I have my cello back again!

I met Ceri for dinner and sangria, and then we took the metro up to Mont-Royal and walked down St Denis (mistake, mistake, mistake – look, there’s Valet de Coeur, let’s look at miniatures. Look, there’s Excalibor, and the new Fall line is out, ooh, microsuede… no! No! Must pick up cello!)

We got there, and I gave the young man my name and claim sheet (different anxious young man – this one was Anglophone); he brought it in from the back, and I experienced the expected “Yay!” feeling, but something else, too. I saw my cello almost as if it were the first time… and it was, well, beautiful. Aesthetically attractive, I mean. I’ve always slightly regretted the fact that the varnish is orangey, instead of more brown or red. Not that the colour matters, of course; it’s the sound that you’re focused on, after all. When he carried it out, though, I knew it was mine right away (I’ve always been slightly afraid that if someone had a score of cellos, I wouldn’t be able to pick mine out by sight alone). Then, of course, I was swamped by the “Mine! Mine!” feeling, and he gave it to me, and all I wanted to do was hug it.

“It’s so small!” said Ceri.

“Well, that would be because I don’t have the endpin out,” I said. The endpin adds a good foot to the length of the instrument.

“And you’re not sitting down,” Ceri said with a grin, “That makes a big difference too. Usually it looks huge next to you.”

There was a gentleman there with a bike helmet who had been asking about violin rental while we’d waited, and he was still there as I put my cello away in the case. “That’s a cello?” he asked, partly to me, partly to the young man. “My middle son wants to play the cello, but we can’t seem to find a teacher.”

Now, I just so happened to have a slip of paper in my back pocket with the name and number of a cello teacher on it, which I had picked up in another music store a couple of hours earlier. I pulled it out and gave it to him; he needed it more than I did. I don’t remember what I said to him, really, only that if a child of ten is asking for lessons on a string instrument, for God’s sake, give him lessons. Music can only enrich, and the whole process of learning to read and play music trains a different part of the brain than does regular reading. What I didn’t say aloud was that it was refreshing to find a child who wanted music lessons, instead of feeling like s/he’d been forced into it. Cultivate that, says I.

So I got home and opened the case and oooh, the new bridge is twice as thick and arched higher and my strings rest on it beautifully, and it’s shaped, they actually sanded parts away in places for the more delicate strings to resonate better, and the sound is fantastic. If I seem a over-excited, you should have seen my last bridge – it was half this thick, only slightly rounded, and certainly not shaped so attentively or with consideration for the individual instrument. But then, this only confirms my general not-impressed-ness with Jules St-Michel, and increases my admiration for Wilder & Davis.

The luthier made a note on the work report that my A string is beginning to unravel as well, but I knew that already. It needs to be replaced before orchestra begins. Actually, all the strings are two years old (possibly three, goodness) and they saw more playing last year than I usually do, so they technically should all be replaced. My poor husband last night nearly choked when he asked how much an A string would cost, and I told him in the neighbourhood of thirty dollars. Good thing I didn’t tell him that C strings go for about fifty or sixty. A full set will cost between one hundred and one hundred and seventy. Guess I know what I’m doing with my next EI cheque…