DESCRIPTION:
Composer, Jacob Gotlib, and I have been meeting and experimenting with my cello to see what kinds of different sounds we can come up with. Since I've been performing TableTop cello over the past couple of years or so, some of our experiments are being done with that orientation of the instrument.

Here are some of the sounds I got by inserting a dowel rod in between strings on the cello--the ability to get subharmonic tones are increadibly easy when inserting things in the strings and a wooden dowel is no exception.

Different bow speed/pressure and contact points create different sounds, but the subharmonic tones come out best with slower bow speed and medium pressure and bow placement sul tasto (or very near).

Because of the length of the dowel, if the vibration of it is great enough, then it actually will tap the A string even while strung over the C, D, and under the G. While it works the other way as well (strung between A, D, and G while tapping the C) it's a bit more difficult to create that effect.