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Hello, my name is Manon Robertshaw.
I'm here to help you with your first day of cello.
Congratulations on deciding to play the cello today.
I've been playing the cello for 32 years.
I have a major in music and a master's degree in cello performance.
I've toured Europe and North America.
I play in orchestras.
I play chamber music and I've played as a soloist.
Wherever I go, I hear someone tell me that they love the sound of the cello and it's
their favorite instrument.
So I hope to help you today to learn and listen to love the cello too.
So you have your cello and if you just brought it home from the music store, it's probably
still in its case.
Now it may look like a case like this.
You may have a hard case or you may have a soft case.
If you have a soft case, the cello they showed you at the music store to hold the cello by
the neck even in the soft case and to hold the bow near the bottom which we call the
frog.
So hold the cello at the neck and the bow at the frog.
When you unpack the cello, be very careful that you do not place the bridge of the instrument
on the floor.
This is a very delicate part and I want you to be really careful with it.
When you have a hard case, it's very easy to either have the instrument standing up
and probably the first time you unpack your instrument you should have it lying flat down
so that it will be easy to unlatch all the latches, lift up the lid and gently take the
cello out by the neck.
You may also hold it on the bottom to get it out of the case.
When you put your cello back in the case, make sure that when you close the case lid
that you latch all the latches around the case so that when you lift the case up to bring
it somewhere else, the instrument will stay inside the case.
The cello body is attached to the neck and the strings.
The bow is separate and is basically a stick with horse hairs.
I don't want you to place your hands on the horse hair, just place it at the frog or hold
it at the stick, but the frog is the best place.
The cello is one of the modern string instruments.
The other modern instruments are the violin, the viola and the double bass.
The instruments that predate these are called the viola de gambas.
The modern instruments were designed to be played in very large halls.
So they were designed to be loud, have full sound and be played in large rooms.
Two famous cellists that made the cello very popular were Gregor Pyatigorsky and Pablo
Casals.
One of the famous cellists that tours around the world today is Yo-Yo Ma and you can see
him perform all over the world and he has lots of CDs out.
Now that you have the cello in front of you, I'd like to tell you about the different parts.
You have the main body of the cello, which is actually a big musical box.
We have the bridge on the instrument, the strings cross the bridge, the fingerboard
is underneath the strings.
We go into the peg box and the pegs which hold the strings in place and at the top of
the cello is the scroll.
At the bottom of the cello we have the end pin which holds the instrument off the ground.
The bow helps to produce the sound.
It's made out of wood, horse hair from the tail of the horse.
We have the frog where you hold the bow and the tip.
In the main body of the cello we also have the sound holes or F holes the sound comes
out of the instrument.
We have fine tuners to fine tune the instrument and the fine tuners are on the tail piece.
Let me tell you about the four strings on the cello.
Their names are the A string, the D string, the G string and the C string.
Probably when you first start working with your teacher the A and the D string will be
the strings that you use the most and they're the easiest to play to start with and those
are the two thinnest strings on the cello.
On the musical staff the cello uses bass clef to begin and on the top line of the staff
is the A. On the middle line of the staff is our open D and on the bottom line of the
staff is the open G. The lowest note on the cello, the C string is two lines below the
musical staff.
Those are the four strings of the cello.
Now I know you're just dying to hold the cello and play so let me show you how to hold the
cello so that you can learn how to play easily and fairly effortlessly.
First you're going to put the bow down.
Now you need to find the best adjustment in height for the end pin so let me show you
how to do that.
You're going to sit with your feet flat on the floor.
You're going to sit near the front of the chair and lean slightly forward.
Now to get into a comfortable position I'd like you to try what we call the bear hug
and gently place your arms around the cello and you're going to rock from side to side.
And if you can do this fairly easily you're probably sitting in the correct position.
If you feel like you're bumping your knees just move your knees out a little bit to the
side.
Your knees will gently touch the cello.
For the height of the cello you want at least a fist of air, fist full of air between your
shoulder and the neck of the cello.
So the cello won't be too high or too low.
This bottom peg closest to your left ear will almost tickle your ear.
So that will be about the right place.
So let's try that again.
You're going to gently place your arms around the cello and we call it the bear hug and
gently rock from side to side.
And if this is uncomfortable your first lesson with your new teacher will make all of this
clear.
But let me give you some other pointers for just being able to sit with the cello.
Place your hands on the edge of the finger board, your shoulders are down and your elbows
are hanging down.
Now you're gently going to bring your elbows up without lifting up your shoulders.
And these are called cello wings.
With making one fist slide from the top of the finger board down the strings to the end
of the finger board and circle back.
Do this a few times.
And do it with the other hand also.
It's like you're skiing down the finger board and taking the ski lift back up.
This helps create space for your arms so that you will be able to play not just in first
position but in a lot of other more difficult positions later on.
If the end pin adjustment feels a little awkward right now adjust it.
