV. Andante—Allegro

New Horizons in Music Appreciation
- Allegro con brio from Symphony No. 5 in c minor (Beethoven)

Fuga Meshuga, from The Musical Sacrifice, S. 50% off

The Seasonings, S. 1 1/2 tsp.
- Chorus: “Tarragon of virtue is full”
- Recitative: “And there were in the same country”
- Duet: “Bide thy thyme”
- Fugue
- Recitative: “Then asked he”
- Chorale: “By the leeks of Babylon”
- Recitative: “Then she gave in”
- Aria: “Open sesame seeds"
- Recitative: “So saying”
- Duet: “Summer is a cumin seed”
- Soloists and Chorus: “To curry favor, favor curry”

With DVD Bonus Selections:

- “Unbegun” Symphony with Theme Identifications

- Odden und Enden
- The Mule
- Three-Step Crab Dinner
- O Serpent
- Johann Sebastian Bach (Prof. Schickele)
- Please, Kind Sir, from The Art of the Ground Round

- KUHT interview with Peter Schickele

Or look at http://www.schickele.com/shoppe/houstondvd.htm for more info.

Addendum from Maynard

2007-02-03T09:45:00.000-08:00

Maynard Johnson, in reply to my email asking him how he decided what and how to play, added some additional thought which I pass on below. I'm especially amused by his second quote from C.P.E Bach down at the end. Well, I guess if an expert such as C.P.E. Bach can say that, maybe we should not be so hard on ourselves that we also have those troubles.

"One of the things that I forgot to mention in terms of technique is my sources for 18th Century technique. The Scottish Fiddle School that we work with (Jink & Diddle, after a Robert Burns poem) emphasizes Scottish 18th Century, including a few things that are probably counter to modern practice.

"Open strings are not bad. There are many times when you want to play a note with an open string and not the same note higher up on a lower string.

"Vibrato is an ornament, to be used as an ornament and not on every note that is long enough to vibrato. As I recall, the modern heavy use of vibrato did not really come into vogue until the early 20th century.

"Music is frequently not played quite the way it is written.

"A lot of the repertoire is dance music, or began as dance music, and has a pulse - emphasis and the first beat of each bar.

"Another one that I have liked is Francesco Geminiani's "Art of Playing the Violin". Geminiani was a student of Corelli who moved to England, and I tend to think of him as, like Handel, English, though he was not born in England. His 1751 book was published in English and was one of the foremost technique books of its time. Early in the book he says that it may have some value as well to those who play the cello. IF you can find a reprint in a library, take a look at what he says about playing, and about ornaments. He lists and discusses the 14 Ornaments, one of which is holding the pure note - not shakes, no trill, no vibrato (close shake).

Geminiani’s 14 Ornaments

1 Plain Shake Trillo semplice

2 Turned Shake Trillo composto

3 Superior Appogiatura

4 Inferior Appogiatura

5 Holding a Note “It is necessary to use this often, for were we to make Beats and Shakes continually without sometimes suffering the pure note to be heard, the Melody would be too much diversified.”

6 Staccato “Rest, taking Breath, or changing a Word…..where it may not interrupt the sense.”

7 & 8 Swelling and Softening the Sound

9 & 10 Piano and Forte – “..to produce the same Effects that an Orator does by raising and falling his Voice.”

11 Anticipation

12 Separation – designed to give a variety to the Melody…it will not be amiss to add a beat, and to swell the note, and then make the Appogiature to the following note…

13 Beat

14 Close Shake – Tremolo, or perhaps what we would call extreme vibrato

Then there are some nice quotes from others:

Music is invaluable where a person has an ear. It furnishes a delightful recreation for the hours of respite from the cares of the day, and lasts us throughout life. – Thomas Jefferson, 1818

Every melodic piece contains one phrase at least from which the variety of tempo of the music can be clearly recognized. This phrase…often compels one into its own natural speed. Leopold Mozart, 1756

…certain deliberate disturbances of the beat are extremely beautiful…certain notes and rests should be prolonged beyond their written length for reasons of expression (1753) The attempt should be made to hold the tempo of a piece just as it was at the start, which is a very difficult achievement. (1787) C.P.E. Bach

Ben Franklin – folk cello aficionado

2007-01-30T21:49:00.000-08:00

Maynard’s mentioned James Oswald. In case you’ve never heard of that famed cellist, let me you about him, by way of Benjamin Franklin.

Since I was seven years-old I’ve admired and wanted to be like ol’ Ben (Hey, I’m from Philly, what would you expect --- all the sports teams were in the cellar through the entire 60’s.)

Now, for much of his life, Ben Franklin was a Londoner wannabe. He was enthralled with all things English, and with London, his perceived center of the cultural Universe. In 1757, after becoming a wildly successful businessman; postmaster; inventor; brilliant scientist; highly acclaimed author and publisher; founder of fire and insurance companies, libraries and numerous organizations for the public good; lead perhaps the first environmental protest ever; recipient of at least three honorary doctorates, and only the most famous American, by far, the world over, Dr. Franklin traveled to London to represent his home, the ever loyal American colonies. He was considering staying in London permanently.

London was not impressed with this uppity commoner, but then soon, neither was Franklin with London, who saw the aristocratic system there as hopelessly corrupt. By 1774, he would be publicly condemned and humiliated before London's Privy Council. The next day he fled England convinced that the colonies must become an independent nation, and the rest, as they say, is history.

But back to music. Franklin was fortunate enough, by our standards, to have heard G.F. Handel’s last concert. He didn’t care for it. Too much repetition. He felt it was indicative of a lack of intelligence.

But he was very impressed indeed with a different court composer – James Oswald. Oswald was an import to the court from Scotland. In addition to composing, Oswald played cello, and collected and published folk tunes of his homeland (They are still available, I have his book “A Curious Collection of Scots Tunes” in PDF format). In a letter to Lord Kames, Franklin remarked that when a musician named James Oswald played tunes on his cello, the crowds fell in love with it so much that he witnessed "tears of pleasure in the eyes of his auditors".

But don’t just believe me, go to http://www.whyy.org/artsandculture/stories.html , do a Find on Franklin, and listen to two of Franklin’s favorite Oswald tunes, one of which is performed beautifully on solo viola da gamba.

The Kitchen Musicians

2007-01-27T06:56:00.000-08:00

For, I guess, nearing 20 years now, Sara and Maynard Johnson have published books and recordings, and performed at re-enactments and historically themed events. They perform and publish music of the Renaissance through to the American Civil War. They also publish articles on the music and customs of those periods.

Sara plays various hammer dulcimers, harpischord, spinet, piano, cittern, and pocket fiddle (also called a kit or pochette). Maynard plays recorders and flageolets (aka whistles) of various types, cittern, and English guitar. Together with a variety of others, depending upon the venue, they make up the group Rogue's Consort.

Their web site, www.kitchenmusician.net, has long been a source for others who play that kind of music, especially for the hammer dulcimer community.

A few weeks ago I was alerted, through a hammer dulcimer friend, who learned about it through a hammer dulcimer web list, that the Kitchen Musician site has a new CD, Oceans So Green, with cello on it.

Well, this was something new. None of their other recordings had cello, but sure enough, Maynard played cello on this new CD. The music they perform is what we do, so to keep abreast of the field, I ordered that CD along with their previous one, Pass'd Times. I've heard them now, and: Well done, Maynard! While I wasn't around back then, it seems to me this CD shows very well what role cello would play in this genre during that period.

About half the tracks of Oceans So Green have cello to one degree or another; on some it's hardly noticeable. Two of the tracks, Carolan's Receipt and The Night Before Larry Was Stretched, have very prominent pizzicato cello melody. Their website contains a sample of The Night Before Larry Was Stretched.

Now, Maynard is clearly not a conservatory-trained cellist practicing the great classical concertos 6 hours a day. He's a relative beginner playing in a physical manner that departs from modern orthodox cello technique. But then, the real people that played this music those centuries ago had hard lives with hard labor day jobs, limited education opportunities, and very limited spare time. That's the true HIPP!

I've been in contact with Maynard, and I'd like to conclude with his own words:

"I started playing cello before we recorded the Pass'd Times Album, just didn't use it on the album.

"We have been going to the Jink & Diddle School of Scottish Fiddling for 15 years or so. Since I don't play fiddle, I had tried playing accompaniment on guitar or ten string cittern, but wasn't happy with that. A lot of the music published by 18th century fiddlers includes a bass line, often described as for violincello, harpschord or pianoforte. The great 18th century Scottish Fiddler, Niel Gow, often played with his brother Donald accompanying him on cello. There's a painting of them which also appears on Highland Games T-shirts. Donald is the one playing cello in a kilt, with baroque grip (no end pin) and underhand viol grip on the bow.

"I've also seen other pictures of 18th century cellist playing in the same position. It's not surprising, since the bass viola da gamba is about dead on the size of a cello, and had no end pin. Neither did the cello until maybe about 1800. Some of the old descriptions refer to the cello as the "bass". In an age when your primary method of transport was your feet, a cello is about as big as anyone could handle.

"Since we perform in a variety of historic settings for that time period, I wanted to stick with the period style as much as possible. We often perform as a trio, with Sara on hammered dulcimer, Michael Thompson (or John, or Carmen) on fiddle, and me on cello. Paul Gifford's book on the history of the hammered dulcimer says that a typical performance ensemble for dulcimer in the 1700s was dulcimer, fiddle and cello.

"As a practical matter, when the cello is in a viol or baroque position, underhand bow grip makes a lot of sense. With a baroque grip, the strings are almost straight up and down, and with a modern overhand bow grip, gravity is NOT your friend; the bow wants to slide down to the floor. A practical advantage of my archaic playing style is that I take up a lot less floor space than a cellist with an end pin. When you are playing for gambols in Colonial Williamsburg's Chowning's Tavern, having a small footprint is essential. An end pin would be a safety hazard.

"Some of my backup style comes from instinct, and years of playing and teaching backup guitar for dances and instrumental folk music in the 80s and 90s. And some of it comes from the bass lines written in the music from the 1700s. On the Oceans so Green CD, on those tunes identified as Bunting's arrangement, the cello backup is from Bunting's bass line. On So Merrily Dance the Quaker, the cello line comes from Henry Beck's copybook. Both Bunting and Beck has some bass line ideas that I had not thought of on my own.

"One of the things I love about cello in this setting is that it is much lower in pitch than typical folk backup instruments, such as guitar. It thus almost never doubles with or overlaps the melody notes of the dulcimer or fiddle, and it gives the combined performance a much fuller tonal range. And unlike a guitar, the cello can do pizzacato bassline, detache bowed notes, or long bow slurred notes, or a bowed ground, which makes it more flexible.

"Sometimes I do have to remind myself that I am not the lead instrument. "Remember, you're not Pablo Casals or Yo-Yo Ma; or even James Oswald; you're Donald Gow and you are playing bass accompaniment." And when, like Donald Gow, I play wearing a kilt, I have to remind myself about how to sit down and how to stand up and where the cello should be at which times.

"My cello is a late 19th century Mittenwald instrument, and has pretty good projection and tone, so I can play bass under or behind several fiddles and still hear myself and be heard. My bow is a snakewood bass gamba bow from Shar. My case is a beat up and sprung fiberglass monster that is waiting for Shar to have another sale on cello cases.

I've been hoping that some junior high and high school history teachers will find out about the album and use it as we approach St. Patrick's Day."

A Road to Cello - Chapter 4

2007-01-24T07:38:00.000-08:00

Lesseee, I left off in the fall of 2002 playing my home-made fixed-neck washtub bass. It was interesting and different, but it wasn't completely satisfying. I still intended to start anew on a real instrument; I just hadn't decided what. Fiddle had some appeal, but it seemed so difficult; everything goes so fast and fiddle is so hard at first. I had heard beginning fiddlers, ummm, well, it's obviously a long learning curve. None of the other commonly heard instruments were calling out to me yet.

At the time my fiance was interested in starting hammer dulcimer. That instrument had long had a special appeal to her. So one day I went down to a local folkie instrument shop to look at hammer dulcimers for her. I didn't buy one then, but a CD caught my eye, "Simple Gifts" by a group of musicians in Santa Cruz, containing a collection of Shaker tunes. I recognized many of the names of the players from my fiance's old, worn, tapes that we played on long car trips. At the time I vaguely knew the Shakers had left behind a large body of tunes which intrigued Aaron Copland; Simple Gifts was merely the best known because he included it in both Appalachian Spring and his Old American Songs. The CD had hammer dulcimer in it, along with Appalachian dulcimer, flute, alto flute, English horn, violin, viola, mandolin, harp, bowed psaltery, spoons, cello, steel-string and classical guitar, and I forget what else. The arrangements were written by the guitar player, William Coulter, and the cellist, Barry Phillips. I thought maybe she would really like this, and we certainly could use a CD of the Santa Cruz gang instead of those old cassette tapes from the 80's.

When we played it, I was more than impressed. What a superb tribute to those social pioneers! In tune, cleanly played, expertly and imaginatively arranged, with respect and enthusiasm for the values of a humble, devout, plain-living frontier people (when Ohio and Indiana and Kentucky was the frontier) who lived and worshipped by the beat of their own original heaven-sent songs and dances.

Coulter and Phillips had both earned MMs at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Coulter's degree is in guitar performance, Phillips' is in composition.

Then there was the cello. Of the CD's 20 tunes on 11 tracks, the cello has the melody on only four of the simple diatonic tunes, usually for only a short time. Elsewhere it plays modest accompaniment, or not at all. All of it sounded so easy, as if no effort or technical difficulty was involved at all -- as easy as singing in the shower, yet, I couldn't take my ears off of it.

(At the time it wouldn't have meant anything to me, but Phillips had been a cello student of Irene Sharp at San Francisco, who in turn was a student of Margaret Rowell.)

And the cello, as played by Phillips, provided something something I had not heard much in folkie music: Inversions! Everything wasn't all 1-5-1-5... ad tedium. The bass lines, pizz or arco, were melodic, adding depth to the already existing height and width of the tunes. It brought class to folk.

One place the cello does play melody is in the Shaker version of the Lord's Prayer (Our Savior's Universal Prayer). It's slow; the notes go only from G at the bottom of bass clef to A at the top of bass clef. Yet, for me it was one of the best parts of the CD. It so evokes an image of an old God-fearing man singing the sacred words in an original ad hoc melody rising directly from his heart.

Too bad I didn't know any cellists; a cello is an arranger's dream, I thought. And for me to start cello was out of the question. Too old... I don't know where to start... I don't know who could teach me... Too out of the mainstream for the musicians I know... Way too expensive... Even more way too time consuming... Ah, but if only I had life to do over again...

A little research revealed that cello tuning would make most of tunes played in the groups and jams I knew very difficult, if not impractical. A lot of shifting at very high speed. It just didn't seem workable.

That CD is still available, or you can hear some samples, each of which has cello in the accompaniment, at Simple Gifts. One can also download it from iTunes. No, I don't get a cut ;-)

Let's Have Jam for Breakfast

2007-01-18T18:07:00.000-08:00

Those who read Cello Chat might understand why I call this "Wrong Seating #74."

This is from New Year's Camp, taken by the dulcimer player's husband. It looks like one of the breakfast jams in the dining hall. Ok, LA Chamber Orchestra we ain't, but we's is havin' fun anyways. Why am I sitting up front? I much prefer my usual place, way in the back.

Teamwork: the 4th Element?

2007-01-15T07:02:00.000-08:00

In a very basic music theory or appreciation class, one learns that the essential elements of music are rhythm, melody, and harmony. Rhythm evokes tension and release in the mind of the listener by a series of tones that come to rest on an agogic accent. Melody evokes tension and release by combining the rhythm with a curve of successive prominent pitches that come to a rest at the end of a phrases. Harmony evokes tension and release by the perceived instability and stability of simultaneous, or near simultaneous, tones.

And that's enough to call it music. No more is strictly necessary.

But I suggest there is another element that many of us crave from music. I think of it as teamwork. It's not all that different from the sort of teamwork one sees on the sports field. The changes of musical focus: anticipation, cooperation, resolution; produce an ebb and flow not unlike the tension and release produced by the other elements.

In the Banshee in the Kitchen! workshop one could hear how ebb and flow affect their decision making. Three players - three inter-player relationships. Each player's decision on what to play cannot be made in a vacuum, the relationships to the other two players must be considered.

They might not like me saying so, but their workshop reminded me of the 30-some year old P.D.Q. Bach "New Horizons in Music Apprciation" skit. It's a "concert-cast" of the 1st movement of Beethoven's 5th symphony. If you've never heard it, you just must go order it now! Peter Shickele and Robert Dennis provide a play-by-play running commentary on the composition and performance as if it were a ball game. Absolutely hysterical!

As farcical as it is, it speaks truth. There is a game going on there on the stage. The "ball," i.e. musical focus, moves from section to section, with tension and release between players and sections as they follow the game plan. And when it all works, it is a joy to behold.

It's been quite a few years since I've heard it, but some lines still stand out in my memory. Below I attempt to recall and paraphrase some excerpts that remain lodged in my mind:

Orchestra: Ta-ta-ta-taaaaa... Do-do-do-doooo...

Shickle: "And they're OFF on a four-note theme!

Orchestra continues....

Shickle: "Oh, it's very exciting. The start of a symphony is always very exciting, but I don't know if it's slow or fast yet because it keeps stopping!"

. . .

French horn warbles on entrance...

Shickele: "Wow, Bob, did you hear that! That horn player really fumbled that note. I think that was number 61, wasn't it, Bob?"

Dennis: "Yes, Pete, that was Bobbie Corno and that's his 4th major flub of the season, which gives him a solo average of .8753 which is pretty darn low for a 1st chair player, but he's popular with the fans and he's really strong in the long concertos, so maybe they'll keep him around for another season, on the other hand..."

. . .

Shickele: "That sound like a recap. Is it time for a recap, Bob?"

Dennis: "Well, yes, Pete, the average symphony has a recap just after the 1st quarter and this one's falling right into line."

. . .

Shickele: "The strings are cutting up that theme into little pieces. It's getting downright lethargic down there, if you want to know the truth.... [Brass entrance] The brasses have tried to wake them up, a welcome relief, but to no avail."

. . .

Shickele: "Nobody but nobody knows where the theme is down there. Why, the players are as lost as we are. Wait a minute! Wait a minute!!! The brasses have got a hold of that theme! The brasses have got a hold of that theme and THEY ARE NOT GOING TO LET GO!!!"

. . .

Shickele: "... and it's tutti all way and it looks like they have a great symphony on their hands. But wait, I can't believe my ears, it sounds like another recap! If that happens that will be the first time in 15 years of concert casting.

Dennis: "Well, I think that's something the Composer's Commission will have to look into.

Shickele: "Right you are, Bob. Wait a minute, those are final chords, though. Is it? Wait! The referee is lowering his hands. YES!!! That is the end of the piece! The players are now taking off their helmets and acknowledging the cheers of the crowd!"

Teacher Asks

2007-01-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

My cello teacher is asking her adult students:

What particular things were you taught in the beginning that you feel were most helpful? What things do you wish you were taught earlier?

As she accumulates more adult students, she's wants to consider the issues for adults more closely.

I've placed this question on CBN, too, but perhaps I'll get different, maybe more candid, responses here.

Arrangements of Traditional Music: Good, Bad or Ugly?

2007-01-09T17:23:00.000-08:00

Many of the the tunes I accompany or play were composed by a lone singer, fiddler, harpist, or other instrumentalist and performed without harmonic accompaniment since centuries ago. Without that tradition, maintained by poor folk with bare subsistence day jobs, we wouldn't have that body of music.

Is it wrong to accompany them with a line or chord sequence that was not a part of that melody's original single-line tradition?

Is it wrong to combine different tunes into medleys? Different tunes from different countries or eras?

What of using classical Common Practice Era conventions to compose original introductions, bridges, modulations, vamps, inversions in bass lines, counter-melodies, and parallel harmonies?

What of applying modern jazz/rock/pop-derived chords, rhythms, riffs, and "grooves"?

Electronic effects? Synthesizers? Looping machines? Is it all OK? Is the David Downes' highly-produced PBS "Celtic Woman" extravaganza of "She Moved Through the Fair" with synthesizers, back-up chorus, 60-piece orchestra, and smoke machines still a traditional folk song as it stands alongside "Somewhere" from West Side Story and "Someday" from the Disney animated Hunchback of Notre Dame? At what point does the healthily functioning gag reflex prompt a frantic self-protective lunge for the remote control?

At New Year's Camp I watched a workshop on Celtic guitar (sadly, I don't play guitar) by Mary of Banshee in the Kitchen! followed by a workshop by all the members of Banshee in the Kitchen! on how they come up with their arrangements. My hope was to get inspiration for bringing some ideas into the music I play with the little local group. Brenda acknowledged right off that some folks are not comfortable with arrangements; some even disapprove of accompaniment, yet alone arrangements.

Indeed, I have heard one person express the feeling that Banshee in the Kitchen! over -arranges. I don't agree, my background and evolved taste appreciates imaginative, colored, sometimes surprising, sometimes subtle variations in both melody and accompaniment. But a part of me does understand reverence for the centuries-old minimalist tradition. Long may it also continue.

CTMS New Year's Camp

2007-01-02T09:09:00.000-08:00

We both made it to New Year's Camp. What a fine weekend! Great featured performers and attendees, I experimented with a couple of other instruments, and I participated in a trio that performed, along with six other acts, in the Camper's Concert on Monday morning. And, I'm pleased to report, I was not the only cellist in attendance.

CTMS New Year's Camp is a much smaller event than Summer Solstice, but in some ways that's a good thing. With fewer attendees and featured performers you get to know some people better than you would with the much larger attendance at Solstice.

The event was held at Camp Hess Kramer, a Jewish summer sleep-away camp for youngsters located in Malibu, California, between the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Jewish symbols, artwork, and Hebrew text adorn the camp, and the cabins are named after Biblical characters. That said, a Hindu group was wrapping up their event just as we were arriving. I know a camp for deaf and hard-of-hearing children is also conducted there, and I suspect many other events, as well. I'm not Jewish myself, but I'm quite impressed and grateful the temples that run the facilty make it available to others. I reckon it's a good thing Mel Gibson doesn't own all of Malibu.

New Years Camp featured performers that performed in the staff concert Friday night, conducted workshops on Saturday and Sunday, and performed "at large" in jams, dances, and song circles throughout the weekend. This year's featured performers were:

Banshee in the Kitchen!: To my thinking, this is the premier Celtic group of Southern CA.

Cathy Barton and Dave Para: Their repertoire includes many songs and tunes from U.S. history performned authentically, along with stories about the music's origin.

Martha Wild. Mountain dulcimer, piano, and contra dance calling. The mover and shaker for much of the evening activities.

Tom Sauber and his son Patrick. Tom Sauber's been one of the most influential Old Time musicians in the country. His son may become even more so. Nicest mandolin playing I think I've ever heard live.

Amber and Jim Mueller. Jim and Amber have been major performers and organizers since the seveties and eighties, repectively. Jim's also a math professor at Cal Poly.

At Friday night dinner we met a couple, whom I'll call MA & B, who played hammer dulcimer and fiddle. It turned out B knows a cellist and had written out harmonies for a tune he had learned at a fiddle camp, Josefin's Waltz. He had heard it as recorded by Dervish; I had heard it as performed by Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas at the 2006 New Directions Cello Festival. We agreed that we would get together at some point that weekend and try it out.

On Saturday I had my first strums on a lap dulcimer (aka fretted dulcimer, mountain dulcimer, appalachian dulcimer, hog fiddle, and, no doubt, other names). Martha Wild had a flock of dulcimers for us to try out. Since I was last in the group I got a bass one, tuned an octave lower than the others. Ok, that was fitting. I'm not about to get serious about dulcimer but it was fun to strum up a storm.

I also went to a couple of workshops on whistle conducted by flute, accordian, and whistle player Jill of Banshee in the Kitchen!. I played my "wooden" (actually polymer) keyless flute. Every once in a while I get the urge to pursue wooden flute but I get frustrated after a while. Maybe I'll take off from cello lessons for a few months someday if I can find the right sort of flute teacher. I know of no flutists in my area that would find wooden flute acceptable. Yet, there's something very attractive about an instrument so simple that apparently even Neanderthals made and played. A conical tube (unlike Boehm's cylindrical design), closed on the wide end, with one blow hole and six fingering holes.

I also attended a fiddle modal tune workshop by Jim Mueller. Why do I torture myself like that? I start to get the tune for a while, but as they get up to speed I'm left in the dust. Someday, someday...

My wife led a beach walk. Regrettably, I didn't get out there. I understand those that went were glad they did, but it was rough going in some spots.

I participated in some jams and we both danced. I also enjoyed playing duets on the dining hall patio with a harpist and the other cellist (Hey S, are you out there?). Not until late Sunday afternoon, as the sun was going down and the cold breeze setting in, did I come across MA & B and joined them out on a outdoor walkway to try out Josefin's Waltz. B's arrangement worked out very nicely almost instantly! Despite misgivings about performing in front of so much more skilled musicians, we decided to perform it in the Camper's Concert the next morning. I signed us up quick before we came to our senses. Burn those ships!

One of the workshops consisted of the Banshee in the Kitchen! members discussing how they develop their arrangements and what factors go into their decisions to keep or toss out an idea, along with demonstrations. In future posts I intend to go into the accompaniment and arrangement issue. For now, suffice it to say some folks disapprove of the approach of some groups like Banshee in the Kitchen! while others love it.

The Camper's Concert was the last event of the weekend. Folks were free to sign up for it through the weekend for a maximum of two tunes/songs and 5 minutes. One performance that was a particularly pleasant surprise was by a Scandinavian native (I don't know which country) on a keyed fiddle named "Christine." Christine likes certain songs, and what Christine likes, Christine does. Christine has four main strings tuned similar to a viola, C-G-C-A, with, I think I counted, 16 sympathetic strings. It's much like a hurdy-gurdy except it's bowed like a fiddle giving the player more manual control and options for expression and phrasing than a wheel, but with that big bright hurdy-gurdy style sympathetic resonance.

We played our Josefin's Waltz to a very encouraging group. While I think we did better in practice sometimes, we certainly did worse sometimes, so I'm satisfied with how it came out. We played the tune 3 times. We start out in unision, then split to fiddle on harmony with cello and HD remaining on the melody the first time. Then HD and fiddle on melody while I strum. Then fiddle and HD on melody and myself on a bowed harmony. I left my mindisc recorder on by my cello case to record it: Josefin's Waltz. I've retained the audience applause and Clark's commnent to show the really nice and enthusiastic response we received (Ok, vanity too).

Also of special interest to me were a wooden flutist and guitarist duo whose association went "way back to Friday." I had had an interesting discussion with the flutist the day before. He prefaced his performance with a few comments that were especially well-spoken. He thanked the late Elaine Weissman, a principal force in developing CTMS, for providing us with so many friends that we otherwise would not have.

The last and funnest (funnest is a word!) Camper's Concert participant was Leo on fretted dulcimer. He first played a splendidly clean rendition of Kesh Jig. Then he described his personal interest in the recent passing of James Brown and how he had once covered Brown's visit to Ireland for a dulcimer newsletter. Right away the laughter started; something was up -- a James Brown concert written up in a dulcimer newsletter?). He then launched into a rhythm and blues song, complete with blues chords and funky vocal stylings (Well, as funky as a middle-aged balding white man can get). The audience soon recognized the words despite the disguised rendition: Whiskey in the Jar, a well-known Irish pub song. He pulled chords out of that dulicmer that are seemingly impossible on the instrument. It turns out his dulicimer has a some strategically placed extra frets so he can get the major 3rd, minor 7th, and augmented 9th of the major chords at the same time. As my daughter would say, "Sweet!" The performance was hysterical and received a richly deseverved standing ovation.

That closed it; all that remained was the packup and good-byes. We hope to be back next year, and we hope all of them can be back next year, as well.

Weekend Plans

2006-12-27T09:10:00.000-08:00

Welcome and thank you to Dale, Marilyn, Miacello, and Elaine Fine. I see from Elaine's profile she writes CD reviews and program notes, composes, and plays viola and violin. Oooo. Miacello is another of us blogging cellists; there's getting to be quite a family of us. Dale's got some funny stuff on his blog. And Marilyn? No blog or profile yet, a woman of mystery.

PS; And also welcome to Coaster Punchman. Yes, I'm with you, tell those kids: indoor voices!

This weekend, barring complications, my wife and I will go to a weekend New Years Camp put on by The California Traditional Music Society. At this point some there's some doubt my wife will go, she's ill (getting the cold I had last weekend) and she's got a lot of work to have done this week. Her job entails a lot of writing. I do hope she goes. I'll do what I can to help her make it out there.

David Allan's The Highland Wedding

2006-12-22T17:18:00.000-08:00

Rather than write, I'm posting a painting: The Highland Wedding at Blair Atholl (1780) by David Allan (1744-1796). The fiddler represented is the famed Niel Gow (1727-1807), the cellist is his brother Donald. According to the Dunkeld Cathedral website, Donald's sensitive accompaniment inspired Niel to play his best.

Email Duet

2006-12-21T07:47:00.000-08:00

PFS and I have collaborated on a duet on Red Is The Rose via email.

Well, by the end it's more like a quartet. PFS recorded first and plays melody throughout 4 times. On the first time I play pizz bass/strum. On the second time I play an arco lower harmony part, usually a sixth or third below the melody. On the third time, through the magic of multi-track recording, I play both the pizz and the arco at the same time. For the 4th time I add to that another arco part, this one above the melody with mostly long tones.

While some notes are not precisely what we'd like, I think there are some spots that came out quite nicely. I hope we do more soon.

Red Is The Rose

Common-Practice Era music "theory"

2006-12-20T14:12:00.000-08:00

Who out there has some so-called music "theory" study or training? By that, I mean (a) how to form the different types of chords, (b) inversions, (c) how to read figured bass, (d) doubling rules in 4-part harmony, (e) types of motion, (f) voice leading, (g) what chords most easily follow what other chords, (h) the types of non-harmonic tones and how they are used, (i) ways to modulate..., y'know, fun stuff like that.

My high school band teacher brought someone in to teach us that stuff for a few sessions each year. I loved it and so it really struck a chord, so to speak, with me. I could often be caught studying the conductor's scores whenever I had the chance. I learned to read all the different transpositions. What really intrigued me were scores or parts of scores that ignored the "rules". How did they know it would work? It seemed like magic. Of course, now that I'm much older and presumably wiser I know for sure that it really is magic.

I get the feeling most adult beginners and even most child beginners don't get enough instruction in that stuff. Isn't there more to playing an instrument than putting finger X on spot Y to get note Z, just because that's what's on the paper?

Or maybe it's just me and it's not that important for most instrumentalist folks.

Reposted from CBN, below are links to written music and midis for God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman with two different accompaniments. While both accompaniments are for the same tune, the two accompaniments are not at all compatible!

The first accompaniment is the traditional bass line sung by bass voices or played on piano since who-knows-when. It conforms to the collection of rules practiced during the Common-Practice Era, ie, the kind of rules one learns in "theory" class. No parallel fifths or octaves, no 2nd inversions except under special circumstances, no doubling the 3rd except under special circumstances...

The second accompaniment, mostly in double stops, ignores some of those rules. Mr. K would have given it a big ol' F! Make that F minus! There's nothing like telling a kid he can't do something to make him do it (35 years later, even!).

I've prepared two midis, one with the traditional bass accompaniment and one with my own thing.

PDF of all 3 parts

MIDI with CPE-stype bass

MIDI with non-CPE bass

PS: I decided this cryptic post was necessary to set-up for Chapter 4, so that's why it's here.

Busy Time

2006-12-19T11:56:00.000-08:00

I've been away from computers and the Internet the past week. Part of it is my wife's mom passed away this weekend. Also issues with my daughter. Twelve years old and the moods are raging!

I also played and sang in a show at church: "A Time for Christmas". You may have heard of it, it's making the rounds. For some parts I played cello in the small orchestra, and for some of it I sang in the choir. Also, there was my stellar acting in a non-speaking role as Shepherd #2. My robe had been fashioned from the remains of an awful, apparently 70's vintage, curtain. Shepherd #1 had refrained from shaving for the last two weeks. He looked just like the late Yassir Arafat. If the costumes weren't so bad we would have looked like a bunch of middle-aged over-the-hill terrorists.

Thank you to Robin for her comments on what's important in teachers. I'm surprised there's not more comments about teachers, here or at CBN. For something that is so important, I'd think folks would give a lot of thought to what they want from teachers.

Also, I know I owe PFS something. Soon!

A Road to Cello - Chapter 3

2006-12-12T10:00:00.000-08:00

The festival gave me incentive to pursue an instrument. Something other than trombone, my high school/college instrument. It had served me well, but now it was time for something different, but what?

The memory of the washtub bass thumping in the mist persisted. The music of that weekend was dominated by high range instruments. String bass and washtub bass, along with just some guitarists who emphasize bass notes, were the principal exceptions.

I did a little on-line reseach into washtub bass and found that, while there are no instruction guides at all on how to play one, there are many variations and plans on how to make one. One design in particular appealed to me, dubbed Tub-o-Tone by it's inventer, Lauren Miller. It has a fixed neck, a single tunable string, and a simple, to-the-point, no-frills, sound efficient design that appealed to me.

In my research I learned that washtub basses and harps share something unique in the string instrument world. Other instruments, i.e. those with bridges perpendicular to the string, transmit vibrations to the sound chamber at the same pitch as the string itself vibrates. One cycle to one cycle.

Harps and washtub basses, on the other hand, don't have bridges. The string attaches directly out of the sound box. In those cases the top of the sound box is pulled up and let down twice for every one cycle of the string. The pitch one hears from the sound chamber is twice the actual pitch of the string. Oooo, Cool! So that explains how those guys can play notes in the string bass range with ordinary clotheslines at low tension! It also explains how those long thick nylon harp strings sound higher than it appears they should.

By the end of the summer of 2002 I was in the Home Depot selecting materials and building my very own Tub-o-Tone. By fall I was attending local jams. Suffice it to say my unique home-made instrument got a lot attention and compliments; my playing, well, not nearly so much.

But it turned out to be a super way to start learning how fiddle tunes are put together, and start developing an ear. I got two of the most common tune books: Dave Brody's Fiddler's Fake Book, and Susan Songer's The Portland Collection.

At first the chord progressions seem to just fly by without making much sense. Sometimes it's as fast as one chord per beat at 2 beats per second. But some things began to make sense:

- Most fiddle tunes have two sections, with one or more contrasting characteristics. One section might be low in the fiddle range, the other high. One section might have very few chord changes, the other many. One might have all major chords, the other mostly minor. Usually, each section begins on the tonic and ends on the tonic (Even that is not always true, but it starts to become obvious when it isn't).

- Ancient modal and gapped tunes can often be accompanied with only two chords so they're the easiest for a beginner to follow: i (or I) and VII chords. E-dorian and A-dorian tunes are fairly common; consisting mainly or entirely of just E-minor/D-major or A-minor/G-major, respectively. A-mixolydian tunes can typically be accompanied with just A-major/G-major.

- Modern tunes (ie, within the last 300 years or so), tend to have at least 3 chords, usually I (or i), IV, and V. For me, hearing the V to I was easiest to hear first. It especially comes just before the end of a section. Then comes I to V. Picking out the changes to/from IV are harder. vi chords even harder.

- One thing you discover quickly is not everybody harmonizes the same tune the same way. There's a lot of variation. The most commmon variation seems to me to be the I vs VI chord; for example, G vs Em in the key of G major. Also, the ii vs the IV; for example, Am vs C in the key of G major. In many places you could play either one. Often, both of them together can be compatible enough that most people don't notice in a jam situation. But another that's more problematic is the IV vs VI; for example, C vs Em in the key of G major. Here the difference is much more noticeable and the two at the same time are not at all compatible.

- Fiddle tunes don't usually have chromaticism so when it happens it stands out. One of the examples is the VII chord built on the minor seventh degree. For example, a G major chord in something that's decidedly A-major. Does that ring a bell? Ah, it's a throwback to old fashioned A-mixolydian. Purity of musical style is not a big concern for tune writers or accompanists.

- It's still way too hard for me to hear and identify every individual chord change. They go by way too fast, for one thing. But after awhile one thinks of a section as a sentence. Some tunes have the same or very similar standard sentences.

Like: I - - - - - - V - I - - - - - - V - I -
or: I - - - IV - V - I - - IV - V - I -
or: I - IV- I - V - I - IV - V - I -
or: vi - - - - - -I -V - vi - - - - V - I -

Even if it's not one pattern or another, picking a first draft guess can lead to finding the real pattern after a few trials and watching the senior guitarist's left hand.

- I was really thrown for a loop over places where the chord changes every beat. How can anybody hear and follow that? Well, it turns out in practice that happens for one reason: The melody is basically a scale fragment; up or down. So what's a thumpy ol' washtub player to do? The easiest thing to do is to also play a scale fragment, in unison or in parallel. Take, for instance, a melody is |G-BG|F#-AF#|EDC#E|D. When I know the tune well I might play the chordal roots: G-D-A-D, but it's easier and works well for folkie purposes to just play G-F#-E-D.

Ok, when am I getting to cello? Patience! It's coming up next time.

Bodhrán side-track

2006-12-12T08:41:00.000-08:00

PFS asked about that drum in Morrison's Jig/God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. That's a bodhrán, pronounced bow-rawn, that looks like:

and played with a short stick that looks like:

A player might play something like this, with a mixture of open and muffled tones:

Too much bodhrán gets old mighty fast, hence a plenitude of bodhrán jokes. Here's a clip from a recent movie with a bit of bodhrán in the mix: Road to Perdition clip

Teachers

2006-12-07T09:01:00.000-08:00

Below is a repeat of something I posted on ICS's CBN yesterday. Perhaps someone may respond here, or pick it up on his/her own blog, differently than they would post over there with the thought-police.

In echo of the recent thread on what makes a good cello, what makes a good teacher? And, are good teachers rarer than good cellists?

Recent posts have prodded me, but I've been planning to start a thread on this subject for months. I'm sure the answer varies depending on the student, but I also imagine there are some constants.

My first teacher, whom I had for a year and a half, was an undergraduate student with limited cello performance and teaching experience. My second teacher has a Master's degree in Cello Performance and rather extensive performance experience in the US, Europe, and recently, Australia. Yet, I am struck more by their similarities in teaching much more than their differences. Yes, there have been differences in emphasis, and some things one mentions but not the other. But nothing from the first teacher has been undone or contradicted by the second. Both teachers have presented things within a framework that makes logical sense to me, so even if I can't do something well right away, I feel I understand where I'm heading.

Also, both teachers have tolerated, even welcomed, my sidetracks and off-the-wall questions. Both teachers patiently understood that I'm not just going to take their word for it, I'm going to have to experience it and sort it out for myself. It has to make sense by my understanding of how music, the physical world, levers, and the human body work, not just platitudes and simplistic catch-phrases that sometimes ignore physical reality.

Both teachers themselves, are active in both classical and non-classical cello, although their non-classical pursuits are immensely different.

Also, both teachers made me much more aware of how I actually sound than I would otherwise hear. It's so difficult to hear ourselves and play at the same time. Learning and playing takes up so much attention, there's precious little attention power left for listening.

When I read the ICS newsletter interviews, even as a very beginner, one thing struck me about what these artists appreciated about their teachers. They most appreciated the teachers that gave them strategies for solving new future problems rather than providing specific pat answers to specific current problems. That says something about the teacher, but even more about the student!

To my perspective, there's quite a few accomplished cellists in the world. I'm surprised at how many skilled or formerly skilled cellists are around, although few earn a full living performing. Few earn a living performing music in any area.

But really good teachers? I suspect they are far rarer. It seems to me few understand how it is they do what they do, and can transfer what it into another individual. Even more rare, I would think, is the truly effective match between student and teacher. Clearly, no teacher is right for everyone at every point in a musician's trainig.

I have told my teacher that someday, years (many years!) from now, I'd like to teach. She said (maybe lied) that I'd make a great teacher (Bob & Rich's worst nightmare, I know. They'll have to add a caveat to the ol' "Get a teacher" refrain). See! All the more reason for y'all to not just get any teacher!

Morrison's Gentlemanly Medley

2006-12-03T18:42:00.000-08:00

"Well, how did the performance at the mall go?", I hear you cry. Ok, you didn't cry; I just have a wildly hyperactive imagination.

Our first Christmas gig went reasonably well considering it was our first performance for most of the tunes and the limited time we had to prepare with us altogether. Children danced joyfully. Shoppers stopped and swayed. I even saw a few sing along. Middle-aged men sat and passed the time with us while, presumably, their wives were helping mall retailers boost year-end revenue figures. And I understand the agent that hired us was quite pleased with us. With that going for us, what's a few rhythm and intonation problems in a noisy shopping mall between friends?

We played three 45-minute sets so we had a good bit of Christmas music prepared besides God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, but that's the story I started, so I shall finish it.

As I mentioned, we put GRYMG together with Morrison's Jig (MJ) to Christmas-fy it. For this combination we played MJ twice, GRYMG twice, and MJ twice. MJ, as three of us are now used to playing it, has a cello intro and prominent cello part. I don't remember how I started playing it, maybe by accident, maybe influenced by suggestions of the leader. It's an accompaniment that has evolved some as I've been playing it, mostly getting simpler. The A strain consists entirely of parallel fifiths. I think it makes a strong, gutsy, modern rock-ish sound, but in any basic classical music theory class it would earn me a big ol' F.

MJ traditionally moves along at a fast clip. Reminds me of a joke a hammer dulcimer player once told me:

How can you tell when a hammer dulcimer player is at your front door?

The knocking keeps getting faster and faster and faster...

I set up my minidisc recorder just prior to the 3rd hour. I should record myself and ourselves more often. I can tell we were tired from the hours of hammering and sawing. I hear some of my habitual mistakes cropping up along with some new original ones. I have ideas on things to change. Such is life, live performance, and music of the people!. HIPP it often ain't.

Here's MJ and GRYMG.

Post Script: The band leader really likes the A part I play to Morrison's (double stops) and is less satisified with the B part. She wonders what it would sound like if I stayed low to provide more contrast with the dulicimers, and what do you all think? Seems to me even the highest note (D above middle C) is still pretty low, and continued low grumblies throughout would be too much.

But that's part of why I like this folkie sort of music making over, let's say, a Mozart quartet (if' I were ready for such a thing). You can't fuss with and change and experiment with Mozart. He's the boss and you gotta do exactly what he wrote. Otherwise, it's not Mozart anymore.

Less is more, more or less

2006-12-01T10:07:00.000-08:00

Well, at practice with the two hammer dulcimers I found I had to toss out and re-think my accompaniment to God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (GRYMG). We are doing other Christmas tunes, along with a few non-Christmas tunes, but I think the story illustrates how things typically develop as I try to come up with my own notes.

Our fearless leader has placed Morrison's jig into a medley that leads into GRYMG, with the guitar player playing bohdran (a type of drum, pronounced bow-ron) instead of guitar. That means my cello will provide the only harmony.

Both tunes are, nominally, in E minor, but that's about where the similarity usually ends. GRYMG, as usually harmonized and performed, is in classical E minor. The melody technically fits the Aeolian mode but traditionally with the 6th and 7th degrees raised or lowered in the harmony lines to enhance harmonic richness and make for interesting alto, tenor, and bass parts .

However, the melody itself has no altered tones. By itself it's just good ol' simple, primitive Aeolian. And that's what you hear with just two dulcimers playing melody with no harmony to "classicalize" it.

Morrison's jig is even more primitive. Our version consists almost entirely of a gapped scale. Of the 100 or so notes, the sixth degree appears only once, and then as a very quick passing tone, and it's raised, ie Dorian mode. However, the sixth degree is so brief that the tune's commitent to Dorian is negligible. The tune is mostly just notes of the E minor chord alternating with notes of the D major chord.

Also, the tempo of Morrison's jig is quite fast. The thump-ity thump-ity of the drum moves us right along. That means our GRYMG will move along like that proverbial bat from the underworld.

So, from a melody-only point of view, these tunes are quite compatible. With the bodhran tying them together, it brings out the primitive modal character of the GRYMG melody. My accompaniment, stripped of the guitar chords, and moving a mile a minute, didn't make a lick of sense anymore. It was introducing a mix of D#s, D naturals, C#s, and C naturals into the fray in a harmonic way of thinking that requires the cooperation of other, no longer existing, harmonic notes. Back to the drawing board.

Ok, so now I have another idea. GRYMG is largely a series of fast moving scale fragments. If my notes are the only non-melody tones, why not just moving scale fragments too, but slow, like a countermelody. Forget about following any chord changes or making up nee chord changes; it's going to work. I'll make my own slow moving solo melody and pretend those other instruments are accompanying me :-)

In ABC notation:

K:Em
L:1/4
z[]e4|d4|c4|B3z|e4|d,4|c4|B3z|
a4|g2f2|e4|d4|e4|d4|c2B2|d2df|g2fe|d2ed|e3[]

(Note: For ease of eading I've written this two octaves above what I actually intend. The notation rules for indicating notes below middle C make it harder to read for someone unaccustomed to ABC notation. At this point what anticipate I'll play for this tune will all be within the bass clef staff. The 4s mean the preceeding note is held 4 times as long as the default length, 2s means the preceeding note is held twice as long at the defail length. L: 1/4 indicates the default length is the quarter note. K:Em indicates the key and default key signature is that for E minor. The z represents a rest; a quarter rest because that's the default length. [] is a double bar. I should get adept at reading ABC notation so I might as well just jump right into it and use it.)

All of this is well and good except for one thing. The performance at the mall is tomorrow so I won't get a chance to try it out with the others. Yikes!

God Rest Ye Freylehk Rabosay

2006-11-28T17:24:00.000-08:00

I practiced with just the guitar player last night. One of the Christmas tunes that we had to simplify chords for was "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." There's a standard E minor 4-part harmony arrangement that's been around for many years that perhaps you've heard or sung. In 4-part harmony singing you can easily change the chord for every note and it makes sense. With guitar it's too difficult, makes no sense, and would sound dreadful if you could. Better to choose a chord for a measure and let some of the melody notes be non-harmonic.

So I brought a proposed chord sequence and a bass line and we tried it out. The bass line has some C naturals followed by D#s. Y'know, linke in the good ol' harmonic minor scale. Also in some Jewish modes. Oy, it started to sound Klezmer! At practice tomorrow with the dulcimers (akin to cembala, an Eastern Eurpopean instrument) maybe we can add some Eastern European-ish rhythms, if they'll go along with this cross-cultural travesty.

Welcome, Yellow Dog. Glad to hear you're stilling playing with the fiddler.

A Road to Cello - Chapter 2

2006-11-26T07:36:00.000-08:00

Over a year had past before M came back. She was in a happier, more connected of mind. "Must get date, or at least phone number!" I thought. That had a snag, she was traveling to Washington soon to visit her brother for awhile. Hmmm, the next possible weekend I had my daughter with me. A few weeks later we had a first date at Chuck E. Cheese with me bringing my 7-year-old along and she bringing her dog.

In the following months we got to know each other, and each others tastes in things like music. We took some road trips out to the desert and she brought some of her favorite tapes along: some Celtic, some Appalachian, some various guitar/banjo/song collections. Real nice stuff. After awhile it starts to grow on you. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes somewhere in between, but always hummable and good listening.

Sometimes M spoke of the Summer Solstice Festival held in Calabasas by the California Traditional Music Society. It was one of her favorite places. I had heard of it and I knew many of the contradancers went up there but I didn't know much about it and hadn't thought of going before. So when June came, we packed up a tent and food and out to Calabasas we went.

Wow, it was better than I had imagined! It was held on the grounds of Soka University which was a beautful somewhat isolated place. Small by University standards perhaps, but with expansive lawns, large shade trees, a creek and pond with large graceful swans. Are we still in dusty, crowded, concrete-covered Southern California? Didn't seem that way.

For the two days there were workshops for singers, instrumentalists, and dancers at various levels, concerts, and jam sessions (both planned and unplanned) all over the campus and at the campgrounds. Instruments included, but were not limited to: fiddles, banjos and mandolins of various shapes, sizes, and tunings, guitars, hammer and fretted dulicmers, harps, whistles and flutes, psalteries, concertinas and accordians, string basses, and even home-made instruments, such as PVC pipe marimbas and washtub basses. And for non-instrumentalists, sessions in harmony singing, cowboy songs, Celtic songs, humorous songs, American contradance, English country dance, Greek dance, belly dance, and other international dance styles.

In the mornings and evenings groups formed in the camping area for song circles and jams. It's gets very dark there (no campfires are allowed, of course, but then, these people are not the type to pack music stands). At one point a washtub bassist came by, stopping for a while at the camping area before continuing on to a hotel with many other late night jams sessions. I still remember how that bass added a gentle depth and anchor to the sometimes chaotic mixture of treble instruments. Bimm-bumm-bimm-bumm... wafted through the campground. I had no idea that a washtub could actually hit specific notes and follow the chord changes like that. I wished I could do that, but I couldn't imagine learning to pull on a stick just the right amount to match chord changes by ear. No way I could even hope to identify chord changes well enough and fast enough for any instrument yet alone on something like that. It seemed like magic.

Note: Since that time (2002) the CTMS festival has been scaled back. The grounds of the Calabasas campus of Soka University were purchased by the CA Park Service (See http://www.parks.ca.gov/pages/712/files/031105a.pdf, and http://angeles.sierraclub.org/News/SS_2005-05/soka2.asp). By contract, although the sale was completed in 2005, Soka University maintained control on the use of the grounds until 2007. I'm told the Park Service wants more money for the use of the grounds than CTMS can come up with. While the 2006 festival still took place on the same grounds with a cut-down schedule, we hear the 2007 festival might be held at a large hotel in Encino instead. We're waiting for more word from CTMS.

It's That Time of the Year

2006-11-22T08:49:00.001-08:00

Christmas time is here, by golly,
Disapproval would be folly.
Deck the halls with hunks of holly,
Fill the cup and don't say "when".
Kill the turkeys, ducks and chickens,
Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens.
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother, here we go again.

             Tom Lehrer

A little group of us has a gig at a local mall on
Dec 2.  Two hammer dulcimers, guitar, and cello.
We've started working on Xmas tunes (Unlike some
folks, I don't have a problem with the abbreviation
"Xmas."  It's not an English X!  It's a Greek Chi,
for Ihsous Xristos.  Makes it more international
and connects us with its original and true meaning
that way.)

It turns out the guitar player's chords differ,
quite significantly at times, from what I've assumed.
I'll need to do some revision.  On Monday I'll get
together with just the guitar player and run through
accompaniments, cleaning them up.  No pesky melodies
to distract us.

Sometimes my semi-classical/pop/theoretical taste
clashes with what others play, and have played,
for years.  Part of it is I look for a good bass
line, rather than what's easy and natural on a
chording instrument like guitar.  Also, I can't
help but feel Xmas music often lends itself to a
more colorful, classical-ish treatment, rather
than down-home 3-chord boom-chick.

"Y'know, we could substitute the relative minor
for that same old tonic chord here...  and don'cha
think a temporary modulation over here would be so
cool... and waddabout a suspended 4th before the
cadence over there..."

Just knock it off already, Terry.  Find out the
chord changes they're already playing and play
something that sticks to those.

If I Were a Tech Whiz

2006-11-20T22:55:00.000-08:00

Cellist Hilton commented: If you could magically play with the technique of a professional, would you? Why or why not?

Interesting question. I'm going to take a shot at answering.

No. At least not often or much. Consider the typical orchestra parts. The cello parts are usually far easier than I would think the composer would expect the players to be able to play. Yes, some composers make it a struggle, but normally players in an ensemble have other things on their mind than using their technique. Listening, balancing, matching, following, emphasizing, backing off, energy, restraint, artistry... The notes themselves are relatively easy.

Perhaps a good, albeit imperfect anology is: technique is to music as vocabulary is to story-telling. You need a minimum vocabulary to tell a story. To a point, a fuller and more accurate choice of words can make a more vivid and interesting story. But long, complex, high-falutin' words for the sake of showing off one's vocabulary doesn't help the story. And if the story is told by multiple story-tellers in ensemble, but one teller's words don't fit, it degrades the story.

Certainly Mark Twain had an educatated man's vocabulary, but should he use all that educated vocabulary for the voices in the story? Aren't there other elements to a story than just vocabulary. The relationships of words to other words. Images the words evoke. Tension and release. Main characters and supporting characters.

In practice, too many notes in the cello range sounds sounds too cluttered and hurried.

Rushad Eggleton, a classically-trained cello prodigy, said in Fiddler Magazine: "I began working out tunes like 'Bill Cheatum' and 'Salt Creek,' but at first I started out playing them in a way that felt totally unnatural. I tried playing them using classical cello technique, which was difficult. It took me a long time to realize that people who play folk and vernacular music didn't play their instruments in a way that's physically difficult, like classically trained musicians do. They play their instrument in an organic way. Fiddlers tend to play in first position, for example. So if I was going to play this music on cello, I was going to have to play it in the simplest way possible. I experimented with different ways of holding the bow, and for a while I tried playing without the end peg, but eventually I stopped thinking about technique altogether. "I stopped playing the tunes in the upper octaves, the same range the fiddle is tuned to, and started playing them in first position, in the lower ranges I call the heart of cello land. In bluegrass music, not every instrument plays the tune the same way -- the banjo does it a bit differently from the mandolin and so on -- and I realized I could change things a bit, too, so they fit the cello. I could put some passages down an octave for example, and make the tone really bluesy and growly and take advantage of what the cello has to offer. I've really gotten into the low, grumbliness of the instrument."

