last moments

Two weeks and counting before exams come again, and I'm still traipsing round the island looking for The (elusive) Cello. Went to Toa Payoh to see this $6000 German cello, presumably German and presumably 14 years old, but because it doesn't have a label there's no way of telling - it could have been from China for all I know. The sound is nice and mellow, but the strings are really old and used, so I had a hard time getting it to sound, and I missed my own cello there and then, which doesn't bode well for it.

Then I went back to esplanade to see if their new shipment had any good stuff, and I tested this gorgeous $38,000 cello, made by this Italian guy (i think), and despite it's very low bridge, it had an amazing sound and you can't sound anything but nice on it. So today I told my classmate about it and he went "You might as well get a weekend car", and that sort of put things in perspective.

Currently the most promising one is the $11,700 German one that is less than a year old - it's nice but probably needs bridge and fingerboard work because it's quite difficult to play. Then there's always the cheaper $6000-ish China housebrand one that I suspect only sounds good because of the $245 worth of strings that's on it. It's horrible to be talking about instruments in terms of price, as if sound or tone can be 'bought' by forking out more cash, as if these things can be quantified; it's like trivialising the instrument as an individual.

Whatever I decide on, I'll be in debt for a long time to come; but the worse is separating from my current cello. Although I'll still be able to see it sometimes, but it's different. It feels like you're separating from your spouse. Not that I know what it's like to have one (Thank God), but, well, it's like having your tooth wrenched out. So now that I'm in my separation anxiety phase, I'm actually playing my cello a lot less. I just look at it out of the corner of my eye and sigh, then pretend it's not there. To practice for the fateful day.