Tone production on the cello

My name is Justin Canter and I am a Classical Cellist here in New York City. Today, we are going to talk about Tone per action. (Demo) Basically, there are couples of constants that we need to keep when we are playing with the bow we want to make sure that the bow meets the string at a perpendicular angel. If it is like this or like this, the friction from the hair of the bow and the string will not really line up so you will get this kind of funny sound. (Demo) So obviously you can see how according to this to get this part of your sound. The hair has to be perpendicular to the string. Besides the constant though we have a lot of variables that we can fluctuate in order to get interesting tone colors and sounds. Now, there are three variables which we use which are very similar to get the primary colors. One is the speed of the bow, one is the weight or pressure that we put into the string and the third is the contact point which is how close the bow is to the bridge. Do either being on the string, either being close to the bridge are further away by the finger board and for all of you who do not know what the bridge is this part right here and the finger board is this part right here. We are usually dealing with the distance about between here and here, you fail overtone qualities. I like to think of the metaphor of a bicycle and a bicycle when I am riding it with all the gears so what happens is when you get closer to the bridge just like when you go into a higher gear in a bicycle it feels a lot more resistance as if when you are pedaling you feel a lot more resistance and you move your bow a lot slower and the string will still be able to spin quite quickly. As you go up towards the finger board you do not need to use as much, you will not feel as much resistance so you do not need to use as much weight and your bow will be able to move a lot faster. When I go closer to the bridge, it is like going into a higher gear of a bicycle and the rest make perfect sense. The speed is the bow is similar to your pedal speed would be and the weight of the bow is similar to exertion you have to put into the pedals. This helps us a lot more to play music where. (Demo) You have a long bow and then a fast bow. We make sure that when we play the bow quickly that we move our bow closer to the finger board and we play the bow slowly, it stays closer to the bridge. (Demo) You can see my bow shifting when I am playing which is going this direction to down bow to the up bow and you will notice that even though it is moving it is not from here to here it is actually very settle, it is from here to here. In other examples of music sometimes we have to play something with a very long bow. (Demo) In which case we would like to use a slow bow and it will be closer to the bridge for playing something that is a faster bow. (Demo) We will be closer to the finger board. So in conclusion if you pay attention to the speed of the bow, the contact point where it is located in the weight of the bow, you can create a lot of beautiful sounds and if you do not do it right you can create a lot of ugly sounds. So that is at least how I voice out about this sound production. Thank you.