Bring it down a little bit if the peg is too high or bring the end pin out a little bit
if you need it to be a little higher.
Let's do one more time for the bear hug and the wings and the skiing.
Arms around the cello and rock side to side.
Hands on the edge of the finger board, shoulders down and then gently bring the elbows up.
Then with a fist in one hand gently slide down the finger board and take the ski lift
back up.
And repeat that with the other hand as well.
Very good.
Now that you're sitting with the cello I'd like to show you about the left hand position.
The cello is spelled C-E-L-L-O.
Your left hand position will also be in a C shape.
So bring the C shape of your left hand like holding a tennis ball but a little bit of
a curve with your thumb to the neck and you will probably have a marking here when you
get to your first lesson.
But right now I'm going to show you the basic posture for the left hand.
Now besides playing the cello with the bow we can also pluck the cello so I'm going to
do that to show you what this position would sound like.
This is with all four fingers on the cello.
First finger, second finger, third finger and fourth finger and the thumb we'll just
call the thumb.
So bring the C shape to the cello.
You're going to have all four fingers on the string at once so that you can keep that C
shape in place.
Then you're going to take your little finger off the string so you now have three fingers
on the cello.
Then you're going to take two fingers off the string and you only have one finger left
and play that one.
And then you take that finger off the string and you have your open string.
We can do the same thing on the A string.
Bring your hand into a C shape.
Put all your fingers on the A string.
Take your little finger off.
Play that.
Take those two fingers off.
And then take your first finger off.
And there you have the left hand position.
Let me show you how to play the D major scale now.
And we're going to use plucking technique which we call pizzicato.
You're going to place your thumb on the edge of the fingerboard and use your index finger
or your middle finger to pluck the string.
Let me show you how to rosin your bow so that
your bow will produce a sound on your string.
If I were not to have any rosin on my bow, it would sound like this.
So I'm going to rosin the bow and you're going to do it like you're playing on the cello
string.
You're going to glide across the bow hair of the cello onto the rosin.
Let's try it again.
Place the bow hair flat on the rosin and glide it across.
And you'll need to do this every day before you play.
When you're going to tune your instrument before you play, you will probably need help.
You'll either ask your teacher to tune your cello for you or the people at the music store.
Again, your four strings are the A string, the D string, the G string, and the C string.
You may have a piano at home and if you tune your cello to your piano, that A string is
the A below middle C. All the cello strings are tuned in perfect fifths, which means they're
five notes apart.
Don't worry about tuning it yourself.
It'll take a little while to learn how to do that.
There's another way I like to tune the cello and I'd like to show you because you don't
need markings for this.
You're going to put your thumb at the curve of the neck and you're going to put your first
finger right above it.
And you're just going to touch the string gently.
And it makes what we call a harmonic sound.
Let me show you how to play with a bow and let me review the parts of the bow.
We have the frog, the stick made out of wood, the horse tail hair, and the tip of the bow.
The frog is where you're going to hold the bow and just to get you started so you can
play some notes on the cello, I want to show you an easy bow hold.
When you have your lessons, your teacher will probably show you another bow hold.
You're going to gently place your thumb underneath the frog and your other fingers are going
to curve over the stick.
You're going to place the bow on the string between the fingerboard and the bridge.
The bridge is holding the strings over the cello and the bridge is not glued onto the
top of the cello so be very careful about touching the bridge.
And you're going to place the bow on the string between the fingerboard and the bridge.
You can bow any rhythm you'd like.
You can bow fast or different patterns.
Another thing I'd like you to practice are the different angles that the bow will have
on the different strings.
You can roll your bow all the way to the fattest string on the cello which is your lowest string,
the C string.
Your elbow is going to be down from your shoulder.
You're going to roll silently across the strings to the A string, the thinnest string, and
then back down.
And make sure that your elbow comes down also.
Try it again.
Roll silently to the A string and then back down.
This is something I'd like you to practice at least five times a day and then find out
how your teacher would like you to work on it as well.
Now that you know how to sit with the cello and we've worked a little bit with plucking
and with the bow, let me show you how to play a piece.
We're going to work mostly with the A and the D strings because those are the easiest
to play.
So I'd like you to play your open A string to see if it's close to mine.
Okay, play your A string.
Good, now I'm going to play mine again.
Play your A string again.
From the A string, roll your bow to the D string.
Play the D string.
Listen to mine again.
Now play yours.
Now if those two strings are pretty close in tune with mine, we're ready to begin.
Remember to put your left hand in a C shape.
Bring it to the neck of the cello.
Now you will probably have a mark placed on your cello by your teacher to find that note
easier but for now I'm going to show you a way that we can find it.
The fourth finger on the A string should match your open D.
Now I'd like you to play them together.
Play your Ds.
Now listen to mine.
And we can also play them separately, open D and all four fingers on the A string.
Now remember we played the D major scale earlier.
I'd like you to try it again and we're going to do it with a different rhythm.
