Author Archives: Autumn

Dear 4/4 Cello:

Fifteen years ago I bought you almost new from another student cellist, your only identifying label a small one that says “Made in Hungary.” We’ve seen a lot together, from Twinkle to Scheherazade. I was stunned when luthier after luthier examined you and told me that you were about my age and a high-end intermediate model, not the shlunky new student model I’d been told you were by the previous owner. Over the past fifteen years your sound has developed beautifully, and you’re powerful and strong. Your action is easy. Your only prima donna trait is your tendency to demand a new bridge every eighteen months, and really, when you think of what can otherwise go wrong, that’s pretty reasonable.

I never knew how huge you were until I handed you to the principal cellist of my chamber orchestra for a moment, and she exclaimed about your width and depth. You were just my cello; that’s the way you were. So when I spoke to my new luthier and he measured you, I was surprised to find out that you are in fact an oversized 4/4. I am petite. I always thought people’s remarks about how amusing it was to see a tiny person playing a large instrument were generic sorts of comments. Now I wondered if there was something else to it.

After much discussion with my new teacher a year ago, we decided to start trying 7/8s; she said that the smaller size and proportion would positively impact my technique. I felt horrible, like I was cheating on you. I felt even worse when I discovered that it actually was physically easier to play a 7/8; I didn’t have a huge chunk of wood in my way when it came to putting my left hand in higher positions and moving my bow arm to play the C string. Even as I searched for a 7/8 whose tone I liked and whose action felt good, I thought I’d never sell you: I would be loyal to the end, whether I bought a second cello or not.

I rented the latest 7/8 for four months to play it exclusively in order to test the playing-better theory. And then last week I brought you upstairs from your lovely exile to play you, to see if there really was a difference. You were almost perfectly in tune, as if you’d been waiting for me.

And you were… harsh. Oh, your action was as easy as I remembered it being — easier than the 7/8, truth be told — but your sound was so bright and cutting that I found myself wincing. I remembered how I searched endlessly for the perfect combination of strings to tone down your brightness, to give you the more mellow sound that I craved. The sound that, I must admit, this 7/8 has in creamy, caramel-y spades. I had no physical problem playing you, but I did notice how large you were and how I had to lift my arms more to get around you, which limits the power I can devote to refining the sound I draw from you. You boomed, you were operatic, and… I cringed a bit. Were I a true soloist, your sound would be perfect for me. But I’m not. I’m a small-ensemble, orchestral-section girl. You’re… big, in every sense of the word. And I’m small.

I know now that keeping you would be sentimentality, pure and simple. While I can physically handle you, it’s just easier with a 7/8. And your sound isn’t what I’m looking for. Now that I know I have other options, I’m a bit sad. It was easier when I didn’t know any better.

You held my hand through pizzicato, my first shaky bow strokes, in-class group recitals, public recitals, joining my first orchestra, and playing bass in an eclectic cover band. We’ve experimented with a wide variety of strings and bows. I’ve given you four new cases over the years. Remember the time I shipped you to Toronto in the baggage car of the train, and the base of the hard case got punched in somehow? I panicked and opened you up right there in the middle of Union Station. And you were fine, laughing at me as if it would take more than whatever happened to hurt you. You have nicks and scratches all over you from minor mishaps over your forty years, and you don’t care. You haven’t a single wolf, and your balance across your strings and throughout your octaves is beautiful. I’ve never found your limits.

Come August, I’ll list you in local classified ads and hope you find someone who will love you as much as I have, someone who needs your size and your beautifully developed, unique sound. I love you. And I release you.

Hmm

I was poky this morning, dragging my metaphorical heels and saying, “I don’t wanna work.” And I spent what I thought was a lot of time kicking around online, hopping through my usual stops of news and journals and Facebook and Twitter and various forums, looking for distraction. I made bread. I don’t think I really settled in to the documents I had open on my desktop till around eleven.

And now? Wow. Freelance assignment finished, half the galleys done, and two hours of cello interspersed throughout. And I thought I was wasting the day. I shall have a glass of wine as a reward!

The Recital Report

A triumph! No screw-ups, secure shifts, solid intonation, some pretty damn fine subtle shaping, and oh look, stable bow weight resulting in nice smooth crescendos! Huzzah! The ensemble pieces were good too. In fact, everyone did very well. And I am very proud of the boy who behaved extremely well, but who, alas, fell asleep right before the Star Wars theme that was the thirteen-year-old’s choice of solo (just past the halfway mark of the recital). He quite enjoyed what he did hear, however. I am told he played air cello and clapped like a mad thing after the duet.

Summer is going to be very long. I will miss cello activites. I have another month of lessons to go and almost six weeks of orchestra, but year-end performances are always tinged with melancholy.

And now, I am going to reward myself with a glass of red wine that I saved from the bottle MLG brought to accompany dinner last night.

Uneven Dress Rehearsal…

… hopefully even recital, right?

This morning we had our dress rehearsal for tomorrow’s recital. The ensemble stuff sounded great, except for one piece, which admittedly did sound better once we’d had a break and retuned. Our duet sounded all right (I know hearing notes slightly out of tune is normal for performance, because one’s hearing goes hyper-critical) except for the bit where I relaxed in the repeat of the A section. I glanced away from my music, and when I looked back I had no idea where we were. I quickly ran out of what I remembered of the two bars following and had to stop playing until I figured out where my partner was. Very embarrassing; thank goodness it happened at the dress, so it won’t happen at the recital itself. We ended up cutting the repeat (which makes sense apart from my gaffe, as the A section is forty bars and quite long enough on its own), which reduces my chances of over-relaxing and losing my place. The other solos sounded terrific. It’s going to be a good recital.

HRH and I did end up going out to see Star Trek yesterday afternoon, and it was quite enjoyable. I’d have sat through the entire thing again if we hadn’t had to go collect the boy.

Cello Musings

(Oh look, I found a journal entry I’d been working on in fits and starts over the week. Evidently the headaches and work have given me the attention span of a gnat.)

I have the money to buy my current 7/8. Which, of course, now makes me all wibbly again. I’m just going to need to upgrade in a few years anyhow, now that I’m taking lessons again and advancing properly.

But why do you wibble? I hear my Gentle Readers say. We thought you were decided.

Well, insofar as I like the cello and it’s good to play, yes. When it comes to handing over just under $2K? Not so much.

I just dragged the 4/4 up from downstairs, though. And yes, wow, it’s great: it’s balanced, and projects really well. But it’s huge. And… I’ve come to prefer the tone of the 7/8. It’s more… caramel-y. My 4/4 is kind of like espresso: delicious, but with a bite. The 4/4 is easier to play action-wise; string crossings were effortless and the sound match between first and fourth position is smoother. But the 7/8 has that lovely mellow, nutty sound to it that’s always been my preference in cello tonal colour. And it’s improved since I got it; it likes being played and the sound has certainly developed. It will only get better.

I know I want to sell my 4/4. That much is decided. Love the sound, but I’m never going to be the kind of cellist that needs it, as in a soloist who needs to be heard through the orchestra. I’m small-ensemble and chamber material. So there’s hopefully around $1000 to be recouped from that. Whether or not it will sell is a different story; I’ve seen cellos posted repeatedly on Craigslist and Kijiji, with prices revised downward. I know this one is a gem; it’s a question of getting people to understand that.

Apart from the looming purchase of the 7/8, I also have hard case woes. The one I bought secondhand last year just isn’t going to work for a 7/8. The suspension is all wrong, the curved parts that are supposed to fit into the cello’s waist don’t fit into where the 7/8’s waist actually is, and there’s two inches of gap at the bottom. Even when I pad the bottom, the weight of the cello pulls it down so that the lower pegs hit the bottom of the scroll box, which means the cello’s weight is suspended from the lower pegs. (Bad? Yes. Very.)

Having bought both new-to-me hard and soft case last year, I’m loathe to buy a new one again. The soft case I bought is roomy on my oversized 4/4; the 7/8 swims in it. Yes, I could sell them along with my oversized 4/4 when I sell it, but adding another $300 on to the price of the 4/4 isn’t going to help sell it. But if I buy the 7/8, I want a good case to protect it. The one the luthier included with the rental 7/8 is a super-padded soft case which would be another $140 extra. If I want a new low-end hard case it will be about $300 and I’ll have the problem of finding a small 4/4 one in which the 7/8 won’t swim, or a large 3/4. There’s a local place that will let me send them my measurements and they’ll tell me if the 7/8 will fit one of their 3/4 cases, but they’d have to order a 3/4 in and it’s non-refundable if the measurements don’t match up after all. A hard case designed specifically for a 7/8 will be over $500.

