Top 5 Myths of Bowing for Cellists

Gravity does indeed go down. I am not here to refute Newton. But in the world of cello playing, the idea that we release the weight of our arm toward the floor is, in fact, a myth. 

That’s because the angle that our strings go “down” is more “in” than it is “down”. This is true even with extreme bent endpins. 

Yes, the floor receives most of the weight of our cello, but WE receive most of the weight of our arm. Our cello does not magically float in the air, waiting for us to sink our weight into it. We have to support our cello so it doesn’t fall, and wherever we directly contact our cello to do that, those are the places that receive the weight of our arm.

I call this our “cello sandwich”, with anywhere we touch the cello representing a piece of bread, be it our legs, belly, chest or even left thumb.

How we make our cello sandwich has a profound impact on how we feel and how we sound. There is no one correct way; it depends on our size, endpin length, chair height and simply what feels good and sounds good to us. Yet I find many cellists neglect arguably the most important piece of bread when making a cello sandwich: our chest.

If we do not receive the weight of our arm in our chest, we will inevitably squeeze our cello with our legs and/or left thumb. This not only robs us of a secure place to sink our weight into, it also prevents us from moving around our cello freely. 

Many of us avoid receiving weight in our chest for good reason. Jamming a pointy piece of wood into a delicate part of our body can be annoyingly uncomfortable and tricky to balance. Yet once we learn to breathe freely and soften our ribs and sternum, our chest can become a wonderfully safe and cuddly cushion to support our cello and receive the weight of our arms. This not only feels great, it opens and deepens our sound too.

If you’d like to explore your cello sandwich, check out my online workshop for cellists called Bowing With Your Whole Self.