I’m anticipating the final sale of my old cello any day now. I have very mixed feelings about this sale. On one hand this brings some finality to a process that has gone on for nearly four years now. Having an unsold cello is difficult primarily because there is so much money tied up in something you are no longer using. It feels a little bit like buying a house in a new city and then having to wait several years to sell your old one. I suppose at the very least the old house has been paid off, but there remains a lingering lack of resolution. Instruments can’t just be sold right away unless they sound incredible or they have some historical significance or major investment potential. For the vast majority of modern instruments, none of the above apply. The right person must come along who will fall in love with the sound of your cello and furthermore will have the means to purchase it. In the consignment process you have zero contact with prospective buyers and so it becomes this nebulous, far-off idea that your cello will sell, but then one day you get an email from the shop that it is being sold and it hits you that your instrument is no longer yours.

A copy of a 1733 cello by Domenico Montagnana, made by John Terry in 2007 and purchased directly from the maker 2009

So I have been waiting for the money from this cello to do other things. Some of these things could be considered glamorous, such as commissioning a new bow for myself, but most of them are hum-drum home maintenance items, like a new roof, for example. It’s going to be nice to realize some of those goals.

The flip-side of selling this cello is that it feels like ending a relationship. Even if it left my house four years ago, it was still technically mine until it was sold by the shop in Minneapolis. There were times in between my visit with it last year and now that I considered going to pick it up, but I could never figure out what I would do with it and having it sit in a case unused would have been sad and pointless. I toyed with the idea of loaning it to students for concerts or even on a more permanent basis. I also thought it might be a good cello for certain pieces, but I find my current cello up to the challenge of any piece and so I didn’t feel it would make sense to switch back and forth, especially given the difference in size between the two. I think my reluctance to let it go is/was very normal, but my reasoning was largely emotional and in this case practicality won out. It still feels like a loss, but hopefully with time it will begin to feel like a satisfying close to a 15 year chapter in my musical life.

The experience of owning this cello is tied to so many important moments in my life and I have learned so much from owning and using it. It has travelled thousands of miles with me all over the continental US. I won my current job with that cello. I recorded Cinderland with it, music that I am still incredibly proud of. I don’t know that the music I made with that cello could have come from my current cello. In fact I know it wouldn’t have. So giving up this cello means saying goodbye to what could have come next in the music making process. So it is an emotional goodbye for me.

On a more practical level, the process of selling this cello has taught me an important lesson: Resetting a cello neck is a common thing. It turns out that for modern instruments, a neck reset is necessary after a little bit of time has passed and the neck has settled. The considerable tension of the strings pulls on the neck constantly and the neck, which is not screwed in place or held by anything other than a mortise and some hide glue, is pulled towards the front of the cello, twisted in place, or canted to one side. Wood moves around a lot and it is the hope of makers that their necks do not sink or move over time and some makers will even put carbon fiber rods inside the necks of their cellos to help slow this process, but it is inevitable that the neck will move in some fashion. So if you are a string player and you are having issues with an instrument that used to sound great, don’t give up on it. See if maybe it just needs a look at the neck by a qualified luthier/restorer. Yes, neck resets are expensive, but they are normal maintenance and they can restore your instrument to its previous glory.

So there’s a bit of a cautionary tale wrapped up in my experience. I didn’t know enough to know that some of the issues I was having with that cello were likely due to the fact that the neck was either not on properly or had just moved to a a position that was not ideal. I gave up on it before I probably should have. When I played it in the shop last year after it had had the neck reset it needed, the playing experience was very different. I no longer felt frustrated with what felt like a wild horse. It was more tame and predictable and still had that all of the personality that I loved when I originally purchased it, maybe even more so. I think it feels hard that I did not have a chance to explore the potential of that cello after the necessary work had been done.

I am told that the new owner is very excited about this cello. It is evidently going to someone in music school and it helps ease the loss that it will be in capable hands and that it may be used to further someone else’s musical ambitions the way it did mine.