The main problem with the 4/4 I’ve got is that the curved areas for the waist actually interfere with the bouts when the 7/8 is placed high enough to try to avoid the pegs mashing into the bottom of the scroll portion of the case. Putting foam padding in the bottom to support the base of the cello only helps to a point, because the tips of the bouts bonk into the semi-circular bits, and they stop the padding from lifting the cello enough to avoid the pegs problem. I’ve talked to HRH and checked the material of the case, and it’s made of that high-density stuff cycling helmets are made from. So we’re going to remove the padding, he’s going to trim off the semi-circular sections that are designed to fit the waist of the cello, we’ll insert a crescent-shaped piece in the base to make the body area smaller and snugger, and replace the cotton velvet covering. It’s not like removing the curved sections is heretical; most of the cases I see don’t have them at all. Then I won’t need to worry so much, and the 7/8 won’t bang around.

So the first thing we’ll try is modifying the hard case I’ve got. (I hear certain Gentle Readers hooting about the fact that I’m modding a case.) If that doesn’t work, well… we’ll make it work.

In the end, I know what I need to do; I just have to steel myself to hand over the money, and trust that I’ll recoup part of it eventually. It’s just that the money is so reassuring in my bank account. Taking it out leaves me with not very much at all, even if I knew that it was earmarked for the 7/8 to begin with.

Lethargy

Well, to be honest, it’s felt like lethargy, but it’s mostly been workworkwork and headaches, none of which are particularly conducive to writing blog posts. And it would be more of the same old, same old:

Work: Turned a freelance assignment around in five work hours; this is so much easier when the manuscripts are good. Got kudos for struggling through the last one that was so hard to read. Billed for three evaluations in ten work days; very nice. Got the galleys for the anthology, due back in ten days. Found a glaring error in the very first story. Sigh.

Cello: Excellent lesson Tuesday night, with yet another spontaneous appreciative comment from my teacher about how my left hand, confidence, and intonation have all really improved, both in my lesson and ensemble stuff as well as orchestra. Now we just really need to train the final tendencies to lift and lead from the wrist out of my bow hand and we’re good. (Ha ha ha. This is, of course, a lifetime-long struggle.) I was feeling pretty darn good about my celloing. And then yesterday I had another two-hour duet rehearsal with my partner, in which my bow was controlled by aliens. I’m serious. I certainly had no say in what it did. It sounded awful and squeaky and I shall wrap the frog in tinfoil so they don’t do it again during the recital on Sunday. We did good work, but I sounded awful in the duet. It did a real number on my self-confidence.

Weather: Yesterday was sunny with a hot wind; all the windows were open and the scent of lilacs poured in. It almost hit 30 C. For the first time, I officially wore no socks. Hello, summer. Today is damp and overcast and not warm. Hello again, spring.

Food: No interest. Thinking of food to feed other people is hard when you don’t feel like eating.

Boy: He has started drawing people and is very good at it. I nearly cried when he drew one in front of me for the first time. (Representational drawing is a big step; representational drawing of human figures is even bigger.) Language skills continue to freak me out. He’s been guaranteed a full-time preschool slot as of mid-August, which is fabulous, but which also means that I will never have the car to myself on a weekday again come the new fall term. He’s about two-thirds my height, which isn’t tall to begin with, but he’s about to turn four; c’mon. We also found out that the little con artist can and does use the pedals on the school trikes, which he claims he cannot do.

Cats: Cricket has been throwing up her food for a while, so we got her some Hills sensitive-stomach stuff and she’s kept it down just fine. Except Nix has figured out that Cricket’s getting Special Treatment, and won’t eat her own food now: she hooks the new food out from under Cricket’s nose and eats it herself. If we put Cricket in another room to eat, Nixie ignores her own dish entirely. Nixie is pretty much fur, bones, and whiskers and can’t afford to not eat. Scarlet told me about an Iams formula that is good for sensitive stomachs and is cheaper than the Hills, which she feeds to her herd of beasts, so we can feed it to all three cats and no one has to feel left out. Good grief.

HRH has booked today off, as he had a bunch of vacation days he needed to use by the end of May. The tentative plan is to go see the new Star Trek film, except I’ve had an awful headache for the past twelve hours. If it doesn’t get better, I’m calling it off. He’s taking next Thursday and Friday off as well, and the plan for next Friday is to take the boy to see Up in the theatre, his first such outing. It’s probably proof of my lethargy/fibro flareups/perpetual headaches that I’m more excited about next week’s film outing than today’s.

Holiday Weekend Roundup

Victoria Day Weekend is generally planting weekend around here. We’re more concerned with getting things into the ground than being able to wear white again without offending traditional fashion rules. It’s generally planting weekend because (a) it’s a long weekend, (b) theoretically it’s warm enough that night frosts are over, and (c) because we say so. And so of course, Saturday it poured rain, and Sunday was rainshowery and overcast and downright cold; both days saw really high winds. And the temperature, flouting Victoria Day decree, went within four degrees of freezing at night and only barely made it to 10 C during the day.

