Cello: Interview and demonstration with principal Jerry Grossman

("Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67") - This is a cello. It's made out of wood primarily and it's a hollow box, a resonating chamber. It's like all these members of the string family. The same essential shape with two F-holes here. This is the bridge which carries the vibrations of the strings. When the strings are made to vibrate by the bow, (deep resonating tone) the string vibrates and the vibrations go through bridge onto the belly of the cello. Carried by the sound post which is under this foot of the bridge and that carries the vibrations to the back of the cello. So that gets both the back and the top vibrating and it really amplifies the sound that the vibrating string makes. And the endpin of the cello is this piece here which is made out of steel I guess. And it's very sharp at the end and we use it to place the cello on the floor so that it doesn't slide all over the place and we'd be chasing it all over the map if it didn't stay put, (cello thudding) like that. (laughing) And sometimes and when we have floors that are not made out of wood or soft enough material for example a slate floor if you're playing in a church endpins will go sliding and make the rather annoying sound. ("Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95") I acquired this cello about five years ago. It was made in Chicago this is an American cello. A lot of string instruments, you know the famous instruments by Stradivarius and Guarnerius they're Italian. And the Italian instruments are generally speaking the most coveted. But this was made by a man named Carl Becker Senior, in 1929 and Carl Becker Senior's emerging as the great American maker of the 20th century. There are many of his instruments around and he made not only cellos, he made violins, and violas. His son Carl Junior was also a great maker and his grandson is running the shop now and that's from whom I purchased this cello. Before I had this, I had an old Italian cello that was made by a member of the Guarnerius family. Joseph Guarnerius filius Andreas, Joseph son of Andreas Guarnerius. And I was having trouble with my old Italian instrument. You know old instruments are very, they're hard to adjust. They're finicky when the weather changes. They're a little tricky to play and I was being, I was pretty frustrated with my instrument at that time. And this student comes in with this Becker Cello and it sounded great and I said let me play this thing. So I played a few notes and I said oh god this is so easy to play I wish my cello were like this. And I never forgot that. And then years later when I decided I needed to sell my cello, I said well what am I gonna get? What am I gonna play? And so I put the word out, anybody know of any old Becker's out there. And sure enough this came to me. (tranquil orchestral music) My father was an amateur violinist and a music lover, and there was always music in the house when I was growing up. I grew up in Cambridge, Mass. just about half a mile from the Harvard campus. My father didn't teach there, I was a townie. But I had two older brothers and one of them played the piano, and one of them played the violin. My father had in mind that he, with three boys well let's have a piano trio. So I was the designated cellist. And I started with piano lessons but that, I didn't take to the piano in particular. Reading two lines at once was like way over my head. And I was given cello lessons. So I was brought, I remember this, I was brought to my very first cello lesson and I was all excited but I didn't confess to my parents that I had no idea what a cello was. I was eight years old and they said you're gonna play the cello, great I'm gonna play the cello. Now what? (laughing) I didn't know what it was. So I walked into my lesson and there was my teacher and they had an instrument there for me. I looked at it, ah ha so that's what it is and now here I am. ("Adieu" by Bernard Rands) There was one year my second year of taking lessons where I would go without unpacking my cello from week to week. And I saved, (laughing) it was a local music school it's doing very well now called the Longy School of Music in Cambridge and my teacher there was a women named Hannah Sherman. She wrote on my report card, you know I got my little report, and I got a D. And it said Jerry has made as much progress as he can without practicing. I practiced a little, not much. It was when I was about 13 or 14 that I really got interested in it and from then on it was very hard to separate me from the cello. ("Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67) I tell my students that we spent as cellists 95% of our training learning to play the melody and five percent of our training learning other things. And then once you're up playing professionally, you realize you're gonna play 95% of the time following other people who are playing the melody. ("Symphony No. 5" by Dmitryi Shostakovich)