A new cello

Upgrading my cello was a very important step in my career. I dreamt about it and imagined that I would be playing on an instrument that was easy to play and could sound any way that I wanted. I envisioned the octaves to be a snap and the loudest ff to be so easy I could relax while pulling the bow. My thoughts ran with the potential of a perfect cello that would be my practice, audition, and performance instrument. It would make my life so much easier and better. Did it? Yes, even if I don't practice I still can make it sound pretty good. It's a free sound and a direct sound as well as vibrating excitedly even with the slightest pizzicato or the lightest bow stroke. It feels like I only have to initiate the sound with only minimal effort and the music comes out of the cello.

It was the summer of 2008 in Chicago, IL. I had been to quite a few shops and had tried out numerous instruments both in the shops and at home. Even after more than a dozen (perhaps two or three dozen if I count all the instruments that weren't even considered to be worthy of purchase and those that were played for fun though out of my budget). Up in the top floor of the Fine Arts building on Michigan Ave. in the shop of Bein and Fushi I found myself holding a brand new cello. This cello had been finished only a week or so before. I was one of the first to play it and I was sitting down with it and gingerly drawing the bow over the strings to test out the sound. What was this sound? Why was it so easy to make a pleasing sound with it? After some scales and excerpts of concertos I stopped to think about the response of the strings and the tone produced with the bow and by pizzicato. Was I really getting the beautiful ring that I had envied with others' instruments?

Perhaps I was being fooled by the brand new instrument.....but wait! A new instrument isn't supposed to ring and vibrate so exuberantly! I tried again and again and pleasantly received the same lush sound with each pluck and each bow stroke. It was nearly a purchase right then and there, well, at least it was that feeling of wanting it some way, somehow. None the less, I took it home for a few days to test it in the environment that it could potentially have for most of it's life with me.

When I arrived home with the cello I pulled it out of its case immediately and began to play in the carpeted and low ceiling room. To my great pleasure the ring and the tone were all still present. After the trial time had expired I returned to the shop and began the purchase process. It was definitely going to be part of my life.

The cello by William Whedbee, fecit 2008 in Chicago has been a companion in growth from the first day I brought it home as mine. The tone has expanded just as my ability to pull out beautiful tone has expanded. The depth of sound in the cello's qualities has grown just as my search for depth and new layers has grown. I expect that this cello can keep on developing just I will continue to develop. It has been a great three years with this instrument. Here's to health and music!