Cello note help needed please

[haggisaggis]

dd's cello teacher (school) has a habit of just ticking pieces in her music book and not going over them. DD has been playing for 2 years but teacher has now introduced a basic scales book - and it has notation in it we've not seen before. She is doing work on D major scale and one piece has a 3 and a little circle above high a - and 3 and a little circle above g. What does this mean? I've done some googling and it says something about harmonics - and the blurb below the piece mentions harmonics - but how do you play them?

bumping

You play harmonics by lightly pressing the finger on the string rather than pushing it down to the board. It gives a sort of delicate watery note. They seem ridiculously complicated for scales for a 2 year player though. I reckon I was playing violin for 6+ years before I even knew what a harmonic was!

Thanks Eurochick - do you press in the same finger position you would normally use for that note? Is that what the number means (although it has "3" for a g on the d string which would normally be played with her 4th finger so don't know if it means something else..
Got to agree -I googled harmonics and couldn't make head nor tail out about it (which is why I'm asking here) The book is meant to be for Grades 1 &2. (but definitely mentions harmonics)

I think she's going to need to ask her teacher! Sorry.

Usually on a violin you play the harmonics quite far up the fingerboard, towards where the bow is.

When you say "high A", do you mean the A on the top line of the bass stave, or the A three ledger lines above it?

A little circle in string writing can have two meanings. It can be a harmonic, as previously mentioned, or it can mean play the note as an open string. (There is always a choice whether to play a note as an open string, because the same pitch can alternatively be obtained on the next string down using the finger.)

You can generally tell which meaning is intended by what note it is. To be an open string, it obviously has to be one of the pitches the instrument is tuned to - low C, G on the bottom line, D in the third space or A on the top line. To be a harmonic, it has to be one of a particular set of intervals above one of these pitches.

I must admit I can't see any reason why harmonics would be marked in a scale book. That just makes no sense. At grade 1/2, it's much more likely to mean open strings. It would still then be a bit of a mystery what the "3" means (since you obviously don't use your third finger, or any finger, on an open string), but verifying what the pitch is is the first step.

I had exactly the same confusion. Dd is doing Moderato by Gallo (grade 3 piece) and it has this circle on the last line. I have not the slightest musical aptitude. With the best research I could find from the internet I got her to play it on the D string with first finger lightly touching the A note.
I would love to know if this is right.
haggisaggis What grade is your dd? If it is one octave of D at grade 1 or 2, I should think the o just means open string. Could the 3 be meant to be above the f reminding her that it is f sharp (rather than f natural which is played with the second finger)?

OK - it's high A as in several ledger lines above bass clef.
<a class="break-all" href="//www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=static.musicroom.com/img/c/lb/9780193381391/9780193381391_lb01.jpg&imgrefurl=www.musicroom.com/se/id_no/01048263/details.html&h=800&w=585&sz=94&tbnid=L11TuVFs-Y_VBM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=66&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcello%2Btime%2Bscales%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=cello+time+scales&usg=__X-QuLVmq_R02Noqxd2h8j907z7Y=&docid=h3563fnSOr8_zM&sa=X&ei=yzgbUrePNcfKswb-1oGQBw&ved=0CGcQ9QEwCg&dur=70" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Here's the page

The scales book by the way has pieces in it in the various keys as practice as well as the scales themselves.

Looks like it's telling her what finger to use to play the harmonic (i.e., to do it with her 3rd finger, touching the string lightly). You could theoretically use any finger to do a harmonic, but 3rd and 4th are more common (at least on the violin; not sure whether 4th is on the cello).

I found on youtube. Hope it helps.

Did you work it out? It's the first bar if line 2 you're talking about right?

If so, two open As (string 1) followed by 2 harmonic As an octave up. You do this by lightly touching the A string exactly half way along the string. You can measure it if you want to see where. Then bow the note as normal. Harmonics only work at certain node points on the string- the clearest one is this one half way along the string, which makes a note an octave above the open string note.

Oops! I got it wrong. Thanks for starting this thread. At least I can get it right now.

Can I just ask; if only one is marked like this does it contunue for any others (like accidentals in a bar) or is it just for that note?

Just for the note(s) that it's marked on, normally.

Thanks chocolate! It's her lesson today so hopefully teh teacher will go over it but usually all that happens is dd plays a couple of pieces and the teacher ticks the next few in the book for her to practise..doesn't seem to be much actual teaching.