Lesson 80 - Nameless

Last week after lessons, I stopped by Jan to pick up my bow and Nameless who has had numerous alterations made to her, namely fitting in a Wittner tailpiece, adjusting the soundpost and various other bits and pieces. In fact, I'll just let the invoice do the talking.

- Paste pegs and drill new holes to assist tuning

- Prepare supplied tailpiece, supply and fit tailwire etc.

- Adjust soundpost

- Adjust bridge top arch, thickness and finish etc.

- Glue loose lapping to fibre-weave bow

Admittedly, I was not really expecting any obvious audible differences (per my falling out with Nameless in the previous post) and since I had already made up my mind on getting a new cello, was not particularly partial to the resulting effects either.

But I have been wronged. Jan did a tremendous job with Nameless and I was completely floored when I played her again after the "surgery". So much so that I began to have second thoughts!?

So practise I did, I couldn't get enough of the velvety, deluxe and bright tones created with every bow stroke - words nary uttered in her previous life - and every time I stopped, I needed to get back on in case it was all a fluke and maybe this was all a dream.

But it was not a dream and each practise session left me a huge grin to the point of squealing.

Still, it took another fortnight before Nameless shedded her party outfit to slip into her favourite pajamas. Her familiar, nasal voice croaked from beneath as I wielded the bow in increasing states of despair. A quick morning practise before lesson to invigorate soured as soon as it started; not entirely a good start to the day.

Nonetheless, a fortnight has come and gone and it always feels like I haven't put in as much effort and practise time into learning the cello. This whole "living" thing is seriously affecting my progress :}

We looked at Bunting's vibrato exercises, a technique I have yet to spend more time practising and quite frankly, something I've sort of taken for granted. My third and fourth fingers seem to be held back by my extra long second finger which gets in the way, a lot, and I will stress on the "a lot" a lot too. Deryn also noticed that I tended to move away from the cello when it came to the higher strings which is a really bad habit that has been creeping up recently.

I will assume this has something to do with the size of Nameless. As mentioned in my previous post, it seems I was suited more to a 7/8 cello than a normal full sized one and Nameless, quite certainly, qualifies as one. In any case, comfort has always been an ongoing issue from day 1 and as I slowly learn more about the instrument and how I fit in the grand scheme of things, hopefully the issue will be tackled sooner than later.