- Hi, in this film, we're going to have a little think
about the cello, which, just like the violin
and the viola that we've already spoken about,
has four strings,
and here, we've got the pitch of these four strings,
the open strings, as we call them.
Now, you remember the violin goes G bottom string,
up a fifth to D, up a fifth to A, up a fifth to E,
and we said that the viola has the same
business of strings being a fifth apart
and in fact, the viola is pitched
a fifth lower than the violin,
so the viola strings are C, G, D, and A.
When we come to the cello,
the cello strings are the same as the viola strings,
but an octave lower, so we've got bottom C,
and then, up a fifth to G, up a fifth to D,
and up a fifth to A.
So you can begin to see it's quite easy,
if you're not a string player,
to remember what these strings are about
because they're always a fifth apart,
for the violin, the viola, and the cello.
The viola is a fifth below the violin
and the cello is an octave below the viola.
So those are our four open strings,
numbered one, two, three, four,
and over here, I've indicated the range of the cello.
So obviously, this C is the lowest note
that you can possibly play on a cello.
And the cello has a huge range.
Now, there's some question as to exactly
what the top note could be,
It mainly depends on the proficiency of the player actually,
it gets harder and harder the higher you go,
to produce a good sound
and to play it in tune, but this is a high note
that a good cellist would be able to find
at the top of the range.
So we're right up here at G, so you can see there's
a huge expressive possibility in terms of pitch range.
We're starting with this bottom C,
up an octave, up another octave, up another octave,
and another fifth to go, if you want it.
And it's always tempting to think of the cello,
as some kind of tenor or bass instrument.
And often, the cello does provide
the bassline of a piece of music
and we'll be saying more about this in later films.
Sometimes the cello can produce a beautiful tenor melody,
but don't forget that the cello
is also very expressive higher up in the range,
so it's a very versatile instrument.
And because it uses a wide range,
it actually uses three clefs.
So the bass clef, obviously, where we've used this
to indicate the strings, is where the cello's
going to be at the bottom of the range.
You can see because it goes so high,
that really, when you get to the top of the range,
you need to be in the treble clef,
but there's quite a bit
of the tenor range that's in the middle
and you'll often find the cello part
scored in the tenor clef.
So just to be sure about the tenor clef,
this is what a tenor clef looks like,
and in the viola film, I was explaining
that there are two ways of writing one of these C clefs.
And you might be looking at this clef,
if you've seen the viola film,
and if you're not too sure about these C clefs,
and you might think, well, it looks exactly the same
as the clef we were talking about
in the film about the viola.
And indeed, it does look the same,
and it's also called a C clef, but this one is a tenor clef.
And you'll notice the difference
is not in the design of the clef,
but in the positioning of the clef on the stave
because this clef begins on line two, at the bottom,
and it finishes on a sort of imaginary ledger line
up above the stave.
And the reason we position it there
is because this note here,
on the fourth line up, is middle C.
So we want this note to be
sort of in the middle of the clef,
so that's why you know the difference,
when you're writing for viola in the alto clef,
the clef sits very comfortably
from the bottom to the top of the stave.
When you're writing for cello, using the tenor clef,
you're starting on line two,
and going up to that space above the clef,
in order that C can be in the middle.
Remember, for the viola in the alto clef,
C was on line three,
but here in the tenor clef, C is on line four.
And just like we were saying in the viola film,
you need to remember that this is not any old C,
this is middle C, so that note on the board
is middle C there.
So just so you're happy about what you're doing with clefs,
and you need to be ready when writing for the cello,
to switch between the bass clef,
the tenor clef for the middle range,
and then, the treble clef for the high stuff.
But a very expressive instrument.
And just as was the case with the violin
and the viola, you get these dark, warm sounds
at the bottom of the instrument,
and then, the strings get brighter as we go up.
So if I just play a few notes on this
synthesised cello sound, you can hear
how things are really kind of warm and dark at the bottom,
and as I come up, the sound gets a little bit brighter,
so here we are starting on that bottom C string.
So you can hear how the sound
is very well matched across the range,
but it has a kind of gradually brightening quality
as it rises up.
And that's what I was saying earlier
about it being such a versatile instrument
because you can be sitting at the bottom of the cello range,
adding a bit of depth to an orchestral sound,
but at the top, it can have this great
kind of singing quality as well.
Now, there are one or two things
that you have to be a little bit careful of
when writing for the cello.
One thing is that, sometimes, if you have pizzicato playing
that's quite fast, be careful
that we don't lose definition in that.
Obviously, the higher it is, sometimes the pizzicato playing
has a bit more definition,
but at fast passages for the cello with pizzicato
can sometimes lose their definition.
And the same's true at the bottom of the range,
that if you're playing very quickly
at the bottom of the range,
sometimes, there can be a slight loss of definition.
Now, that may be an effect that you might be looking for,
something that's not quite so well defined,
but if you're wanting a defined sound,
those fast notes at the bottom of the range
can just be a little bit indistinct,
but you'll find it a most expressive instrument
to work with, very versatile, working across a huge range,
with the ability to provide basslines
and tenor lines sometimes,
and also the ability to provide
wonderful soaring melodic lines.