Chats to 'Cello Students

by Arthur Broadley

The special requirements in respect to positions, of each class of violoncellist, may be stated as follows; the soloist to be successful requires a complete mastery of the practical or mechanical part of playing perfectly in tune, and a perfect command of shifting from one position to another. The orchestral player requires the ability to quickly divine the most suitable positions in which to play any given passage, when seen expressed in musical notation. The successful quartet player must possess to a certain degree, the abilities of both classes. Whatever class of work the student intends to fit himself for, he must gain a knowledge of the positions in a practical manner, i.e., with the instrument in hand. Theory by itself is of no use, the player may know that a certain note will be produced if a given string be stopped in a certain place, but if he is unable to perform the mechanical part, and by exactly gauging the distance to be leaped, stop the note perfectly in tune, the knowledge stands for nothing.

Each position should have separate attention, and the notes obtainable thoroughly mastered both theoretically and practically before another position is attempted. The position most easily learned is the first position (first finger on B a whole tone above the open A string), and as this is in a sense the normal position in 'cello playing, and for ordinary work the most useful owing to its relation to the four open strings, the hand of the student should be allowed to become thoroughly "set" to this position, and facility obtained in stretching the various intervals, before attempting to "shift."

From the commencement, the student should compel himself to stretch for the intervals when necessary, and not contract the bad habit of using the thumb as a kind of pivot, on which the hand is moved backwards and forwards, the thumb remaining in the same position. If the student once gets into this habit, his hope of ever playing perfectly in tune, especially in rapidly descending passages, must be abandoned; it is a bad habit, however, which nearly every learner will contract unless strictly watched; and when pupils who have had previous instruction come to me for lessons, I generally have to commence with a series of finger exercises composed expressly for its correction.

The player will find that after a few years of 'cello playing, if the correct system of fingering has been adopted, the bones of the hand (metacarpal) seem to get quite loose, and are under the control of the muscles, so that when the fingers are stretched for a wide interval, they are assisted by the hand-bones, which move direct from the wrist, almost like the action of the metacarpal bone connected with the thumb, only of course in a much smaller degree. This gives a greater width of the hand, measuring across the knuckles, and it is with this capacity that ease in stretching the intervals is arrived at, and not with long fingers, as some are apt to imagine. Fingers of more than ordinary length are of no special assistance in 'cello playing, if they are so firmly bound together at the knuckles as to hamper free movement from side to side; this is one of the chief reasons why it would be so difficult to master a stringed instrument, if maturity should be reached before commencing to learn. Besides the bones of the hand getting gradually bound together with the surrounding muscles and ligaments, if not kept in constant use; the tendons which are plainly discernable at the back of the hand seem to lose individuality, thus we see some aged people who are unable to move any one finger independently to the others. The player must grow to his instrument, and it is wonderful what change does take place in this respect, the whole character of the hand being altered; this has to come about before anything like command of the instrument can be expected.

As a ready way of describing the locality of the various "neck" positions, the names of the notes stopped by the first finger on the A string will be given only. In these neck positions, the thumb remains behind the neck of the instrument, retaining as far as possible the same relationship to the hand as in the first position, already explained. For the half-position, or what is generally known as the back-shift, the hand should move backwards from the first position the distance of half a tone, the first finger will then stop A♯ or B♭. When playing in extreme keys, this half position is very useful, especially when the notes of all the four open strings have to be played sharp.

The distance of the second position from the first is only a semitone, the first finger stopping C. This position also bears a "raised" position, sometimes named the "second-and-a-half position"; although it is easier to designate it the second raised, or if in flat keys the third lowered position. For this position, the whole hand moves forward from the second position, until the first finger stops C♯ or D♭. The third position is distant a tone and a half from the first position, the first finger stopping D. The second and third positions are perhaps not so readily mastered as are the first and fourth, or perhaps even the higher positions; for this reason they should be all the more perseveringly practised. Not only should the notes which are obtainable in the second and third positions have special attention, the student should practise various leaps from any of the other positions, until he has their exact locality firmly fixed. When playing in the fourth position, the first finger stops E, the hand should be allowed to rest on the ribs of the instrument, this will assist the student in placing the locality of this position. The fourth position bears a lowered, but not a raised position, as there is only a semitone between E and F. The fourth lowered position is identical with the third raised position, the first finger stopping E♭ for the former, and D♯ for the latter form.

The fifth position therefore is a semitone higher than the fourth, the first finger stopping F. From the fifth position upwards to the seventh, the thumb is allowed to gradually leave its position behind the neck, until for the seventh position it only touches the side of the lower portion, almost where the neck joins the body of the instrument. However, the thumb should retain its touch, so that the hand may quickly assume the necessary attitude for the lower positions when required. For the fifth raised position the first finger stops F♯.

In the sixth position, the first finger stops G. The fingers are now in advance of the thumb, also the student will observe that in these higher positions, the distance between the notes gradually grow smaller. It is now possible to stop three notes separated by intervals of whole tones (major 2nds), with the first, second, and third fingers, and not as in the first position, compulsory to use four fingers to stop three notes. The sixth raised position is taken with the first finger on G♯. The seventh position is the highest neck position practicable, the first finger stopping A.

To sum up, we find that there are seven ordinary neck positions, the fundamental notes of which on the A string, are directly related to the diatonic scale of C. Also there are six half-positions, each position bearing a "raised" form, except where the fundamental note of two positions is only separated by a semitone. This occurs in two instances, i.e., between the leading-note and tonic of the C scale (first and second position), and between the mediant and sub-dominant (fourth and fifth positions). These five raised positions, together with the backshift, gives us the six. Together with this, each position bears a normal, and a "stretched" form, for the former in the lower positions, the fingers are allowed to fall naturally at the distance of a semitone apart; for the latter the thumb (behind the neck of course), and one or more fingers remain in the position, the first finger being stretched backwards, or the third or fourth fingers stretched forwards, or both.