The sun is out and the clouds are gone. Hooray! This is the summertime creed of Oregon kids who have to run between raindrops for most of the winter. With school out and kids out and about it is sometimes hard to generate enthusiasm for strings practice. Here are some tips to beat the summertime practice blues. 1)Try a carrot. Okay, bribery can seem a bit graceless but a little reward goes a long way and a certain flying nanny I remember said a spoonful of sugar can expedite

Here in the greater Portland metro area we have some excellent resources for string players. I will also list some links to the best of our our local ensembles, orchestras and luminaries. Violin, viola, cello and bass Teacher list: I have to start by tooting our own horn. We have a very good teacher resource page on our website. We have 100 teachers and private studios listed as well as 11 music schools that offer individual and group instruction. They are listed with their c

I am getting word back from the vine that some of our local Portland area shops are already starting to run out of cellos. As of right now I have a good selection for rental or sale in all sizes. Rents start at $35 and our most popular Allegro Cello is still only $650 in all sizes. Give us a call for more details. #celloforsale #34sizecello #cellosforsale #beavertoncello #rentalcello #hillsborocello #Allegrocello #fullsizecello #Tigardcello #celloforrent #portlandcello #12siz

We have Cellos in stock as well as Violins, Violas and Upright Basses; currently available in all popular sizes for purchase or rent. Availability may occasionally dip in some sizes as the season progresses so make your appointment ASAP – (503)702 7254. #Lakeoswegocello #violinrental #Beavertoncellos #Tigardcello #cellorental #portlandcello #Tualatincello #violarental #cellos #cello

The Cello was a late comer to the violin family. The earliest ones we know of were built around the middle of the 16th century and the first mention of the violoncello in print was in 1556. The instrument was first called the bass violin then violoncello which literally means “big little violin” in Italian. Go figure. Mercifully, the name was eventually shortened to cello. The first known maker (but not the first actual maker) was Andrea Amati who built cellos for Charles IX

I may have already mentioned this analogy in an earlier posting but I want to give you the full treatment here. I try to tell this story to every child that gets an instrument from our shop. Feel free to use it if it works for you. I get a lot of positive feedback especially from parents about it. I start off asking the young person if they have ever been on an airplane before. Nine times out of ten they have. This is how I tell the story with appropriate hand gestures and so

One of the advantages of writing a blog for your own business is that you can veer a bit off topical as long as you stay in the same universe as you major purpose. In my case that would be music education and enrichment. I do need to issue a couple disclaimers here. First, I am not talking about the undead, the Zombies are a band. Second, if you hate and detest all aspects of popular music you might want to skip this posting. After all we are talking about cellos and violins

Ah yes, that is the question. It is one that has been debated and discussed frequently by both parents and educators. We recently had an excellent guest blog entry on our site from our friend and local violin teacher Christine Goodner about pre-school children and music. I would highly recommend that you go back in our blog entries and read that article as well but I thought that I would throw in my two cents. Forty years ago the typical answer might have been 8 or 9 years ol

I hate black boxes – gleaming silver whatchamacallits that are covered with little invisible question marks. I like to know what is going on inside. What makes this difficult is that we live in a world of black boxes. Cell phones, washing machines, TVs, stereos, computers, automobiles…how many of us actually know all of the intricacies and inner workings of these automations that we depend upon on a daily basis? Perhaps a few engineering types that are fountainheads of techni

Professor Steven Hawkin proved mathematically that when the Universe began so did time. That is pretty interesting when you think about it. Comedian Steven Wright said that God created time so that everything didn’t happen at once. He could be correct. All that I know is that everyone has the same amount of time in a day. No matter how rich you are you can’t go down to the 1st National Time Bank and purchase a few extra hours to get all of your work done. Oh, time seems to mo