Try that again, all four fingers on the A string.
Lift up your pinky, lift up two and three, lift up one and you're playing open A. Now
you're going to roll your bow to the D string.
Place all four fingers on the D string.
Ready go.
Very good.
Now don't worry if it doesn't sound exactly like me.
Remember I've been playing the cello for quite a while.
Your teacher will help you and when you practice every day that's going to help you too.
And I promise when you practice it's going to sound better each time you do it.
Now I want you to learn a piece.
It's called the French Folk Song and it's a folk song from France.
It's going to start exactly the same way like your D major scale started.
We're going to make the C shape with the left hand again.
Put all four fingers on the A string.
Let's check with open D and see if it's in tune.
Check it, play it again.
Now see if you can play those two strings together.
Sometimes you play the strings together when you don't want to and sometimes you can't
play them together when you do.
So that takes practice too.
So play them separately first.
Now you.
Now together.
Now we're ready for French Folk Song.
We're going to play fourth finger on the A string three times.
Play fourth finger on the A string three times.
Good.
Now take the pinky off the string, the fourth finger.
Play third finger on the A string three times.
Now you.
Now just first finger on the A string.
And now open A. It's just like your D major scale except you've played each note three
times.
I'm going to play it for you again and then you play it.
Pull your bow to the D string.
All four fingers on the D string.
Same thing.
Very good.
So you played all notes three times each except that open D on the last note.
I played it a long three counts.
One two three.
Got that.
Very good.
Now here comes the middle part of the piece and this will take a while but with practice
it'll get easier.
We're going to go from open D.
In one note each open one and three.
Try it with me.
Ready play.
Again.
One more time.
Now all four fingers down on the D string.
We're going to hold it three counts.
One two three.
Got that.
Let's try it again.
Ready play.
One two three.
Now we're going to go from first finger to third finger to fourth finger three times.
Ready play.
One three four.
Roll to the open A string.
Hold three counts.
Two three.
Very good.
That's going to take a little while to learn but you can do it.
The very last part of the piece is like the D major scale again.
See?
That part you probably are already getting better at.
On that last note you may have noticed that I took my bow off the string in a circle.
So I'd like you to try some bow circles.
We're going to start at the frog.
Go to the middle of the bow.
And circle.
Now I'd like you to start at the middle of the bow and do the same thing but circle towards
the frog and circle around.
Let's try the piece one more time or you can just watch me and play it again.
One two three.
Very good.
I hope you enjoyed doing that.
Okay now I'd like to talk to you about practicing and I'd like to make sure that you practice
every day.
Probably 20 minutes a day would be a good start.
When you have your practice teacher and your private teacher tells you how long to practice
every day it might be longer but at least 20 minutes a day will give you a good start
and that will make sure that you sit with the cello, practice the things that we did
at the beginning, sitting with the cello, holding the cello, practicing the song, practicing
the scale.
All those things will take at least 20 minutes so that will be a good starting time.
Then when you want to get even better you keep adding time to your practicing.
Now another way to really get a good sound and really hear what other musicians are doing
would be a great idea to go to concerts and hear other cellists and other musicians playing
music that will give you a great feel for what kind of sound you can produce with your
own instrument.
There's lots of other ways to practice.
You might find that you like to play fast.
That's great.
I like to play fast too but you also need to practice slowly so that you can hear all
the notes that you're playing and that's really important and the way to do that for me to
practice slowly I need to do it again and again and again so I need to repeat things
a lot so make sure that when you're playing your scale you play the scale five times,
ten times so that it gets really easy underneath your fingers.
Now that we're done with our practice session it's time to make sure that the instrument
is cared for before you put it away.
With the bow you're going to loosen the bow hairs because they've been tightened to be
playing and here at the bottom is the tightener.
You're going to loosen it a couple of turns just to make sure the bow hairs are slightly
loose.
Also we've had rosin accumulating on the stick of our bow and on our cello so we're going
to wipe it off with a cloth.
Rosin cloth is the best so you're just going to rub the stick of the bow with your cloth.
Make sure the rosin's off the bow.
Then with the cloth make sure that you wipe the rosin off the strings of the cello.
You're also going to wipe the strings up here because our fingers have been playing on the
strings and there's oils on our fingers that get onto these strings and it almost acts
like an acid so you want to just make sure that the strings are wiped clear.
The rosin also becomes dust on your cello so you want to make sure that the dust of
the rosin comes off and then your cello is ready to pack.
I've enjoyed this time with you.
I'm so glad that you're going to be learning the cello.
Make sure that you practice every day and 20 minutes at least.
Have a blast.
Make sure you go to concerts and listen to lots of people playing music.
The other thing I'd like to make sure that you do is find a private teacher if you don't
already have one and you can find one by calling your school or a college or university near
you or the music store where you got your cello.
Thank you so much again and I'm sure you'll have a great time learning the cello.