Uh Oh...

One of the fine tuners on my cello has snapped off! Don't hve any clue how this happened, but engineer husband reckons that it was low quality metal and so had some fatigue. I was turning it and it felt quite stiff, and suddenly snapped off in my hands. It's the g string tuner, which is one of the easier strings to tune so at least i can keep playing until my next lesson. Going to have to give the cello back to my teacher I think. He is not going to be impressed..

All in all, this cello has been a total nightmare. I do feel bad for her, as she is really suffering with such a clumsy first owner, but she is not exactly very robust and I am not doing anything any other beginner wouldn't be doing, I don't think!

Seriously, when it comes to thinking about getting my own cello I think I would rather rent for ages and get a really good quality cello when I can afford one rather than buy one as soon as I can afford it, and get a lower quality instrument. I rent from my teacher, and he said any money I pay on rental I can have off the final price of the cello I rent, but I am not sure about this cello.. I feel worried it's going to fall apart all the time! But on the other hand I have absolutely no spare moeny to save up for any cello, let alone a good one! Well, I have ages to think about that so I'll wait and see.

With respect to practise, things are going a-okay. well, definitely okay anyway. My thumb hurts less and I am able to concentrate on what my left hand is doing as well as my right hand. Up until now I had been totally ignoring my left hand while bowing! I need to get a better seat for playing though, as I don't have any that are really the right height at the moment and I feel all scrunched up.

Speaking of which, I have a spare half hour so I am off the practise!

Second lesson, cello is back!

She's back! yayy!!

I was really excited about heading to my lesson this morning. For the first part of the lesson, my teacher just taught me how to twist the pegs to tune the cello. It is quite tough but he recommended that I practise and slowly turn the pegs until I feel more confident.

We played through a few of the tunes in the book, and I was pleased with how it sounded (the sound is slowly getting better), and my teacher seemed pleased too. We also worked through parts of the rest of the book, and started playing on the G string, which sounds niiiiice. It was a lovely lesson, and I am really happy with how things are going, and also relieved that I get on well with my teacher. He is such a nice man, and very patient. It must be horrible teaching absolute beginners, but he's very encouraging!

However, I stilllll don't get a bow! Not until next week, so I will practise practise practise to make sure that he is happy to start doing bow work next week. I have done an hour this afternoon already, and already got up to the part in the book he wanted me to get to. I can now play G, and low A, B and C sharp. Now I just need to get it to sound nice!

She's having a check up..

I phoned my teacher yesterday to ask him what I should do. I was so worried about about breaking something I hadn't touched her since saturday. he said I was probably just worrying about nothing and I just didn't have the knack for tuning, and I wasn't the first person to phone him in a panic! He told me to drop the cello off at his office and he would have a look. It was very comforting, and suddenly I had a funny feeling I had overreacted somewhat...

I immediately went and got her out and lo and behold the strings were still taut, I tuned her a teeny bit and played for half an hour (minus the A string!).

I dropped her off at the High School later that morning and felt very sad. I have started to anthropomorphise her and suddenly a non-gendered object had become a 'she' in need of a name!

Well, I will have her back on friday and in the mean time I can think of a name for her. Fingers crossed she's all okay!

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Today I Killed a Cello

Oh dear.

Disaster struck today! I broke 2 strings (A and D). I don't even know how I did it! It was out of tune when I got up this morning (as usual), so started to tune it. The D string broke as I was tightening it. I figured that these things happen, so went and bought another string (£7.50 - pricey!), and replaced it. Just started tuning it again and the A string broke!

I am so worried that I am going to destroy it, that I just don't want to go anywhere near it again. I don't think I am over tightening it, but maybe I am. I just don't know.

So I haven't played today, and I am just going to leave it until I can call my teacher on Monday and find out what has happened.

This is so disheartening. Poor cello.

Tuning Issues

Same problem with the strings this morning - they were completely loose again!

Decided to go out and buy an electronic tuner to help me tune it properly. A guitar-playing friend helped me tune it, and although it took a while it sounded really good! I had a long practise session and got up to page 18 in the book, which is where it starts making you read the music properly instead of giving you the names of the notes. I am taking a while to get the hang of it, but I can just about remember all the names of the notes while remembering where my fingers should be!

Something I found really helpful was playing each note into the tuner to get the right positioning for my fingers. I had been playing with them too close together for the last couple of days, and with the cello in tune and playing into the tuner it was much easier to figure out where I should be placing my fingers on the strings.

Hopefully this will sort out some of my tuning issues!

Painful fingers!

I got downstairs this morning to discover the D and G strings of my cello had become almost completely slack.. Hmmmm. I tightened them back up, which was surprisingly difficult. I got them a bit more taut in the end but it sounded horrible!

I was worried about overtightening the strings without knowing what I was doing so I just played the cello as it was that day. It sounded pretty grim, but I managed to get up to page 12 in the book, and now know how (theoretically) to play the notes D, E, F sharp, G, A, B, C sharp and D! My fingers were still sore so I was only able to play for about 15 minutes at a time. However, my teacher suggested "little and often" was the best way so I am not too worried.

I can now play Au Clair de la Lune and Hot Cross Buns - wowweee! I can also play the D Major scale. I had to stop this evening as my fingers hurt, but the next page is a whole page of new songs, including Old MacDonald Had a Farm. Incredible!