This is my daughter. She has fiery, naturally curly hair and a spunky personality. At the age of 2 she was coming with me to her older's brother's violin lessons every week. She watched carefully, and within a year, she was wanted to start taking her own music lessons. So, she began learning the cello at age 3. She learned the bow hold very quickly and was soon a master at the Suzuki 'bow games.' Next, she learned to hold a cello and that's when her fiery personality starting shining. She did not like the way the cello felt sitting against her chest. It bothered her and she was having melt-downs over the discomfort. That's when I got crafty and created a 'cape' for her cello.
I let my daughter pick out the material for her cello cape. We filled the inside with soft felt, and sewed it together with a velcro attachment to hook around the neck and under the fingerboard of her cello. Problem solved - she loved it and was then able to hold her cello properly. She is now almost 12 years old and has progressed through various sizes of cellos, but she still uses her cello cape!
Sometimes my beginners complain about the same issue....some students don't like the feeling of the cello sitting on their chest. I have often wished I had some cello capes available at my school to help students feel more comfortable when playing the cello. Then something crazy happened....I have never seen this happen before, but last week, one of my excellent advanced cellists told me that he bruised his rib with his cello and would not be able to play until it healed. I wanted to help my student, so I had my daughter make a cello cape for him over the weekend. Today, I brought my student his cape and he loves it! I am going to have my daughter make more - she loves to sew and is interested in starting an Etsy store to sell cello capes with custom fun fabrics. This might help many young cellists - plus, it's kind of cool that cellos can have capes. :)
