'Cello

Look Ma -- No frets!

Approximately seven years of lessons enabled Ye Olde Webmeister to occasionally make a few recognizable noises between scratching sounds. And he's had some fun, as well as some frustration. If naught else, he has gained substantial appreciation of the playing of people who do it well!

After being "headcount-adjusted" out of a job in January 2002, we took advantage of the free weekday time to do a little shopping for a better instrument.   That was a daunting task!   After intermittent surveys off and on through 2002, and a number of home trials, money finally changed hands on 10 December of that year. The Plywood Special was replaced by a new and exciting instrument. A copy of a Domenico Montagnana, made by Frederich Wyss in Ohlstad, Germany. See the set of pictures below. In the process of looking, We played a total of twenty-six different cellos from three shops and a private individual. Of course one of those, being priced around $35K was not a serious interest!

It is currently set up with Larsen medium A and D strings, Spirocore medium G and C. The tailpiece is a Wittner alloy with built-in fine tuners.

It works quite well with the Finckel "Jean Dom. Adam" bow acquired a couple of years previously. There likely won't be any need to upgrade the bow for some time. Of course, now that we have this kit, we may eventually have to accept that the liveware hanging on to the bow may be the source of any sound quality issues!

The instrument was purchased from Dane Anderson in Swarthmore, PA. Dane is a knowledgeable and pleasant guy to deal with. He is also a professional cellist so he does great demos, and he knows how the instrument should be set up.

Alas, in late spring 2006, Ye Olde Webmeister dropped lessons in some frustration and has been taking a cello break. The hard work and the non-trivial expense (both time and financial) of weekly lessons, coupled with the dubious rate of progress, was taking too much of the fun out of it. We may eventually get back to cello, but for 2006 and some intervening years, we've enjoyed diverting the lesson money to some new or new-to-us camera gear! After all, we only go around once.

The previous Plywood Special was donated to Community Music School in Trappe, PA, where we have been known to take lessons.

 

Cello Tuning?


NOTE: These are MIDI files, not recordings!
         Whatever you hear is your soundcard!
Pitches of the Four Open Strings:
  A       D       G       C    
Drones for practice:
  C       C#       D       Eb       E       F       F#       G       Ab       A       Bb       B    
These are presumed equal tempered and perhaps a little dubious for
some uses.
Right click and "Save target" to your computer to download.

 

Full View Pegbox
Front Back

(Ha! Try this shot with an auto-focus camera! . . . )
Label
Scroll
Fittings
For all sorts of information on the cello, check out the Internet Cello Society

Or check the amazing assortment of cello-related bulletin boards
set up by the ICS as EZ Board Forums

© 1999, 2001, 2002, 2006 D. W. Thomas -- Last Update: 24 Jsnusry 2013.