What is a Cello?

What is a cello? The dictionary says it's “the second largest member of the violin family, rested vertically on the floor between the performer's knees when being played. Also called violoncello”. The word “cello” is a shortened version of the Italian word violoncello, which is not related to the violin at all, but rather the violone, the Italian word for double bass combined with the diminutive cello,
meaning “small bass”. The English “cello” is a recent shortening of violoncello, dating from the 1870's.

The cello as Thing is much more than these simple definitions imply. What does the cello-character of the cello consist of? It consists of wood, at least three kinds. In older times woods like poplar, lime, pear, and cedar were used for the back and sides; rosewood for the fingerboard. Today preference is given to Bosnian Spruce from the Balkan peninsula for the top, Italian Maple for the back and sides,
and exotic tropical Ebony for the fingerboard. These woods each have their own distinct character.

Spruce is light and strong, flexible and resonant. Maple is harder, reflective and stable. Ebony is dense, not porous and changeable. These woods grow from the Earth, the source of all materials for building and making, the place to which all materials return when they no longer are Things. The trees are nourished by the Sky, the location of the Heavens and Divinities, of the Sun and the Rain and the Moon. All these qualities are combined in the woods of a cello. In older times, the wood might have passed through the port of Venice, mixed together with the same woods that the long oars of gondolas are fashioned from. The wood is shaped by chisel and gouge and scraper by the human hands of the maker. The maker must possess great technique. This is not simple handicraft, but the Greek techne, to make something appear.

The Spruce is the front of the cello, the open expressive side that shares: the face. The Sun, Moon and Stars inhabit this region. The Maple is the back and sides, the frame that supports and gives strength: the spine. The roots that anchor in the Earth find their place here. The Ebony is the fingerboard, a Cartesian surface without coordinates, a smooth surface for fingers to travel on: the dwelling place. The cello has a neck, a long neck for the hand to travel along, to caress and to hold. The cello has a head as well, a nautilus shaped scroll with Golden Mean proportions.

The cello has an endpin to anchor the cello in the earth like the leg of a compass, the center from which the radius is drawn by the cello outward into the World of sound. This circle is like the line the shaman draws in the dirt to enscribe the area of ritual magic.

The cello has strings, formerly of plant fibres, horse hair, or gut; now of metal. Gut strings are sheep intestines, torn from the freshly sacrificed animal and processed. The pain of the violence of cutting and rending is remembered in their sound. Apollo was the first string maker. The tortoise inspired him to make the first lyre. He used the tortoise's own intestines for the strings. Some of the earliest musical instruments uncovered in the tombs of Thebes had gut strings that still made a tone after some two thousand years. Metal strings are chrome, silver, titanium, tungsten. The high temperatures used to form the metal remains in the strings, giving warmth and strength, silver and gold and adamant. The cello has four strings, one for each direction of the compass, one for each of the four dimensions,
including time.

The strings pass over the bridge, the legs of which transmit the vibrations like a liquid earthquake to the front of the cello, to the spruce top.

The soundpost is a simple piece of wood that connects the top and the back, Heaven and Earth, sending the vibrations to the maple back, to the roots of the cello. In French the soundpost is called l'âme, or “the soul”. A small adjustment of this “soul” in relation to the top (Heaven) and the back (Earth) can change the behavior of the cello in a dramatic fashion. The soundpost or soul is the only part that can exist in the inner void of the cello body, suspended between the roots and the sky.

The outer surfaces of the cello are covered with Varnish. Vernisshe in the middle ages, from Old French vernis, from Medieval Latin vernix, an odorous resin, from Late Greek verenike, from Greek Berenike, an ancient city in Libya. Varnish contains a gum or resin mixed with spirits. This combination concentrates the life essence of trees. Varnish has mysterious properties. Varnish penetrates the exposed outer surface of the wood, sealing its pores. Sundried and lustrous, Varnish gives color, the heat of the Sun and the cool of the Moon and the diamond-glitter of the Stars are concentrated in the Varnish.

The strings are set in motion by the fingers, plucked like a guitar, or by the bow, a contraption of wood and hair. In older times the wood of the bow could be ironwood or snakewood. In modern times preference is given to pernambucco, a tropical wood of great strength and lightness. The word Bow comes from bowen, to bend, bouwen, buwen, buhen , from būgan, from Beowulf in 725 AD. The wood of the bow is curved with heat, arched and ready to spring with strength and agility. The hair is from the tail of a horse, and remembers how to jump like its wild ancestors from the plains of Asia, running through the grasslands, barely tolerating a rider, sometimes throwing him off.

The cello is a tool. It's usefulness consists of it's ability to replace the human voice. A cello is a tool for making music. A cello sings, laments, speaks, jokes, whispers. A cello can be a friend, an intimate enemy. A cello can represent, trigger, give testimony. A cello can represent a hero, a father, a lover. A cello can trigger emotions, actions, words. A cello can give testimony, can confess, can witness.