Learning the Cello as an Adult (1997)

But you know how good you'd like to play, and that is a massive undertaking: Playing on a fretless neck, bowing, keeping high body tension throughout, the sightreading requirement (tenor clef anyone?), the character of the instrument and the relevant cello pieces expecting virtuous play, are all compounding factors that make it really hard, with no clear goal:

Get some friends out of their musical retirement? Be the novelty instrument in a alternative band? Find an orchestra or quartett that's beginner friendly and ...cool?

Meanwhile, the return on a minimal investment in guitar playing and a bit of singing is almost comical. Also plenty of bands need a bass player and you'll easily find a group of cool people to play with even if you're just starting out and in your 50ies. Want more? Try the piano; moderate effort will enable you to play all pop/rock songs.

> There is a special sense in which it may be fair to say that the child scientist is a less efficient thinker than the adult scientist. He is not as good at cutting out unnecessary and useless information, at simplifying the problem, at figuring out how to ask questions whose answers will give him the most information. Thus, a trained adult thinker, seeing a cello for the first time, would probably do in a few seconds what it takes a child much longer to do—bow each of the strings, to see what sounds they give, and then see what effect holding down a string with the left hand has on the sound made by that string

> That is, if—and it is a very big if—he could bring himself to touch the cello at all. Where the young child, at least until his thinking has been spoiled by adults, has a great advantage is in situations—and many, even most real life situations are like this—where there is so much seemingly senseless data that it is impossible to tell what questions to ask. He is much better at taking in this kind of data; he is better able to tolerate its confusion; and he is much better at picking out the patterns, hearing the faint signal amid all the noise. Above all, he is much less likely than adults to make hard and fast conclusions on the basis of too little data, or having made such conclusions, to refuse to consider any new data that does not support them. And these are the vital skills of thought which, in our hurry to get him thinking the way we do, we may very well stunt or destroy in the process of "educating him".

> But the greatest difference between children and adults is that most of the children to whom I offer a turn on the cello accept it, while most adults, particularly if they have never played any other instrument, refuse it.

He wrote about his own experience with learning the cello in the book "Never Too Late: My Musical Life Story."

A difficulty I've faced as an adult learner of piano is finding the right teacher. I'm interested in the learning process generally, but especially in effective and efficient learning in the context of piano (practice smarter, not harder). I expect I seek to question and discuss things with my piano teacher more than a young learner might.

I suspect I'm also more anxious in performance (e.g. grading exams) than a young pianist might be. Unlike the generally solitary process of writing code, playing piano for others has an unfamiliar immediacy and demand on the more extrovert aspects of my personality.

It's useful and encouraging to read the experiences of other adult learners in these comments and I continue to look out for tips to help me along with the 'practice smarter' aspect of my musical development.

Your skill is going to depend on how much time you want to invest practising. In my experience, as a hobby musician, my most "efficient" practising schedule was:

* 5 day/week: 30 to 45 minutes

* 1 day: 3 hours

* 1 day: nothing, don't practise

While this is pretty much a goldmine of information, one thing I would advise of being careful about is about this « My practice hours are divided about equally between works from the standard cello literature and highly focused mechanical exercises ».

While I'm sure it's the the best solution if your only goal is to get better, it is not a format I would suggest for everyone. I for one would have been so bored if I had to to this that I probably would have quit. What I'm doing is about 1/3 practicing scores with sheets, 1/3 mechanical exercises and scales and 1/3 improvisation and just fun (which is very important to me for keeping the motivation to go on, and I guess it could apply to other people). Just for the record, I started playing violin at 24, a bit over one year ago (first instrument), so obviously I can only say that as a total newbie, just keep in mind though (:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve4cBOnSU9Q

http://exposed.ethanwiner.com/1280x720.htm

I'd liked classical music a lot from the first time I heard it at about age 10 and still like it a lot -- it's one of the best joys of my life.

As I was starting in math in grad school at Indiana University (IU), a friend of my parents played violin; his wife played piano; and he told me that for learning violin age really isn't the problem and, instead, the main issue is just time to practice.

So, right, IU has long had a terrific music department; in my second year my dorm building was next to the music school; an Issac Stern protege and student of IU violin teacher Josef Gingold put his old Italian violin under my left chin and gave me a first lesson; and I was hooked.

I took a beginning course in violin: Good learning situation -- after the semester was over the teacher went on to play the Brahms concerto in Toronto!

