In expanding my work this past week into music, I kept seeing the body of the cello in my mind’s eye, yet I did not know what it was saying to me. That is, until today when I was replying to one of James Radcliffe’s blog posts. His post features an image of him playing the cello (Be sure to check out his music and writing!). I recognize now that for me, the cello represents the freeing of the ranges of my voice, even physically representing the shape and curves of my body. Then, just now as I was typing, I heard this prayer by St. Francis of Assisi.
Since New Year’s, I have returned to listening to Zoe Keating’s work. She is an amazing cellist. I can feel her music move throughout my body, moving my spirit. While many compositions include the cello primarily for establishing the rhythm, the cello can quite easily carry the melody as you will see in Keating’s work. The series above is a great taste test, of the sweetness and boldness of her work. I love this particular series as it starts with two of my favorite songs and I hope you like them!
The range of the cello’s voice has always called to me. At age 10, I easily chose the cello over voice and every musical instrument. Musicians that include the cello draw me in repeatedly. Sia, PJ Harvey, Apocalyptica and Tori Amos are some of my favorites, when the mood calls
My Favorites:
#1 Forest Keating seems to tune her cello at the beginning, a requisite prior to any performance. This sets the stage for the rest of the album. Tuning is such a sweet sound for me, bringing back many lovely memories of performing.
#2 Escape Artist When I listen, I can feel myself running, heart pounding through the forest. It is not until today that I see the correlation to my experiences in middle school, as mentioned below. No wonder it’s one of my favorites…
The cello was instrumental in my escape & survival in middle school. Feeling ostracized, I practiced the cello during school lunch breaks to avoid interactions with others.
Learning to play solo on the orchestra stage while the sounds reverberated, unfettered, throughout the empty auditorium was initially incredibly intimidating.
With practice, I learned to be bold in my playing and valuing the critiques of my performance by my music teacher. This experience pushed me to a higher level of playing; often being uncontested in being rst chair. I draw from this now where I have continually expanded my voice here on WP, “spiral out, keep going.”
– Thank you for being a witness to this emergence!
I hope you enjoy Keating’s work. Please feel free to comment, I love the input including critiques!
Cover Photo
Final Photo
Prayer of St. Francis
unfiltered from the heart 
The Cello is indeed a special kind of instrument. It has a deep ‘guttural’ tone that has great maturity and requires great maturity to understand and appreciate. It is like the grandmother of the chirpy little violin, who has seen it all and knows the deeper meaning of things. I have always associated Cello music with the best form of expressing anxiety, speed, sadness, soliloquy even. But there are some records which have shown Cello to play expressive, romantic music too. I am not a music connoisseur, so I would not want to offend a real musician through my dumb analogies. But as a layman, this is what I understand.
A woman’s body as a Cello; well that is some really imaginative thinking! But some instruments ride deeper inside us than the others and create a resonance that reflects with our personality. I presume you felt that way, which is great! Not everyone feels ‘one’ with the music they hear.
Great work again, Tiff.
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Can I call you BP? I feel odd not knowing your name and you’re gushing compliments on me!
For a self-described non-musician, I feel you did a darn good job of describing the voice and essence of the cello. Bravo! Thank you so much for stopping by and I enjoyed your blog. I’ll do my best to keep in touch, lately I’ve been in production overdrive. And I agree, Love truly!
Namaste
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Sure thing Tiff. BP is fine!
Thank you for your kind compliments and also for reading about me. If you need some info on Hinduism and spirituality in India, I can give you some information.
Love,
BP
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BP, for some reason, I missed this message! I was looking for something and stumbled across it! Yes, I’d love to learn more about Hindi and don’t know what questions to ask…
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Ha Ha, no worries Tiff. Hindi (the language) or Hinduism (the religion)? Drop me an email on whatever is on your mind and I will try to answer.
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I was replying to your message. I don’t know what to ask about Hinduism. I want to learn more, for sure.
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