ABSTRACT
The bass-voiced member of the violin family, the cello is also “the youngest and certainly the most recently perfected in form and proportion.” The development of the cello itself determines the evolution of cello technique. By the twentieth century, the use of longer endpins resulted in changes to posture, instrument hold, and left- and right-hand techniques. Child-specific cello pedagogy goes a step further in introducing imaginative kinesthetic approaches to teaching fundamentals. The “mind-body” pedagogues describe posture in terms of balance rather than “sitting up straight.” The endpin-free instrument hold necessitates positioning the cello lower and more upright than most present-day approaches. The first pedagogues to describe endpin use do not appear to have altered the low, upright instrument hold of the no-endpin pedagogues. Margaret Rowell’s child-specific pedagogy teaches instrument hold through a “bear hug” while the teacher determines appropriate endpin length, a now-standard approach.
