Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Refusal to practice musical instrument

I can't speak to all cellos; however, the few that I have personally tuned tend to stay in tune (within a reasonable tolerance) unless the temperature/humidity changes too much or you accidentally bump the fine tuners or pegs. In my experience, you do need to tune much more frequently when the strings become very worn, although that is a bigger problem with violins than cellos (you can get away with old strings on a cello more so than on a violin). Although I said tune the cello every day, I actually meant check every day because often you may only need to adjust one or two strings or even none, particularly if the instrument hasn't been moved. Of course, there are a lot of variables. For example, the composition of the strings make a big difference. Again, I can't speak for all cellos much less all string instruments - there may be many musicians who do tune their instruments multiple times during a lesson/practice.

Ok, I'm sure this is an idiotic question, but is it possible for her to play it wrong in such a way that it sounds out of tune? I'm sure that the instrument was out of tune. But I don't know (from here on) how to tell if she's playing it incorrectly or if it's a tuning issue.

For now, you need a free chromatic tuner app and watch a youtube video or two on how to tune a cello with a tuner:



Just make sure that IF you have to use the pegs to tune, you push in the peg in as you turn it.

It took me awhile to get comfortable tuning string instruments but once you learn how, it's not that bad. We use a tuning fork and do the rest by ear these days but at the beginning, we used a free tuner app and that was good enough until DD's ears could detect that it wasn't exactly right.

Ok, thanks. I'll see if I can figure this out over the weekend.

It isn't an idiotic question and the answer is potentially yes but unlikely. It depends on the number of strings and series of notes she is playing. When it is a little out of tune, notes may just sound a bit sharp or flat but it can be so far out of tune that she is actually playing a different note. For example, she may consistently place her fingers a bit too high or a bit too low, which can mimic a slightly out of tune string. Although unlikely, she may also consistently finger the wrong notes in such a way that every note is shifted higher or lower. However, if the series of notes that she is playing include open string notes, then the melody will sound different.

It may be easier to just download an iPad or android app and tune it for her yourself. You will most likely only have to adjust the fine tuners (turn knobs attached to the front bottom end of strings). You can tune it using pizzicato (pluck the string with your finger) rather than with the bow.

The bottom line is there are so many ways for her to play a piece of music incorrectly that you want to take the tuning issue out of the equation.