Violoncello

Instruments

What does “instrument” mean? When we hear that word, musical instruments like guitar, piano, violin etc. come to our minds. But deep inside, the word instrument has more significance.  An instrument is a path to reach the purpose. There might be more than one path that leads us to the purpose, and all of those paths are our instruments. Musical instruments are no different from that explanation. There are so many musical instruments, and they all are paths that leads us to one purpose: Music.

I am going to write about a fascinating -and to me, the most beautiful- instrument; violoncello. It is a bowed string instrument of the violin family. The first modern shaped violoncello, or shortly cello, was done by the master craftman Andrea Amati in 1572 for King Charles IX of France. This first modern cello was named “The King”.

The King, 1572

The King

The King is the oldest cello known to survive. Throughout history, there have been some changes to the cello’s size, strings etc. The last visible change was made by the famous cellist – Andrien François Servais in 19’th century. He put the part which is called “endpin” at the bottom of the cello to aid the playing, that was until then too difficult because of the instrument’s size. Hereby, cello reached today’s appearance.

Parts of the Cello

Violin Family

The violin family consist of four instruments; violin, viola, violoncello (cello) and contrabass. The violin is the child of this family. In an orchestra there are so many violins and their voices are chirping like children. Viola is the sister in this family. In the orchestra, violas are elegant and they can’t be heard easily but they have a good affect on the music. Contrabass is the father of the family, it is the biggest member and it has a stentorian voice and dignity like a father. Cello is the mother, its shape resembles the female body and it wraps up all the violin family with its voice. Cello is one of the rare instruments in the world that can be played with three different clefs. Because of the cello’s wide range of voice, a cellist has to be able to read three differents clefs. That is why the cello wraps up the violin family with its wide voice.

Violoncello

Violoncello is one of the most difficult instrument to play as it does not have frets and it has a wide range of voice. But thanks to these two features, it is possible to play various kinds of music through a cello. On the other hand, the cello has a characteristic side; it is the closest instrument to the human voice and it is the only intrument in the world that touches left side of its player’s chest whilst being played. Therefore, when a cellist plays cello, they feel the vibration of the strings right on their heart.

As an amateur cellist who has been playing cello for thirteen months, I can sincerely say that; if our purpose is to make music, violoncello is the best path that leads us to the purpose.

Sources Used In This Writing

1. Cello Textbook, Onur Aysu (2019)
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cello
3. https://youtu.be/68ZXD66czHk
4. https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viyolonsel