"After the Teacher Test"

I had my first lesson yesterday since my Bartok Montagnana arrived. I have a very picky teacher, at least on the subject of instruments and their set ups. I think she had been a bit disappointed in my decision to order through the Internet. In an ideal world, I was supposed to drive up to Seattle and test drive every instrument available in the entire Northwest before letting go of real money. So, I arrived prepared to be a bit defensive.

Totally unnecessary. She loved it. Ultimately she said "she was jealous."

To backtrack, first she looked over the physical traits. The color is darker than either of us had expected based on the Bartok picture (which I had printed out to stare out during the long wait). My cello is very dark brown with a chestnut red blush. I hadn't voiced any preferences for color in my order -- my goal was sound, not aesthetics. I mention this just so others will know there is a *wide* variation possible from the online display.

The varnish on the front of my cello has two small defects on the front near the fingerboard caused by runs during the varnish application. Erik had told me about them when he called and said that they had worked on minimizing the impact. I was offered a discount because of these imperfections, which I fully appreciated. However, once I could actually *see* the instrument, I appreciated the work even more. The finish is absolutely smooth, and the runs, to me anyway, give a personality to the instrument, even in silence. If I were a famous performer, my cello would be destined to be noted in the historical record as The Teardrop. I like that; it suits a cello with dark sound.

Onto that sound... The cello continues to open up more and more each day. This is an amazing process. My teacher pointed out -- it's so obvious, yet eludes so many of us -- that it's not really fair to rule out (or praise) any given cello in a shop because we have no way of knowing how much it's been played. Cellos love being played and reward us accordingly.

My Bartok must *really* love being played. I can only imagine how wonderful it will sound after a year or so. It is really ringing out under my ear now as I play even after not quite a week.

Yesterday, though, my teacher played a bit for me, and I finally was treated to hearing it from that perspective. Was I happy? YES, indeedy! My plan is to allow it to go fully through the playing-in process before messing at all with different strings or anything else. Then the cello will tell me what it wants from a "more mature" stance.

I'll wrap up with a small funny tale. I was playing scales for my teacher, and she commented on the overtones, how rich they were. [I also received a mini-lecture on just what overtones are.] Then she stopped me and said she was hearing one that didn't seem to belong. She had me play the open G repeatedly as she searched for the source, putting her hand on the tailpiece, endpin, etc. searching for the "off" vibration.

Finally she said to shake the cello because sometimes foreign material inside the body can be the source. Sure enough we heard some rattling inside. Eventually we were able to shake out the culprits: several tightly curled black shavings from the fingerboard planing fell out. I've kept them as souvenirs of my Bartok's setup.

As so many have said before, thank you Todd, Erik and everyone else at StringWorks. I'm indebted too to those anonymous Hungarian luthiers who brought this instrument into being. - S.G. (taken from the Discussion Board)