My violinist-ness is starting to show on subtle aspects of my cello playing, week 3. Or perhaps it's not so subtle. Okay okay, so my left hand position and my bow hold looks just fine, like an average cellist. But for instance, my bowing is completely violinistic. When I'm extending my right arm out to play at the tip of the bow, my wrist bends drastically (on the violin, this is what kept my arm and the bow straight so that my elbow doesn't swing backwards). However... it seems that on the cello, my wrist should stay straight -- always, at any point on the bow. Instead, my elbow location/angle should change to compensate. Argh, it's so frustrating. Habits habits habits. I'm still not 100% understanding the physics of bowing straight on the cello while maximizing control at the tip (so that the bow AND my wrist stays flat/straight at any given point). And the wideness of the cello vibrato (and the fact that it originates from the back/shoulder/upper-arm) took such a big effort to achieve... and it's still not all the way there, but getting there, I think.

I'm perhaps stating the obvious here, but playing the cello is such an opposite of the violin:

Cello: The further away my left hand gets from me, the higher the note gets.
Violin: The closer my left hand gets to me, the higher the note gets.
Cello: The higher up my right elbow is, the higher the string I'm playing on (i.e. the A string is the hardest to reach).
VIolin: The higher up my right elbow is, the lower the string I'm playing on (i.e. the G string).

Unfortunately, the latter point (especially) still confuses me. The last few lines of the Bach's first prelude -- it drives my brain crazy because the string crossing is exactly opposite of what I'm used to. i.e. My elbow is further away from me when I'm playing a higher-note string. Grr.