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Care & Repair of Cellos: When to Call the Repair Shop
How to know when your instrument needs professional care
One night, many years ago, I was having dinner at home—a Saturday, and as luck would have it, my birthday—and I made the mistake of answering my phone. Rather than a family member offering congratulations, it was a violinist in near hysterics. He lived just around the corner—there was no putting him off. I told him to drop by. When he arrived and took out his violin—a lovely Gagliano—the reason for his distress became readily apparent. Most of the violin was in his right hand, but the left side of the top, from the middle of the sound hole to the edge, was in his other. After 250 years, how did the two happen to become separated?
He explained that he had a recording date the next day—he was checking the violin for opened seams. It looked a bit loose at the lower edge, under the chinrest, so he wiggled it. And suddenly—there it was, in pieces, in his hand. Or so he said. It turns out that he hadn’t just wiggled it to see if a seam was open. He finally admitted that he had, well, you know, tried to glue it himself. He hadn’t seen the crack in the top. . . .
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