Lugging a cello to and from school or a gig--or even just to your lesson!--can be such a hassle sometimes.  But travelling even longer distances can seem downright impossible. Going on tour?  Hah!  Good luck. 

I read this Strad  article the other day which sent me on a trip down memory lane: http://www.thestrad.com/latest/blogs/travelling-with-cellos-on-trains-and-planes-is-never-easy

And I decided it might be fun to share with you a few of my cello travel-adventures.

The first adventure came about after I had only been playing cello a few years. Our orchestra director decided to take us to a festival in exotic Panama City which required our hiring a bus.  A Grey Line bus to be exact (I will never forget that company as long as I live). 

I was so excited to be travelling with my orchestra!  The day we left, I sprayed my bangs up extra high and packed my caboodle with all my fancy travel toiletries and hip Swatch watch.  This was going to be a BLAST! 

Everything seemed fine for a while until the bus stopped.  We were in the most remote part of the Florida panhandle, and I remember thinking: Who chose this time to take a potty break?  There's no McDonald's in sight. 

The bus driver got off the bus and circled around the to the back . Maybe it was because I had somehow weasled my way into the "cool" section of the bus, but no one around me showed any signs of panic.  Apparently, we had no idea what was going on. Even when the driver came back on and calmly grabbed the fire extinguisher, we still sat motionless until someone yelled, "It didn't work!"

Suddenly we became aware of the flames shooting out from somewhere beneath the "cool" section, and a frenzy erupted--a tangle of gangly legs and arms fighting to get out. 

Only then did I see that there was no school-bus-type emergency exit in the back.  Why had I wanted to sit here?!

The adults, who were smart enough to have positioned themselves near the door, yelled at us to leave everything behind.  Duh.

Don't worry, we all escaped unscathed.  But every single violin and viola was burned to ashes, along with my beloved caboodle and Swatch watch (I still mourn for these items).   I was secretly hoping my crappy rental cello might perish in the flames as well, but some heroic parent took it upon himself to fling to safety all the large instruments that had been stored underneath the bus.  So I was reunited with the yellow beast after the shop had patched all the dings with a hideous blood red varnish that made the cello look as though it had been vandalized (and only intensified my disdain for that particular instrument). 

Needless to say, we didn't play the festival.  

When I first started college, I had the opportunity to play a few concerts in Japan.  Fun, right?  It was.  Except for the playing part.  

The people in charge refused to buy a seat for my cello and insisted I use a cello that I would receive once I got there.  It turned out to be horribly set up. The strings were so high off the fingerboard that I could barely press them down.  I had an awful first performance on that cello.  Though I got more comfortable with it as the tour went on, it was a terribly difficult time for me, and I swore I would never do that again.

Many years later, I found myself touring China.  Only now, instead of playing on one strange cello that I could get used to during the three-week tour, I had a new cello in every city--super fun!  In some cities, we would show up and have to put the strings and bridges on the instruments ourselves, like they had just come straight from the factory,  They had never been played. Ever.  A few times they were nearly unplayable, but we struggled through.  The show must go on!

There were plenty of times when I got to take my own cello on the plane with me, but those times were blissfully uneventful and best relayed in a different blog post.

Here are a few stories of cellos with plane tickets that didn't go so well: 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/music/airlines-have-a-new-nemesis-cellos-on-a-plane/article4506529/

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/travel/delta-kicks-musician-out-skymiles-program-f1C7048162

Hopefully you won't ever have these problems...Happy travels, fellow cellists! 

Last week, a friend had a helpful reminder for me, and I just wanted to pass its wisdom along to you:

"Here's your comfort zone," and she made a little box with her hands.  "And HERE," a little spirit-finger frill off to the side, "is where the magic happens."

This is SO true!  

So, in the spirit of getting out of my comfort zone, I want to admit something to you, in case you hadn't heard the rumors:  I'm in a band, 

What kind of band, you ask?  Well, it's kind of electronic-techno-pop-rock.... I really have no idea how to describe it. No, I don't play a keytar (although I grew up longing to be like Kimber from Jem)!  I actually play the cello and sing in this band.  We're called Pink Pompeii (long story about the name). 

Classically-trained cellist by day...  well, still a classically-trained cellist at night--but you know what I'm trying to say: There are a lot of fun places to stick a cello!  (That reminds me of the time I decided to practice while lying in bed; I literally stuck my endpin in the wall.  Kids, I don't recommend trying this at home.  And if you do, blame Yo-Yo!  That guy is such a trouble-maker!)

Cello can be so much fun to mess around with in a non-traditional way.  I have had a simple looping pedal for a while (BOSS RC-20XL).  With this fun piece of tech, you can record riffs while you are playing them and then layer other sounds (they don't have to be "pretty!") on top of those to create a groove of your very own.   

This is extremely useful since you can learn to improvise and get comfortable composing in the privacy of your own home.  Noodling like this can snowball into entire songs, rock operas, or minimalist movie soundtracks (if only in my mind). 

So, getting out of your comfort zone with a little bit of technology like this can actually make you more comfortable with the subjects that can sometimes seem a bit intimidating. 

Now, back to the band.

It's a bit tricky to use this pedal when other people/hardware are involved, so it hasn't seen much action in Pink Pompeii (besides making the ubiquitous ethereal whale-noises and trance-y ambient drones).  If I play a riff and loop it with my pedal, it gradually gets out of sync with the rest of the musicians and computers (like the windshield-wipers always do when you're favorite song is playing). 

So, I have recently acquired some hardware that will allow me to make my loops with my iPad--which will then talk to all the other computers and iPads in the band and magically synchronize.  

I hope.  

I'll keep you posted, but I am definitely out of my comfort zone on this stuff!

In the meantime, here are some video examples of string instrument looping that will give you a taste of what it's like: