Episode 18: Cello da Spalla

June 15, 2025

Cello da Spalla

Japanese-Maker of a a forgotten Baroque Bach Instrument

📍 Saitama, Japan

Website: https://liuteriatakumi.com/ 

Thoughts and Reflections

This is a person and instrument I personally felt a strong connection to! When young (perhaps in Grade 3), I starting taking violin lessons, with the same teacher as my older brother. This teacher required that I stand during my lessons. After only a month of lessons, I decided that STANDING was not for me. At this point, I decided to switch to a sitting instrument (either the bassoon or cello), I chose the latter. After piano, cello is my next strongest instrument, playing it continually and quite extensively.

I spent many years as a string orchestra teacher. And as I was doing that, I found myself leading the orchestra easiest playing the violin. So, I got fairly good at the violin after all. 

Anyways, it made me realize, I would love to have the mobility when playing the cello. That was my thought when I discovered the Cello da Spalla.

Takumi is in Saitama, and I'm in Yokohama; both part of the Tokyo-mtero area, and Tokyo is basically sandwiched in-between these two cities. I had a triple-take when looking at instructions, because our respective closest train stations, were the end points for ONE single train line. I've ridden this train line quite a lot, of course, maybe only 1/3 of it at most (to get to Tokyo), and never to the end. I might be the very first one who genuinely needed to traverse from one end of the line to the other. Besides, the train conductor, people who fell asleep on the train, and train otakus (the train nerds of Japan). 

I took Verena with me, a local and talented luthier, originally from Germany. She came to help translate and film. Though to my surprise (and because of how humble Takumi initially was in email), Takumi's English was proficient.

Anyways, as much as I wanted to combine the skills of cello and violin into this magical 5-string instrument, it was significantly harder than I could imagine to play. A lot more practice would be needed to make meaningful sounds. Regardless, Takumi was probably one of the nicest luthiers I had met. 

Additionally, a lot of research had to be done for this video. Firslty, the cello da spalla has only had a recent resurgence. So a lot of the deep research is still in its infancy. Additionally, probably as a result, there are controversial thoughts and figures in the cello da spalla community. Doing the research, it was clear that it was a controversial topic, but it was difficult to pinpoint the source of it. 

So, I need to make it clear, that I'm open to all perspectives and neither Takumi or I are here to represent or vouch for any specific sides. As time continues on, the debates will settle down, but the instrument will remain and popular only continue growing in popularity.