Top 5 things I wish I’d known starting cello as an adult
As I’ve mentioned before, I started my cello journey at age 25 from scratch. I couldn’t read music, I didn’t know what a half note was or what it meant when I heard someone say so and so’s cello sonata in G minor.
If you’re in the same shoes as I was, I guarantee that taking these 5 points to heart will be a tremendous boost to your learning curve. The faster we can get past the choppy shoreline of beginner playing and into the deeper waters of musicianship, the more rewarding and enjoyable you are going to find the experience.
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#1: Ear Training (“if you can hear it, you can play it”)
That little saying has come to mean more and more to me the longer I’ve played cello. When it comes to having good intonation and learning to play really in tune, the real trick is being able to hear the note ahead of time and then matching the pitch on the cello to the note in your inner ear.
Just to be clear, I’m not talking about perfect pitch (which I don’t have).
I’m talking about developing excellent relative pitch, which essentially is the ability to hear and recognize musical intervals.
Being able to hear and recognize intervals will help you with things like intonation and playing in tune and also if you want to be able to play things by ear.
It will also help you develop your inner ear, which will give you the ability to hear a pitch in your head before playing it on the instrument. In this way your brain can lead your finger to the pitch you already hear clearly, instead of using muscle memory to find a note and then using your ear afterward to check whether you hit the note accurately or not. This is a huge difference!
Here’s my advice: don’t do all of your ear training on your instrument while you practice.
That’s crazy if you think about it: There’s already so much going on with the bow hand, the bow hold, pulling a straight bow, left hand shape, coordinating the two hands, your general posture …
Rather, practice interval ear training off of the cello.
The more effort you make in developing your ear away from the cello, the faster you will begin to play reliably in tune. Remember, the brain controls the fingers, not the other way around.
Here’s a link to my favorite ear training tool:
# 2 : 99% of the time, the problem is your bow arm
Well, 99% might be an exaggeration, but in my experience — not by much.
It’s really easy to fixate on the left hand. We all want to play in tune and the rapid fingerings can seem so complicated compared to the bow arm.
But once you have your basic left hand shape developed and you’re somewhat comfortable with the fingerboard, I found awkward bow use is more often the culprit for any problems that arise.
Things like feeling uncoordinated and not being satisfied with your sound are sure signs that you may want to devote more attention to your bow arm.
I’d encourage you to experiment with separating the hands. In your practice, pick a passage that you’re having trouble with and isolate the bow by taking your left hand out of the equation.
With this exercise, you will be playing open strings only. This will help you to work out what you need to be doing with the bow without the distraction of the left hand.
I’ve found that if I can play a passage perfectly with the right hand only then inevitably I won’t have much of a problem adding the left hand. However, that’s hardly ever the case the other way around.
# 3: One beautiful note is worth 1,000 plain ones
Really! If you can play a simple song with a truly beautiful sound, taking care of each note (including the starts and ends of each note), then I think you’re really getting somewhere.
It can be easy to get into a mindset where you equate progress with being able to “get through” pieces of harder and harder difficulty.
I definitely went through a period like that, and even when I was able to hold everything together and play through the piece entirely, I usually didn’t feel great about it afterwards.
Why? I knew that surviving through a piece and really “playing” a piece are two very different things.
Conversely, there have been times when I felt I played a simple piece really beautifully.
No matter how simple the piece was, I always feel happy and content that I was able to express myself fully, even on something small and “easy.”
It’s important to tackle new repertoire and work on developing technique. But at the same time, don’t lose sight of why you started cello — to be able to express yourself artistically and create beautiful, rich sounds.
#4: Slow practice
So let me start by saying that learning how to practice more and more efficiently has been one of the most fascinating and enlightening aspects of my cello journey.
For the same person with the same amount of practice hours invested, it can mean the difference between plodding along with moderate progress and improving dramatically by leaps and bounds.
My first breakthrough in developing more efficient practice habits was learning how to practice slowly.
It is an art form in itself and initially it requires a lot of patience.
I remember when I was first introduced to the idea of practicing passages WAY under tempo I felt like:
1) I was being punished, and
2) there was no way that learning to play something at such a glacial rate would ever actually help me when I eventually tried the passage at full speed.
And then I gave it a real try.
I forced myself to do entire practice sessions of what felt like insanely slow practice. And that’s when I became a convert.
Previously difficult passages suddenly felt smooth as butter to execute and eerily like I was on autopilot.
Sometimes after really good slow practice my hands would then be able to play at full speed as if some advanced, later version of myself was visiting from the future and demonstrating through my body.
Slow practice gives you the time to investigate the intricacies of whatever you’re working on; you can examine and control the choreography of your two hands and the ways in which subtleties in the timing between the two can create trademarks of advanced playing such as clean legato lines and hidden shifts.
Just as with most aspects of cello playing, there’s no end to the level of detail and control you can develop as you sharpen your ability to practice slowly, and I only wish I had been introduced to this incredible tool earlier on in my journey!
# 5: Shop Around
This may seem like a no brainer but I think many people simply find a teacher and get going without first trying a few different candidates.
For a motivated beginner who wants to put in consistent work, the right teacher is equivalent to miracle grow; you will learn at a faster rate and build a solid technical foundation so that you don’t end up having to rebuild your technique or fix bad habits down the road.
Okay, so what does the right teacher look like? Different people will benefit from different teaching styles and personalities, but here are two guidelines:
1. MAKE SURE YOUR TEACHER PLAYS THE CELLO WELL
You may not be a string playing connoisseur yet, but you can still look for obvious red flags; do they seem very physically tense when demonstrating, or do the demonstrations sound clumsy or unmusical to you.
Since so much of your initial lessons will likely involve teacher demonstrations, I think it’s ideal if you really like the way your teacher sounds as a player.
So now a warning: I’m not saying that a better player is invariably going to be a better teacher.
Just as in sports, the best performers don’t always make the best coaches. Keep that in mind.
2. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A GOOD CONNECTION
The second thing to look for in a teacher is a good connection personality-wise.
Just as with colleagues at work, you want to find someone who really knows what they are doing and who is also a pleasure to work with.
As an adult learner, you should feel like your teacher is able to mold their style to your personal needs and goals. You want someone who can provide you with excellent information and encouragement.
Bottom line: my advice would be to do a trial lesson or two with a few different teachers that seem like possible candidates. Most likely one of them will pull ahead of the pack and be a clear winner.
So there are my top 5 things I wish I knew before starting the cello as an adult!
At the end of the day, the most important thing is to get started, so I wouldn’t obsess over getting off to a perfect start. But, had I known these 5 points ahead of time, I would have benefited from them enormously!
If you have any questions about starting the cello or about the cello in general, please feel free to email me at billy@adultcello.com.
