How about picking out a student cello?!

BassDad
Tue, 15 Aug 2006 12:05:04 +0000

Weenie,

that is true for top-end instruments, but I have seen the opposite for student and intermediate grades. Look at rental rates, typically $40-$60 per month for the cellos and $75 and up for the basses. A decent (not great, but OK for a serious beginner) carved cello can be had for under $1K. Basses in that league start at about $4K. A cello selling for about $5K would probably be comparable in intrinsic quality to a bass costing $10K. Basses simply take more time, more material and more expensive tools to make than do cellos.

Once you get into the high end, say $25K and above, the price starts to be influenced by things external to the instrument, like the maker’s reputation, the fame of the previous owners and so forth. In addition, the cello world is more competitive than the bass world, the best instruments have more potential buyers thus driving up prices, and more of the really good instruments tend to filter further down into the hands of high school and college age cellists than bassists.

I think it is probably true that in most student orchestras, the value of the average cello exceeds that of the average bass but that is because the average cello is probably a much better instrument than the average bass. The average bass in most of the student orchestras that I have seen is a laminated mess owned by the school that was selected on the basis of durability over sound and has not had a change of strings or much maintenance at all in the past five years.