The Time in Which I Try Something New

So, I love the cello.  I’ve always loved the cello.  I can remember being a preschooler and seeing someone play a cello on Sesame Street, and then going to my Grandma Jan’s house and playing with my great-grandfather’s guitar.  Since I was so small, it made a perfect make-believe cello.  I was fascinated with the idea of a cello, and how the case was so big it needed it’s own seat on a subway.  Oh, the power of Sesame Street, since I didn’t actually ride in a subway until I went to Washington D.C. when I was a senior in high school.

I didn’t grow up in a place where people played the cello, so naturally I played instruments that were used in my school band.  And I love them.  I love the clarinet.  I love the bass clarinet just as much.  I ended up playing a french horn I found in an upstairs storage room in high school.  I learned to play the flute after college so I could teach beginning flute students when I taught elementary band lessons.  I found a trumpet at a garage sale, and I don’t really play that, but one of my kidlets has his eye on it.  (Even though I don’t play the trumpet, I’m so glad I have one to take to music class and preschools to show kids what a trumpet is).  I once found a violin at a garage sale, but I couldn’t teach the violin to myself without some outside help.  Plus, it just isn’t the instrument for me, I think.

Since The Banana began to play the violin, my thoughts about the cello have been rekindled.  I adore the sound of a cello.  It truly makes me swoon.   Helping The Banana with her violin caused me to learn a lot about how kids learn to play stringed instruments.  Because I’m a pedagogical nut, I want to understand the pedagogy behind learning a stringed instrument more, because it seems a lot different to me, a woodwind player and pianist with a little bit of brass experience.  I really believe that the best way to learn how kids learn is to learn something yourself, especially  if you don’t already know how to do it.  The more and more I thought about it, the easier it was to rationalize learning the cello.

Still, I’m a grown up.  I’m pretty much middle aged at this point.  While there’s nothing wrong with learning brand new things, it can be a little more intimidating, I think.  Plus, I have four kids and 30 piano students and I teach Sunday School and preschool music classes and help people with their homework and take photographs of wonderful people.  I was, and am,  a little nervous about adding in the gigantic feat of learning a new instrument, when I already have lots and lots of practicing to do.

Yet, for weeks, I just couldn’t get cellos off the brain!  I went to the violin shop to purchase some supplies The Banana needed for her instrument.  I looked longingly over in the corner at all the cellos.  I love cellos.  I really do.

And I thought to myself, I should just do this, learn to play the cello.  

So I prayed about it.  And I discussed with my husband the expense involved in learning the cello, but what I thought I would gain as a teacher from it. He said go for it.

Still nervous, I wrote an email to the principal cellist in the symphony, who teaches at the universities here, and asked if she’d be interested in teaching an adult beginner.  She’s certified in many, many levels of Suzuki cello instruction, which is something I wanted to really know more about.  I thought, she’ll never be able to work me into her schedule, given the crazy schedule that I have and the fact that there were only two mornings I could squeeze a cello lesson into.  But, miraculously, she COULD fit me in.  Hooray.

So I took a deep breath, and bought a cello.

It’s hard picking out a cello when you don’t actually play the cello.

I’m thrilled to have this cello, though.  I love how it feels, vibrating, when I play it.  I love how I get to sit behind it and hug it.  I love the sound it makes even though I don’t know how to really play it yet.  “Twinkle Twinkle” here I come!

I am determined to become proficient.

To document my excitement, I enlisted The Banana to help with my camera.  I set the camera up and she took these three images of me playing.   Mr. TOF loves how the case has wheels on the bottom.  He loves that the instrument is so big.  The Banana is pretty excited that I’m playing a stringed instrument.  YaYa just shakes her head and smiles at me.   Mr. SP watches from a distance.

Guess who has taken a liking to the cello case?