Today I will commence my biographical sketch of my life with the Violoncello. I've always liked that word, violoncello. The first time I took my dear husband to hear a cellist, I had him so miffed..."what the heck is a violoncello? I thought this guy played the cello like you??" Poor guy, I was giggling for quite a while. A long while actually, since the soloist was late for his own performance! My husband didn't learn the truth until the soloist walked out with his violoncello!
I recently read that it is now acceptable to write the word cello without the ' before the word, as in 'cello. How sad.
And now for my story.
In second grade, I began piano lessons with the organist at our church. He was nice and had a broken arm when I first began. When he would talk to me about practicing, he would ask me if my mom practiced her violin. My mom had put her violin away for a short while when we were little. Soon after I told her about this conversation, she started playing, teaching, and practicing again and still does to this day. When she started to teach my friend, I got very jealous. I wanted to play the violin too. Mom, in her wisdom said that I had to practice the piano everyday before I could learn the violin. I went from practicing for Donny Osmond albums (bribes) to earning a violin and lessons. I ended up with more albums and didn't have violin lessons until college. Why, you ask? Because I wanted now to play the flute!
In the spring of 3rd grade I was in a split classroom with 4th graders. Two of my older friends, Elaine E. and Cathy C., both started playing the flute. Elaine was my best friend's sister and she had her own Armstrong flute. Oh, I wanted to be like them and play the flute too. I begged and begged to no avail. By this time I think my string playing mom was waiting until 4th grade and instrumental music at school kicked in rather than finding a teaching independently. (She was hoping for a change of heart too, I'm sure.)
When recorder class started in the fall of 4th grade, I'm not sure what I wanted to play. However, I distinctly remember when it came time to choose an instrument I had good reasons for my choice. I did not want to hold up a violin under my chin...maybe I was lazy or something, but it just didn't seem to be all that much fun. After all, my mom had a permanent mark on her neck and that looked painful too. I also wanted something that no one else was playing. One kid in the year ahead of me played the string bass, but no cellos.
I remember the day we met to select our instruments. One of my classmates wanted to play the string bass. Oh, no. She was tall, but the teacher said she had to play the cello instead. AND because she was tall so she got to play the school's really nice 3/4 size and I got stuck with the not so nice 1/2 size. Because her dad was on the school board, she got to sit first chair thoughout elementary school.
I remember the night before we were going to get our instruments, I pretended to play my guitar like a cello. I was really excited. I think my mom was too. She told me how much she enjoyed learning the cello as a music education major in college and has encouraged me ever since. She's my biggest fan!
The first thing I did when I brought my cello home was play open strings in our basement recreation room and make up a song about clarinets sounding like fog horns. (Remember, I was in the 4th grade and these were beginning clarinets...)
My first lessons on the cello were with Mrs. Stone and the elementary school orchestra. My first pieces were from String Builder Book I (the green one).
The picture was taken the night of my first concert in the Spring of 1974. I was 9 and my mom made my dress. I loved that dress. Purple for Donny Osmond.
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