A Road to Cello - Chapter 1

2006-11-17T20:12:00.000-08:00

What's an, ummm, unorthodox, not-terribly disciplined, not terribly classical-minded man like me doing sitting behind a cello. Cellos are conservative, orthodox, highly disciplined, and highly classical instruments. Perhaps no other common musical instrument presents such a classical, and nearly only classical, image in today's world. Say cello and people think of serious music and performers like Casals and Piatigorsky. Ok, maybe oboe and bassoon are even more square, perhaps to some measure because Yo-Yo Ma, the household name in cello, has branched out from the strictly classsical repertoire.

I'm going to start my story of how I took up this consuming habit in the summer of 2000, over 2 years before I ever touched a cello (Hey, it's my story. I can start it where I want!). I was at a contradance. I had been going once in a while for a couple of years by then. I liked the concept of attending a dance with a live band, and found it worth supporting. I found the sounds and the atmosphere growing on me. It was very different from the kinds of music I grew up with, but that was fine with me. It was gentle, unsophisticated, earthy, and real. Not an electronic wall of sound; and not so complex that one had to sit and listen carefully to get it. It was all about the audience and their enjoyment of the dance, not about the performers. And the people were my kind of people. While I'm no tee-totaler, there's no alcohol at contradances. I could bring my daughter; she was 6 years old the first time I brought her. The people are friendly; very happy to see you come back. And the dancing is easy. Much easier than Country-Western or Swing. Mistakes are freely forgiven.

The folks in nearby Riverside County have made a video that gives an accurate picture of what a contradance is like. I have a link to their site over on the side. I recommend it if you want to understand some of what PFS has been writing about contradances.

Anyway, at that dance back in 2000 I met a delightful lady whom I'll call M. She seemed to be about my age, she participated in Sierra Club events like I did, and we seemed to have a lot in common, but she was clearly in emotional pain. Sadly, her husband had passed away about three months before, from heart failure. She was still grieving but had to get out of the house and be around some people. She had enjoyed folk music for years but her husband had required considerable care in his last years, even though he was not very old at all.

M & I had an interesting and memorable conversation. I left the dance that night hoping to see her next month. It was not to be. She didn't show up at the next one, either. Or the next. Oh well, I thought, maybe she's found somebody new and she's doing well again (to be continued).

Maybe Tula has the right idea

2006-11-16T09:44:00.000-08:00

Tula's rendition of Whisky Before Breakfast is considerable simpler than versions I've seen in print. I like that simplified version, yet I don't think it's terribly noticeable that it is simpler.

Dave Brody's Fiddler's Fake Book is a commonly used source for fiddle tunes by all instruments. I've prepared a jpeg that shows the Fiddler's Fake Book version down an octave, and below it a transcription of what Tula played, with some of it down two octaves, and some of it down one octave. Big difference in playability!

Whisky Before Breakfast: Complex vs Simple

The FFB version (top line) is what I've worked on, and I'm still too slow and fuzzy (for want of a better word) at the shifts. I'd think I'd be making better music, as far as listeners were concerned, playing the bottom line.

There's no Correctness Police enforcing exactly how to play this music. Where is the line between "my version" and "wrong"? Is there such a line?

Whisky Before Breakfast

2006-11-14T09:21:00.000-08:00

I use Audacity (freeware) to export mp3s from minidisc recordings. When I exported the A Place in the Heart mp3 I forgot to change the title field and it was saved with a prior title, Whisky Before Breakfast. Sorry for that initial confusion.

The Whisky Before Breakfast recording that I had been working with before was done with a guest fiddler, Tula, from Monrovia. This was after just one rehearsal with us. Tula is very much my idea of what a fiddler should should like. Monrovia is a bit far away, but I hope she comes down and guests with us more often in the future. Unfortunately, the minidisc filled up before the end of the tune, so the recording with Tula abrubtly ends.

I've worked on the melody Whisky Before Breakfast some, off and on, for a couple of years. It goes up to 4th position, but the tricky part is a back and forth section between 3rd and 2nd. At first it seemed impossible, then it seemed like someday off in the future, and now it seems like it's just a bit beyond my reach at full tempo. Maybe a few months more and I'll be posting myself on the melody.

Here's the band When Pigs Fly! with guests Tula and myself guesting on washtub bass: Whisky Before Breakfast

Ar hyd y nos

2006-11-13T09:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at church, the program listed the closing hymn as For the Fruit of All Creation. I didn’t recognize the title but I sure recognized the tune: An ancient Welsh air known as Ar hyd y nos (no, I don’t speak Gaelic), also known as All Through the Night. I looked in the back of the hymnal and saw that the tune index listed Ar hyd y nos at three different locations in that one hymnal: Go My Children With God’s Blessing, God Who Made the Earth and Heaven, and For the Fruit of All Creation.

Mozart it ain’t. Some totally unknown person or persons, perhaps a poor peasant, made up this simple tune in his, or probably her, home, perhaps to be a sung to her baby, many centuries ago. Yet it still appears in hymnals and many thousands, perhaps millions of people, have sung it and continue to sing it. Mozart should be so lucky.

A Place in the Heart

2006-11-11T14:05:00.000-08:00

Well, thank you commenters for your kind words.

A Place in the Heart is a relatively recent tune composed by Bill Crahan for mandolin. I don't know the exact year but I think in the '90s. We've started working on it with our mandolin player and below I have a link to a recording of last week's practice session on it. It's an AABB structured tune. For the A sections, I'm playing pizz chords. For the B sections I've made up my own little harmony part. I know, the actual playing, especially intonation, still leaves a lot to be desired, but I think the cello line works out rather nicely in this piece.

I can't imagine not writing my own parts some of the time. It's not improvisation in the sense Eric Edberg advocates because I figure out what to play ahead of time, then change and work with it between practices. The choice of notes notes often remain a work in progress.

A Place in the Heart

A Start

2006-11-09T09:52:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my newly starting blog. My intent is that this blog will mostly discuss musical activities and thoughts, mostly regarding cello and amatuer music, but with occasional wanderings to other subjects. My hope is that reader comments will help me steer where this blog goes.

I started cello at age 49, after having played trombone off and on from age 13 to 40. Soon I'll post how and why I came to cello. For now, suffice it to say I certainly know, starting at this advanced age, I won't ever be playing Shostokovich or Brahms sonatas in great metropolitan concert-houses like a life-long professional. That's alright with me. I'll make myself a niche playing simple music with friends in concerts and jams. Fiddlers, guitarists, banjo players, etc, often start as adults and make highly enjoyable music within just a few years, so why not cellists? True, we can't go as fast and high, but our accompaniments can sound wonderful, and listeners find a well-executed melody on cello a special treat.

For most of the 20th century, cello, viola da gamba, and basy (a 3-stringed Eastern European version) had been largely forgotten as instruments of the working class, largely supplanted by the guitar, double bass, banjo, cittern, bouzouki, and the increased availability of the piano (once prohibitively expensive for common folk). Then in 1973, Abby Newton brought cello back into the folk world playing with the famed Putnam String County Band. In 1974 Nancy Blake began playing cello and guitar with her husband fiddler and mandolin player Norman Blake. Gradually more artists and bands brought cello into their sounds, prompting LA-based author and disc-jockey Larry Wines to proclaim 2005 The Year of the Cello (Folkworks bi-monthly newspaper, Jul/Aug 2005 issue).