Goodbye Jim, hello Mary Lou!
A post about love for Valentine’s Day. Worryingly there’s a gender change involved here, so let’s not take it too far!!
Jim is Anna’s 3/4 size cello. Over the past couple of years (she insisted it was longer but I only picked up the cello in July 07, I know because I blogged it!) she has obviously spent quite some time with this cello and become very emotionally attached to it! So much so that she wanted to keep it when she moved up to a full size, but I said no, and callously sold it before she’d even finished with it!! No, seriously, it is going to a good home with the Puddles tomorrow so she’s happy really.
As an aside – is it odd to name one’s instruments? I thought so, but on questioning a few of the kids at orchestra it seems quite common! The most amusing one I’ve discovered so far is a bass clarinet named U-bend 
Anyway. Anna’s new cello is over 100 years old, German, and was totally beaten up when we first bought it. I should have taken a photo but I forgot. It had a couple of really big cracks on each side at the front, a lot of the edging around the body was missing, the pegs (and holes) needed replacing – and so the list went on!
Devon Strings are currently working their magic, and restoring it beautifully, putting the best strings on it and setting it up properly, etc. At great personal expense! I’m very much looking forward to seeing it (and hearing it!), by the end of the month if all goes well. And hopefully Anna will love it just as much if not more than poor old Jim.
I dunno, you always have a special place in your heart for your first love, though, don’t you?
February 14th, 2010 at 22:42
Aw, that’s so sweet.
February 14th, 2010 at 23:10
Yey for Mary-Lou! I’ll have a dig around and see if I have any photos of her before you bought her, but don’t think I have to tell you the truth. Jim will love the new home
February 15th, 2010 at 10:03
My son, aged, 9 1/2, has had violins 1/16, 1/10, 1/8, and now 1/4 says that he will not be naming his violin until he has a full sized. This must definitely be a case of not wanting to get attached until it is really ‘his’. I do wish now that I had kept his little 1/16th though……..had I known how far his violin playing was going to go on.
February 15th, 2010 at 11:46
Mary Lou is not a very Germanic sounding name though
February 15th, 2010 at 20:23
The cello playing Chalet School Girl calls hers Cherry. Fran is apparently going to continue to call the new one Jim as she says it would be wrong to change it. I think having a cello with the same name as Grandad is going to be confusing
Thank you for letting us buy it – a very simple and easy way to do things! i guess we’ve run out of instruments to buy from you now though but 3 hand ons isn’t bad!
February 16th, 2010 at 16:10
After your comment Ivonne, Anna’s trying to think up some more German names … any ideas?
February 18th, 2010 at 9:52
This brought back memories of when I traded in my daughter’s 1/16th size violin for the next size up. I hadn’t realised she was so attached to it until she burst into a storm of weeping in the shop when they took her old violin away. By that time the deal was done and I didn’t want her to think we could keep every violin all the way up, for financial reasons apart from anything else. But I do now wish we’d kept the 1/16th. Daughter reminds me of it every so often with a wicked glint in her eye. But no naming of either full size violin or recent new clarsach.
February 18th, 2010 at 17:16
Golly, I’ve never named an instrument. But then I don’t name anything (except children). Cars, bikes, instruments – they are all nameless poor wee things
February 26th, 2010 at 10:31
Angelika – that’s a proper German name, and i think would be suitable for a cello… or were you looking for a name staring with M?