(Why) is Cello Hard to Learn?
STILLS FROM MY ONLINE COURSE: CELLO IN 30 DAYS
The real question is what precisely is so hard about learning the cello, and more specifically for readers like you, what exactly is most difficult for adult learners of the cello.
If you asked 100 random non-musicians on the street if the cello is a hard instrument to learn, I would be shocked if any of them said, “no, not really.”
We all know it’s hard.
This is a topic that fascinates me to no end, because I personally started learning the cello at age 25 from scratch and because I believe that anyone can learn to play the cello and achieve a high level of ability no matter what age they start at.
Here’s my earlier article on this same question:
IS IT HARD TO LEARN CELLO?
Creating a list of all the difficulties involved in learning something complicated sounds like a recipe for abandonment of the task altogether. However, it’s precisely a list like this one that I would have wanted as I was starting my own cello journey, because knowledge is power.
The trick is to identify these pitfalls and traps that might slow your progress so that you can locate them and try to circumnavigate them on your way to achieving your playing goals.
Here are 3 major aspects of learning the cello that are challenging specifically for adult learners:
1. KNOWLEDGE VS. SKILL
There are two major components of the learning process.
The first is knowledge, which in our case could include “knowing” how to hold the cello bow, how to sit comfortably with the cello, and how to draw a straight bow across each string.
Within a few minutes and with a handful of sentences you could learn and “know” the principle concepts behind each of these essentials.
However, whether or not you could immediately translate this knowledge into physical ability is an altogether different question!
That’s where skill comes in. Once you have an understanding of the principles, you need to figure out methods of turning this knowledge into proficient skill.
If you have a teacher, that is precisely his or her job, to give you knowledge and then to help you devise exercises to turn that knowledge into skill.
This is where being an adult learner can lead to frustration. Compared with most kids, adults have a higher understanding of what they cannot yet do as well as higher expectations for how quickly they should be able to acquire skill.
It can be discouraging for adults to realize that some aspects of good cello playing may require undoing years of habitual body use and recalibrating our senses to some degree.
We are used to having total control of our bodies in everyday life and suddenly it feels like our hands have a mind of their own, tensing up and tightening despite our best intentions.
From personal experience I can attest to how frustrating it can be to “know” how the bow should be held but nonetheless not be able to do so comfortably.
Learning to separate the concepts of knowledge and skill, along with learning to employ a creative, problem solving mindset to developing skill, are to my mind essential if you want to ensure that your progress in cello (or any endeavor for that matter) takes a linear, upward trajectory.
2. THE TERM “EFFICIENT”
One of the great strengths adult learners have over children is the ability to maintain focus. We adults are willing to put in consistent work with the understanding that the payoff will eventually come.
As adults, we are also able to use our time more efficiently than kids because of our higher attention spans and better coordination.
However, I believe there is a misunderstanding with the term “efficiency” and once again this is something I have come to realize through personal experience.
Regarding a task like learning the cello, I would define ‘efficiency’ as the maximum rate at which we can turn our knowledge into skill.
This is somewhat different than our usual understanding of efficiency. A more efficient printer will use less ink, a more efficient route home from work will take less time to arrive, and a more efficient work flow might make a creative project take less time to finish.
With cello, many people therefore think that efficiency means that they won’t have to do a lot of repetitions of a task to turn it into a skill.
While this is eventually true in the long run, I want to emphasize that in my experience efficiency comes more from pairing down tasks into simpler steps (and at first adding some time to the learning process), not simply learning something with only a few repetitions.
I have found that repetition is essential to creating skill that is repeatable on command.
Where I have learned to be more efficient is in dividing my tasks into smaller and smaller subtasks so that each individual element of what I’m working on is mastered on its own; after this I simply connect these aspects and integrate them into one larger skill.
For example, if practicing a difficult musical passage, instead of simply learning it at a slow tempo and then gradually speeding it up (like I used to do with limited success), these days I focus on deconstructing the passage into various left and right hand challenges, devising ways of mastering these difficulties completely on their own, and then eventually putting the two hands together and starting to build up the passage from a slower tempo to the right one.
I realize this might sound like extra work, but the fact is that until I started attacking problems in this manner I often would hit a wall in my ability to truly feel like I had mastered certain passages or skills. As a result, I would hit that wall and then just increase my number of repetitions, inching more and more slowly towards my goal (and often never quite getting all the way there). What I needed to be doing instead was deeply analyzing my work and figuring out the hiccups holding me back.
On the cello, efficiency is simplifying your tasks and mastering them bit by bit so that you have a comprehensive understanding of how to produce your skills on command.
This also helps ensure that the techniques you are building to play a certain passage will be retained on their own and not married to the passage itself.
As a result you will start building a technical arsenal of skills that you can apply to other passages without as much painstaking repetition down the road.
For adult learners: if you’re having trouble learning a musical passage, there is a reason it’s so hard (and it’s NOT that you just need to keep trying it until something “clicks”). Deconstruct your work, find and master the sticky aspects that are slowing you down, then put everything back together and watch yourself sail by happily!
3. DON’T FORGET TO LET GO AND SING
If you’re anything like me, your cello journey will vacillate between periods of trying to focus more and more technically on the craft of playing cello and periods of trying to put technical thinking on the back burner to focus on singing through your instrument.
This may be the trickiest aspect of learning to play the cello. We all want to play this wonderful instrument because we want to make “those” sounds, to express ourselves fully in this unique way that uses no words but somehow is more eloquent than words could ever be.
And yet, the more we play, the more we realize that being able to make all these exciting sounds and colors, swells and sweeping melodic lines, is a matter of turning more and more knowledge into refined skill.
The knowledge I’m talking about here specifically is knowing what we want to hear when we play a certain note or passage…it’s the inner musical voice we here when we close our eyes and listen in our heads to the piece we’re practicing…how the phrase should be shaped, how much vibrato should be used and what kind, etc.
What we often forget is that a major aspect of the ideal cello voice in our heads is its unencumbered freedom of expression.
Our inner voice doesn’t have to actually produce any sound physically and so it doesn’t contain any of the sonic hallmarks that come from incomplete technique or physical tension such as tight vibrato or unfocused sound throughout bow strokes.
Think of that perfect karaoke song that sits in your exact vocal range. You can just hold up the mic and sing your heart out.
That’s how our inner voice sings, free and easy.
It only makes sense, then, that to recreate our inner musical voice we must emulate its free and easy nature.
This means - after hours and hours of technical thinking and problem solving - eventually getting out of our fingers and arms, allowing our skills to take over on autopilot and focusing on singing our ideal line while allowing our hands to follow our inner voice.
Easier said than done!
But the great part is that even as a beginner, you will have moments when this occurs, moments when you enter a delicious flow state and sit back while your body executes the music with little to no interference.
These moments alone, however ephemeral, are worth all the work and effort by themselves!
Learning the cello as an adult is a tremendously rewarding experience, and if you’re still reading this article and have yet to start your journey, go for it! It’s never too late to start and the harder you have to work for things in life, the more you will value them!
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.
