Knocking on Wood

I have so much to write about the past few days that I think it's going to take a few posts. I got to ask a bazillion questions about how a cellomaker makes a cello with a phenomenal sound. I got to play one of Chris's newer cellos. I got to choose the wood for my cello (with a lot of help from Chris). I got to listen to a world-class cellist try out and evaluate Chris's cello in a concert hall. I got a quick lesson from her after she had me play his cello and her cello so she could hear both instruments in the concert hall (I'll write about what she did and how mortifying it was to play for her in another post!). I got to see the block of wood that will become the one-piece back of a cello Chris is building for another Very Famous Cellist (trust me, you all have heard of this Very Famous Cellist).

One of the basic questions I had was how do you know what kind of sound the blocks of wood are going to make as they get formed into the top and back of a cello? I got a real education about what Chris looks for - wood grain, density, split of the wood, and yes, he knocks on the wood to hear its sound. Every piece of wood he showed me had its own ringing sound when he (or I) would knock on the wood. This was actually one of the last things we did.

The first thing Chris did when I got there was to hand me a cello and watch me play. I played a cello he built recently (that the world-class cellist was going to evaluate) and student cello with identical dimensions to my current cello so that I could compare the dimensions of that particular cello with something familiar. (with the hassles of flying I only brought my bow). I'm not very tall, and my arms relatively speaking are short for my body. Consequently one of the things I've found difficult is putting a lot of pressure on the A string when I'm at the tip of the bow. So we talked about what he could do to make that more comfortable for me without compromising the sound of the cello. He watched and asked about what I wanted in neck thickness, what it was like to move into thumb position, and how the width of the cello felt along the lower bout. The questions he asked were related to choosing the model/pattern of the cello (this is for the top and back of the cello). I'm so glad that Cellodonna recommended John Marchese's The Violin Maker, which I read before this trip. After we spent a while distilling down what was important to me, he recommended a pattern that is close to (but not exactly the same) as the pattern that he is using for the Very Famous Cellist. It will have some characteristics similar to a Stradivarius cello, but will not follow it completely. He will build my cello from a pattern that will be my very own!

I'll write more about some of the things he is doing to make a finished cello sound amazing in my next post...