Climate & Your Cello

My family and I live in Vermont. There are places in the continental U.S. and elsewhere in the world where the variations in climate can have a more pronounced effect on your cello, but not many. It's a good test ground for maintaining instruments: although most places have enough changes in weather to affect cellos in some way.

The effect of humidity on bowed instruments is a subject that, for some reason, has been discussed publicly only recently. Resulting studies indicate that a large percentage of cracks in violin-family instruments are weather related. It certainly seems to be true of instruments that come to our shop for repairs.

Here's what happens. Wood (all wood) swells when it absorbs moisture and shrinks when it loses it. Let's say your cello is very comfortable (at equilibrium) on a Vermont early-fall day: the temperature is in the high 60's, the humidity is 58%. The in February, you spend some serious time with below zero temperatures and humidity less than 10%. (If no humidity is added to your living space your cello is experiencing less than 5%). The wood in your spruce top slowly shrinks laterally – that means that the distance between the grain lines gets smaller – and the top pulls the ribs, or sides, with it. Only, after a short distance the ribs won’t go any further and one of two things happen: either the seams (where the top joins the ribs) open, or if the glue is too strong the top splits (cracks) causing a somewhat expensive repair and a lessened value for your instrument. This same scenario can occur on the ribs or (less frequently) the back.

It is encouraging to note that most tops are attached with an intentionally weak enough glue to, under weather stress, separate before cracks occur. Trouble is, you never know which will happen until something does. But it is also encouraging to realize that there is something that can be done to prevent either. ADD SOME HUMIDITY!

Forget the green plastic snakes you soak in water, wring out, then hang into your cello through the f-holes. As mild as their dampness seems, the water will collect at the bottom of the snake, then drip into the inside of your cello , almost always in the same place since you store your cello in the same position every night. Over time, sometimes several years, this water will rot blocks, dissolve glue, warp ribs, and do several other things that will necessitate costly repairs and make you think about shooting yourself. I still know people who swear by them: but using green snakes is a little like smoking – you’ve been doing it for years and everything seems fine.

I’ve noticed an impressive array of inside-the-case humidifiers on the market recently, some complete with digital hygrometers. And although I haven’t tried them, I have no reason to believe they won’t work: except that every time your instrument comes out of its case for practice or rehearsal, it is plunged into ambient humidity conditions.

Still the best system I know, and it’s not perfect, is to buy a room humidifier ($30-$150 at the hardware store; $1-$15 at a yard sale) and humidify your practice/cello-storage room. Buy a digital hygrometer. They’re not cheap but the pretty brass dial gauges almost always stick, usually at 50% which leads you to feel great about the humidity level while your cello is cracking in several places. Monitor your humidity level daily and don’t let it fall below 30%: not below 35% if possible.

Next time we’ll talk about some of the other effects of weather changes, and how to keep your cello playing great in all conditions.

More About Weather & Your Cello

A cellist (L.H.) from Minnesota writes: “I get all the stuff about humidity, in fact I’m a bit over the top in keeping my cello room as close to 40% as I can. I lug literally buckets of water a day there – spilling as I go – and I still have two problems. 1. At least once a season, I have seams open and need to be re-glued, and 2. My strings are always too low at this time each winter and too high in August. What am I doing wrong?”

Dear L.H.

Both things you describe are actually normal in your climate, or at least are not preventable by normal efforts. Remember that in the summer your humidity reaches 70-80%, and right now you are 40% at best, according to your letter. Your cello is gradually losing the moisture it acquired in August and depending on the sensitivity of the wood in your instrument – they do vary – things are going to contract. Hence open seams.

The string height question is an interesting one. Some people blame it all on the bridge shrinking, and to a minimal degree the bridge does shrink in the winter, but the bigger series of events is the combination of woods – top, back, ribs, block, all moving, or not moving relative to each other to force the neck angle to be higher in the winter than in the summer. Most cellists in Vermont have two bridges to allow for this: some have three. As the string height reaches critical numbers – too high or too low – a more appropriate bridge is put on.

By the way, like heart surgery and bungee jumping, I don’t recommend trying this at home. If you loosen all your strings to replace your bridge, your sound post can fall, or at least move. Have your luthier do it for you. At the same time he can do your seasonal post adjustment – critical in northern climes – and check for open seams and other cello misbehavior.

Next time we’ll talk about a topic with a little controversy – old vs. new cellos.

Your Next Cello: Old or New

Most photographs of any great cellist include a fine old instrument, usually Italian, usually 200-300 years old. Many players come to our shop specifically to try older instruments. Often people who do buy newer cellos prefer them to be antiqued so that they at least look old. Yet there are some great makers working today: are their instruments always going to be inferior to older ones, or is the old-instrument belief a myth?

Certainly an instrument dealer who sells only new cellos will be tempted to tell you that the old ones are fragile, any repairs will come apart, that you will have nothing but trouble, etc. A dealer of only older cellos will often distain new instruments as having a “new” (read tinny, not rich, inferior etc.) Is either right?

As dealers with an inventory of about equal numbers of new and old cellos, we have quite a bit of experience with both and it isn’t our financial interest to convince you to buy one over the other. Here are some facts that we believe to be true based on a lot of years working with both newer and older cellos:

1. There is a physical difference in new wood and old wood. Here’s an experience that we think is telling. A few years ago a customer’s 100 year-old bass had an accident in which the top was destroyed beyond repair. I first called colleagues looking for a good piece of wood to make a new top from; I didn’t find the wood I was looking for but did, almost unbelievably, locate a “new” top, which by some miracle was adaptable to the bass. The amazing part was that the top had been sitting in a shop for almost 100 years. What I learned from the process of cutting the purfling channel was that unlike cutting through wood a few years old, which the cutter goes through relatively easily, in the old top each winter grain (the grain lines you see in your cello top) almost completely stopped the cutter which had to re-sharpened with almost every grain. The winter grains in old wood are much harder than in new wood.

2. In my experience brittle wood sounds better than springy wood. Older wood is more likely to be brittle than new wood but this is not always the case.

3. There is in general an “old sound” and a “new sound” that is discernable when you try the two side by side: especially in a smaller space. Many people prefer the woodier sound of the older instruments, usually darker and, well, older. Interestingly this difference seems to diminish somewhat as the size of the performing space increases.

4. New-makers with supplies of old wood have eliminated some of the distinction between old and new sound: though not entirely since wood that has been vibrated for 100-300 years will sound “older” than wood of the same age that has not been vibrated.

5. Newer instruments (good ones) tend to have a slightly bigger sound than comparable quality older ones although there are a lot of exceptions to this..

6. Older cellos can be expensive, especially if they’re made by the right person from the right part of the world. Less expensive older cellos are becoming more difficult to find, but they do exist and some of them are great players.

7. Good sounding new cellos under $5000.00 do not all come from Europe anymore.

Next time we’ll talk specifically about cellos in the $2000-7000 range, both old and new: what to look for, and how to find a treasure.