So our original plans for all-out gardening were put on hold and we did small dashes when we could. Saturday morning we went out and picked up fourteen bags of black earth to add to the beds, and four double flats of cosmos for the front garden. The boys put the cosmos in while I hid in a dark bedroom, trying to deal with a migraine. On Sunday HRH went out and got four double flats of pansies to line the front garden and scatter through the back garden. On Monday afternoon we went out and picked up twenty-four tomato seedlings, lots of mixed lettuce greens, and seed packets of green onions, carrots, cucumber, peas, and poppies. The boys planted all of that (except the poppies) while I made dinner. Monday afternoon was really the nicest weather of the entire long weekend, sunny and warm enough to leave off one’s jacket and garden in just a long-sleeved jersey.

That was the gardening component of the weekend. There was, of course, more. Saturday was dubbed the Day Of Baking. I made my first ever batch of homemade ice cream, from the recipe in the most recent issue of Fine Cooking, and froze it in a pan, beating it with a hand-held mixer once an hour. I did that three times, and it ended up beautifully creamy. (The original plan was to finally buy an ice-cream maker, but the only one I found was too expensive. Bah; who needs a machine?) I also baked the most incredibly brownie-like cookies to use in making ice cream sandwiches. The first tray didn’t spread as much as I’d hoped, so I pressed the second batch down to be thinner, and those worked better. I had five egg whites left over, so I made meringues, and if I haven’t said it enough, I love my stand mixer: I set it up to beat the egg whites and sugar and walked away for ten minutes. When I came back it was so think I could spoon some up and throw it on the pan, and it would keep its shape. Incredible! I had to bake them twice, though, because it was so damp on Saturday they kept going sticky. I left them in the cool oven overnight instead of a container, then baked them the second time for three hours at 100 F, to thoroughly dry them. It worked, too; they were light and crunchy all the way through.

Victoria Day itself was a beautiful, sunny day, most welcome after the rainy overcast days of Saturday and Sunday. We visited Ceri and Scott for lunch, and ate delicious gourmet burgers and grilled veggies done on the barbecue. Dessert was sandwiches made from my ice cream and chocolate cookies, with meringues to follow. It was absolutely wonderful. Ceri and Scott also sent us home with a small slide they’d found behind their shed, which fits perfectly within the space on the swingset that used to house the odd glider/seesaw thing we took down. Liam is over the moon.

For those who want to know the outcome of the dramatically bad manuscript evaluation I had to do, I kept slogging and handed something in with a note explaining the drastic shortcomings and the lack of examples that are usually required to demonstrate problems that need to be addressed. (Hard to prove a negative regarding plot or characterization when you can’t find any.) The department got back to me with kudos for handling a hopeless case and said they understood how hard it must have been, and thanked me for sticking to it and for being as encouraging as I had been. Result: warm fuzzy feeling. Go me.

I really had a tough time dealing with this. As an author, I know what it’s like to get an editorial letter. Even though these evaluations are anonymous, I felt like I was slaughtering this author’s hopes and dreams. A couple of writer friends, one of whom also copyedits, pointed out that part of a writer’s job is receiving criticism and applying it to improve the product, just as part of the editor’s responsibility is to critique in order to elicit a stronger product. Neither are enjoyable one hundred percent of the time, but we both have to perform our duties to the best of our abilities. We owe it to ourselves, to one another, and to the product. While I wasn’t functioning as a traditional editor in this instance, I was responsible to pointing out weaknesses and errors in order to ascertain what level of editing was required to bring it to publishable standard. And when I have to say that the writing is of such a low quality that I can’t find the story the author is trying to tell, well, I get downright miserable, because that’s not news I ever want to have to tell someone.

Let’s see, what else? I finished reading Catherynne Valente’s Palimpsest; a most beautifully written book. And I finally began The Children’s Book, the new book by A.S. Byatt. I hadn’t known a new one was out until I saw it on the new release shelf at the library two weeks ago. It’s gorgeous; I will own it. Possibly even in hardcover. And HRH and I finally saw the fourth Indiana Jones movie, which was not as abysmal as the world said it was when it came out. Yes, it was flawed, and yes, there were things I would have changed about it, but it wasn’t the travesty we’d been led to believe it was.

Right; on to the day. I have a new freelance assignment, and there is cello in my future, both practise and a duet lesson tonight. Recital on Sunday! Five days!