I continued, got a violin, later got a better violin, got a copy of Galamian's book, listened to a lot of violin music, learned some about how to hold the bow from pictures of Heifetz (he did it the Russian way and not the German way), worked on both exercises and also some of the famous pieces.

So, I actually made it through the famous, violin standard, the Preludio to the Bach E Major Partita. Also the Preludio to the first Bach unaccompanied cello piece -- just transpose the thing up to the corresponding strings on violin -- it's got to be easier to play on violin than cello. There's no end to how marvelous that piece is, e.g., with its ascending chromatic (just in semi-tones) climax. It's really famous, and for good reason. GrooveShark had a marvelous performance.

The Bach Chaconne, of course, was harder, and I got through the central D major section and parts of the rest.

It was also fun to be able to play Christmas music, parts, a few bars at a time, of some of the famous concertos, the motives (amazing, especially considering how simple they are) from Wagner, etc.

It was fun, lots and lots of fun. I was no good at it, but still it was lots of fun.

Now I'm too busy with my startup, but I am eager to get back to violin. Else I will use a computer, with whatever software, likely there is some; else I will write some, to perform music (ah, the Nyquist sampling theorem!), learn more about music, compose some, and have a computer perform that. Maybe the best I'll ever be able to do is to compose yet another score of low grade movie music, but, still, it should be a lot of fun.

Lesson: As an adult, it's quite possible to learn violin, cello, etc. The main issue is time to practice. The hobby can be a lot of fun even if the results are not ready for public performance. No chance of being another Heifetz or Rostropovich, but, still, it can be a lot of fun. E.g., a violin is an amazing instrument, a beautiful hunk of wood, as sensitive, astounding, and difficult to control as any human female!

If you like the music and want to try, then go ahead.

First piece of advice: An early challenge is learning how to hold a violin. For this, f'get about what Heifetz did and, instead, do what nearly all violinists do now -- use a support between the violin and your shoulder. For finding the right support, each time in a violin shop, buy at least one of each support product they have you don't and try it. Eventually you will get quite comfortable holding the violin appropriately, e.g., where it belongs and being held in place by your chin and not by your left hand.

Second Advice: Learn how the scales and keys work, major and minor, all 12 of each, the connection with key signatures on the staff of the music (they look complicated but actually are simple -- mostly you don't pay any attention, note by note, to all those sharps and flats and, instead, just play in the associated key), the circle of fifths, etc. Learn the connection with 2^(1/12), e.g., 2^(7/12) is close to 1.5 and, thus, a perfect fifth. You need to know this stuff. Learn why the triad is so important -- the overtones line up really nicely, thank you J. Fourier and L. Bernstein (on YouTube watch his Harvard lectures).

Second Lesson: Learn how the tuning is based on ratios of small whole numbers and get to where you can hear those, e.g., via bowing two strings at once and listening to the beats of the first overtone in common to the two notes (derive the trigonometry of beats if you didn't get it in physics class).

Then learn to hear the notes and intervals (especially major third, fourth, fifth, sixth, octave) just one at a time.

For your intonation, from those ratios can actually can pick out and confirm (that is, check yourself) the whole major and minor scales. In the end, for all your intonation and tuning, all you need is just a simple tuning fork at A = 440 Hz.

Finally, work enough with the scales so that you can hear them -- quite generally hear a note in your head just before trying to play it (makes it easier then actually to play that note instead of something else).

Singing is a great way to learn the notes -- you will learn to hear the notes one way or another, in singing you can apply to violin or in violin you can apply to singing.

Go for it.

But, it's 300 year old technology. Really, the future of music composition and performance is software on computers!

More advice: In many ways piano is a better start into music than violin or cello. There's no law saying you can't do both.

For a little of how some famous violin music can be arranged for piano, there's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOFflFiLlT8

Of course, also listen to violin version, say, by Heifetz, Hahn, Ibragimova, others, on, say, YouTube.

Yes, that's the Bach Chaconne. Playing that can be one of the greatest joys in all of life (better than a lot, although not all, of the sex I've had!). With a violin, or, sure, the piano version, can have own voice of the human spirit just scream out to the universe. So, you get an amazing voice for "Listen up, universe: On life here, I've got some reactions for you".

If really like that music, then you are one of the ones who should get started, with piano, cello, violin, or two of those or all three! Then, later computers!

Go for it!

     I also played lead guitar in a band with John Scofield

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edit: google has it cached, it's a good read

This is key (sic).