Apostrophe to a Cello

Oh cello, whence comes (notice that old-timey construction) your human voice?

 

I've read that the violin most closely resembles the human voice. Well, that might be true if the voice in question is that of Isabel Barakdarian or Joan Sutherland. But for most of us, the violin's range  is much higher than the range of our voices. To me, the violin can be screeching or ethereal, depending on who's playing it. But it seldom sounds to me like a human voice.

 

But you, you plump wooden darling, you are tuned to my voice and my heart. Your bottom string resonates like thunder at two octaves below middle C. Your top notes—for those who have practiced long enough to be able to make them beautiful—rival the violin in their vocal inaccessibility.

 

But your middle range! All those tenor timbres that sing from the heart! Those cello tones that groan with sorrow or uplift the heart with their full joy. You are the instrument for humans, you curvaceous beauty.

 

The bow engages your strings, moving back and forth so smoothly that it sounds like a singer practiced in circular breathing—a sung sound that never ends.

 

I can apostrophize further in this vein, but I don't want to turn your pretty head. So let's move on to the nitty-gritty. The rest of this monologue is a plea. Since I began studying your ways, I've never asked you for much. But now I'm asking you to respond to my hours of work and let me sound like a cellist. I want to make beautiful sounds not just occasionally but throughout a whole piece. If I give you my loving attention each time I play, surely you can respond to my intention, which is to create beauty.

 

If I work at becoming less rigid, can you not do the same? As I play the Bach that I've worked on for so many weeks, I ask for your indulgence. I will pay attention to intonation, to bowing technique, to the underlying musicality of the piece, to accuracy as the fingers of my left hand shift from one position to the next, from one string to the next. I will devote my attention to all of these things (not to mention the additional element of memorizing those notes!). And in return, what will you grant me? Can I ask you to sing? Can I plead with you to respond to my attempts to create beauty? Can I at least ask for your cooperation?

 

If I can get you to accommodate me to this extent, can I then move on and ask you to overlook my occasional gaffe? Will you be forgiving of those times when I use a smidgen too much pressure on the bow—or too little—or when I anticipate the string crossing by a hairsbreadth, a nano-second, or when the little finger of my left hand (called the fifth finger in real life but the fourth in cello language)—when that finger isn't quite strong enough to press the string firmly—in all of these cases I ask your indulgence. I ask for a little mercy. I ask you to give me, if only occasionally, the benefit of the doubt, an A for effort. In short, I ask you to be kind.

 

And in return I'll practice, I'll dust your dark wooden surface, I'll keep you away from roughhousing grandchildren.

 

Together perhaps, one day, we'll make beautiful music.

 

 

Copyright 2011 Ann Tudor

www.anntudor.ca
http://www.scenesfromthejourney.blogspot.com