Hello,
I am a trained musician, and now teach. My main instrument is the oboe, but it is really hard to find a decent orchestra with vacancies where I live, so I am thinking of teaching myself the cello instead. (Presuming they are more in demand than oboes!)
I will probably rent an instrument for a few months to see how I get on, and would like to ask how much I should worry about the quality of the instrument at this stage. I played violin for a few years as a teenager, and only had a cheap instrument. I really noticed what a difference it made when I borrowed a friend's better violin! Will a cheap beginner cello sound as bad as a cheap beginner violin? Will it put me off continuing? (I suppose I'm more discriminating about tone than the average kid who's learning...)
If it's any help, my local music shop says it has the following makes to hire: Vivaldi, Stentor, Zeller. Those names mean nothing to me! Any help appreciated!
Full Version: Which Cello?
Hi Claire!
There was a bit of a discussion on this in a thread in students' forum entitled "Cello help pleese" by piano Ellie. You can bring it up by going to students' forum, right at the bottom of the page there are a number of search boxes - if you go to the box called "search this forum" and enter "gliga" it will bring up Ellie's thread.
Don't give up on your hunt for an oboe place though - it's a gorgeous instrument!
David
There was a bit of a discussion on this in a thread in students' forum entitled "Cello help pleese" by piano Ellie. You can bring it up by going to students' forum, right at the bottom of the page there are a number of search boxes - if you go to the box called "search this forum" and enter "gliga" it will bring up Ellie's thread.
Don't give up on your hunt for an oboe place though - it's a gorgeous instrument!
David
Yep. I've just replied on 8notes.
Liz
Liz
| QUOTE (Claire21 @ Nov 12 2004, 08:33 PM) |
| I am thinking of teaching myself the cello instead. (Presuming they are more in demand than oboes!) |
There are lots of good 'cellists in our area, so opportunities for a newcomer are not all that thick on the ground. I suggest you check your local situation before you make a final decision. Violas and double basses are in short supply nearly everywhere.
That's true and is fair comment.
Liz
Liz
Hmm, maybe I should think about the viola then.... 
The cello just looks comfier, less of that funny arm twisting!
The cello just looks comfier, less of that funny arm twisting!
I'd suggest you go with whichever you would prefer to play. That said, I'm surprised you can't get into an orchestra with the cor anglais ...
Liz
Liz
| QUOTE (Claire21 @ Nov 15 2004, 07:56 AM) |
| Hmm, maybe I should think about the viola then.... :huh: The cello just looks comfier, less of that funny arm twisting! |
I agree: I tried viola at age 22, found that my joints were too stiff for comfort and gave up. Later I learnt 'cello, which I enjoyed, but my son was better than me, so I never did much playing. I mostly play double bass now, though I occasionally play Renaissance or easy Baroque music on 'cello. Bass is much more in demand, and more comfortable than viola, though harder work.
Although many viola players may think this is sacrilege, if you've played violin before you could consider using a 15' Viola (rather than the recommended 16 -16.5').
I recently rejoined my old string orchestra after a 15 year gap after bumping into an old music teacher of mine. It's a mix of adults and children playing easy stuff, and as such there are about 20+ violins, quite a few Cellos, and about 2 violas on a good day, one of whom (I've just realised the coincidence!) is really an oboe player. Having joined as a violin, and having never had a viola lesson or played viola in a group, I took my wife's 15'' Gliga Gems II viola (£285 with bow and case) along yesterday and sat next to the only other viola player who had turned up. I have to say it was a bit of a "road to Damascus" moment for me. I've always liked trying to draw a rich stringy sound from the violin's G string, but you seem to get sparing amounts of that in orchestral music. The viola's C string and G string are just so gorgeous you can get really wrapped up in it. According to Walter Piston's book "Orchestration" the viola is naturally much more sonorous than the violin because of it's bigger size, so that a relatively small number of violas can balance a relatively larger number of violins, to the extent that their music is often written "divisi" to reduce the volume. This certainly seemed to be the case yesterday. The 15' instrument is a definite size bigger and deeper than the violin, but not so much so that it is really any harder to play. Gligas are noted for their dark mellow sound, and for this level of seriousness their lovely 15' instrument has to be a good compromise between physical effort and rich sound. Having mainly played second violin in university orchestra, I was also struck by how much more variety there seems to be in the viola part than in second violin parts - I was playing proper pieces in the university orchestra, but the viola parts even in these easy "school-type" pieces in the string orchestra seem to alternate amiably between joining with the Cellos, joining with the firsts, or sitting in the middle with the seconds contributing to the rhythmn. The whole thing was in first position, which feels eerily like being in third position on the violin. I just really loved playing viola, and at the end the conductor said I had made a real difference and asked me to keep playing viola. It seems a real shame to me that more violin pupils aren't given the opportunity to try viola - the mid range makes it a more natural unaccompanied instument, which makes it more pleasant to practise, and although many violinists like fireworks on the E string, those who find the violin uncomfortably high may find they love the viola. I suspect the problem is you have to be a certain fully grown size before you can get onto an instrument which is a real viola rather than a violin strung as a viola, and by that time people haven't the inclination to learn tenor clef.
I recently rejoined my old string orchestra after a 15 year gap after bumping into an old music teacher of mine. It's a mix of adults and children playing easy stuff, and as such there are about 20+ violins, quite a few Cellos, and about 2 violas on a good day, one of whom (I've just realised the coincidence!) is really an oboe player. Having joined as a violin, and having never had a viola lesson or played viola in a group, I took my wife's 15'' Gliga Gems II viola (£285 with bow and case) along yesterday and sat next to the only other viola player who had turned up. I have to say it was a bit of a "road to Damascus" moment for me. I've always liked trying to draw a rich stringy sound from the violin's G string, but you seem to get sparing amounts of that in orchestral music. The viola's C string and G string are just so gorgeous you can get really wrapped up in it. According to Walter Piston's book "Orchestration" the viola is naturally much more sonorous than the violin because of it's bigger size, so that a relatively small number of violas can balance a relatively larger number of violins, to the extent that their music is often written "divisi" to reduce the volume. This certainly seemed to be the case yesterday. The 15' instrument is a definite size bigger and deeper than the violin, but not so much so that it is really any harder to play. Gligas are noted for their dark mellow sound, and for this level of seriousness their lovely 15' instrument has to be a good compromise between physical effort and rich sound. Having mainly played second violin in university orchestra, I was also struck by how much more variety there seems to be in the viola part than in second violin parts - I was playing proper pieces in the university orchestra, but the viola parts even in these easy "school-type" pieces in the string orchestra seem to alternate amiably between joining with the Cellos, joining with the firsts, or sitting in the middle with the seconds contributing to the rhythmn. The whole thing was in first position, which feels eerily like being in third position on the violin. I just really loved playing viola, and at the end the conductor said I had made a real difference and asked me to keep playing viola. It seems a real shame to me that more violin pupils aren't given the opportunity to try viola - the mid range makes it a more natural unaccompanied instument, which makes it more pleasant to practise, and although many violinists like fireworks on the E string, those who find the violin uncomfortably high may find they love the viola. I suspect the problem is you have to be a certain fully grown size before you can get onto an instrument which is a real viola rather than a violin strung as a viola, and by that time people haven't the inclination to learn tenor clef.
| QUOTE (zoda @ Nov 16 2004, 09:36 PM) |
| I just really loved playing viola, and at the end the conductor said I had made a real difference and asked me to keep playing viola. It seems a real shame to me that more violin pupils aren't given the opportunity to try viola - |
One of the benefits is being asked by quartets (provided they know a good thing when they hear it) to join them in playing some of the greatest music of all time: the G minor and C major string quintets of Mozart. They might even ask you to substitute for a non-viola-playing violinist in the Horn Quintet, which needs two violas.
| QUOTE |
| people haven't the inclination to learn tenor clef. |
It's actually called alto clef IIRC (not that that makes any difference to whether you can read the dots, so long as you remember that the clef labels the C line); tenor is one of the four that 'cellists have to learn.
| QUOTE (kenm @ Nov 16 2004, 10:37 PM) |
| It's actually called alto clef |
oops!
thanks for the correction Kenm!
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