Learn to play the cello

3 weeks in and everything is going well. It is more challenging than I expected, and I’ve learned that my instrument is in a bit worse shape than I realized, but it is still fine for a student. Oh – last night I learned that my cello instructor is also studying to be a Yoga instructor – another thing on my list. Synchronicity! :)

I just took my first formal lesson last night. The lesson was fun and promising, and looks like it is going to bring several good people into my life, in addition to the wonderful experience of making music. I believe this is going to be a great, satisfying experience and I’m really, really happy about it. db

I love playing my cello!

I just bought a cello. I love it and I am thrilled! It is a 3/4 2001 Florea Timisoara, spruce, slightly-but lovingly- used! It looks beautiful, it sounds beautiful. What makes it even better is that I bought it from a kid who just graduated Berklee College of Music, who wanted it to go to someone who would use and love it, as I will. It was a great price, and helped him out, so a good deal all around. He told me you can find cello lessons on youtube…that’ll be my next step, getting comfortable with the instrument, familiarizing myself with it, and getting ready to play. I hope to find an instructor for private lessons asap. I love it!! Here’s a picture…

I found a man who is selling a used instrument, and he is bringing it by this afternoon for me to see. I feel pretty good about what I know so far, and as long as it is in decent condition I feel confident that I will buy it – so I will own a a cello by tonight! I’m really excited!

There is something unusual, maybe even odd, about an adult taking up a musical instrument, although I don’t know why that is the case. I would listen to the cello and think how beautiful it was and how fortunate someone must be to be able to play it, and it seemed something completely outside of me, something that it never occurred to me to even attempt to accomplish. One day, very suddenly, something changed, and I don’t know what or why, but it occurred to me out of the blue that I could learn to play the cello if I wanted…there’s nothing to stop me from buying an instrument, finding a teacher, taking lessons, practicing and learning. So, to accomplish my new thing I have to do just those steps; I’m reading right now about how to choose an instrument, how much I should pay, etc. In the next few days I’ll make some calls about finding a teacher. It’s hard to know now when I can consider this goal as “accomplished,” (maybe after a year of lessons?) but eventually I will replace it with what is my true goal: being able to play the Prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite #1 in G Major … the most perfect two minutes of music ever written. The image here is by one of my favorite American painters; it’s Thomas Eakins’ “The Cello Player”