25th February 2019
10 tips to keep your cello in shape!
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When we play the cello, the rosin from the bow creates a kind of white dust that sticks to the strings, to the fingerboard, to the bow's wood and to the cello soundbox. If we don't take it out every time that we stop playing, it piles up and then it's very difficult to clean.
That's why we must always have a cloth in hand so that every time that we stop playing we can remove the rosin in a short moment. It must be a lint-free cloth, for example one made of cotton (a piece of an old T-shirt) or of synthetic fiber like the one in the photo.
It's very important that before playing the cello we wash our hands!
If you just come from the park, or you have eaten crisps, did some handwork... you don't want that all this dirt goes to the cello! But even if you think that they are clean, our skin produces natural oil that on the cello, it can hurt it. That's why it doesn't matter what have we done before that we have to wash our hands consciously before playing.
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Once a while (2 or 3 times per year), we should clean the varnish of the cello with a specific product suggested by our luthier. To do it, first, we have to take the dust off with our cloth and then pick up a piece of cotton fabric (it can be from an old T-shirt), put there a little bit of the product and rub the varnish gently.
Our cello will be grateful: it will look shinier and you will also notice a sound improvement!
Two of the cello parts that get more dirty are the strings and the fingerboard because it's where we place our fingers and also where the bow slides. If we don't clean the strings often, a layer of rosin can be formed and it's very difficult to take it off later. Both for the fingerboard as well as for the strings, we will use a 70% alcohol, with a cotton disk, and never forget to put a cloth that protects the wood of the cello, because no alcohol can fall there, this would destroy the varnish!
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Like us, that we often go to the doctor, we have to take our cello to the doctor too, to see if everything is fine. And how is it called the doctor of the string instruments? Yes, the LUTHIER. He is the expert and will tell us if the instrument has any problem and he will advise us on how to maintain our cello in good condition. In the appointment, we can ask him to soften the pegs if they are too stiff or to make a rehair of our bow.
Sometimes the pegs are too stiff, and this can make more difficult to tune the cello. We should be able to turn them with some ease, but we cannot leave them too soft because they would lose themselves all the time!
There are some tricks that we can use at home to adjust the pegs ourselves, like for example taking them out a little bit and apply some chalk or soap, but the best would be that the luthier did it himself.
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When changing the strings, we have to put them correctly. If we want to change them all, we must not take them off all in once (think that the force that they make on the bridge and the wood is of 25kg, and taking off all this weight suddenly would damage the instrument!). As the most, we have to change them two by two in this way:
First, we take out the D string and then the A string, and when putting the new ones, first the A string and then the D string. In the same way, when changing G and C, we do it the same way: first taking out G, then C, and then putting first C and finally G.
We have to try that our bow has the right amount of rosin, not more and not less! I will tell you a trick to see if we have enough rosin: when we start playing (that our strings are clean), if the bow already leaves white dust, we don't have to add more rosin, but if it barely leaves dust, we should add more.
To put rosin, we can put our thumb at the metallic part where the bow hairs go into the bow, to avoid that the rosin hits the metal and breaks. Furthermore, when we have already put rosin, we can pinch a little bit the bow hairs to take off the excess and avoid that it falls on the cello wood.
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Sometimes we notice that it's difficult to tense and unscrew the bow. It can be because of the screw that it's too stiff. To soften it, we can unscrew it and rub it with a pencil or a candle.
By the way, never forget to unscrew the bow when you stop practicing!
And finally: two trips to travel with your cello
Never leave it inside the car alone, the temperatures can increase a lot there and this can damage the instrument. Also never forget to bring with you a set of spare strings, you never know what can happen!
10
Make your own first-aid cello kit!
We are going to create a first-aid kit where you can store everything that your cello needs! It's very easy: you only have to take a shoe box that you are not going to use anymore and decorate it with the cutouts that you will find by clicking on the link below:
Once decorated, read the article and make a list of everything you need:
lint-free cloth
piece of an old T-shirt
soap
candle
...
You will have everything in one place for anything that your cello needs! Take a photo of it and send it to me by filling in the next box, so that I can see how it looks:
