Cello & Strings

Q: What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A: Try to be as clear as possible with what you want. We can certainly help with this, which is why I always prefer to meet on the phone and talk about the project first, perhaps with cello in hand to demonstrate things. This always always improves the final result.

Q: What's the biggest misconception about what you do?

A: That because it looks easy, it is easy! I would say that practising an instrument to the high level needed to do it professionally can be likened to boiling a pan of water. As soon as you take down the heat the water no longer boils. We need to be at boiling point consistently, and to do this a LOT of work goes on in the practise room. Not to mention the 10s of thousands of hours we have put in since we were kids...

Q: Analog or digital and why?

A: Both are brilliant!

Q: What's your 'promise' to your clients?

A: 100% extreme happiness with what we send you. I’ll do anything and everything to make sure a client is perfectly happy at the end of the process.

Q: What do you like most about your job?

A: The hugely varying and contrasting music I get to play, and I never know what’s coming which keeps my professional life exciting.

Q: What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A: A difficult question I get quite a bit is to give a quote for work before any details have been shared. It’s very difficult to say what a job is worth until we know what the job will entail. I would say before you ask for a quote, get everything together in terms of exactly what you want us to do. The more accurate you are, the more accurate we can be in terms of getting you the cheapest quote.

Q: What questions do you ask prospective clients?

A: If anything is unclear or is not consistent in the materials I receive I will always seek to clarify before we start. But mainly it’s about the character of the song- telling us any hidden meanings or emotions behind the work help us to get closer to the clients’ ideal...

Q: How would you describe your style?

A: Lyrical phrases with a warm and generous tone, at all times corresponding to the feel of the piece or song

Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?

A: We all graduated from London Music Colleges- Royal Academy of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Royal College of Music. We have all been playing our instruments since early childhood and so it has always been a life’s vocation for all of us.

Q: What's your typical work process?

A: On receiving scores or parts from the client, we have a look over it, mapping the harmonic form if necessary or sitting with the tracks to let them sink in, while speaking with the composer/songwriter about their vision for the performance. We are trained in Classical music but we have worked on many different styles from all types of electronic music to Jazz to Folk. If the parts are any less than straight forward in terms of technical difficulty we then spend some time practising the parts with our instruments. We find that while it’s possible to turn up and sight-read, reaching the true potential of the music is easier done with a little practise...

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.

A: It’s quite simple really- we have a well acoustically- treated room first of all, and we record with a Neumann TLM 103 and a KM 184 stereo pair going into an ART PRO MPA2 tube pre and a UA Apollo with a variety of UAD preamps. We think the sound we get speaks for itself!

Q: Which artist would you like to work with and why?

A: Possibly Hildur Guðnadóttir. Apart from being a fellow cellist, a lot of times I have been watching films/series and noticed the brilliant music, the composer turned out to be her...

Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?

A: Hagen Quartett; Steven Isserlis; James Ehnes; Arkadey Volodos; Nicolas Altstaedt, Teldec Studios

Q: Describe the most common type of work you do for your clients.

A: Interpret, perform and record clients’ music in close connection with them. We can also work with them on creating and arranging parts.

Q: Can you share one music production tip?

A: Get your room in acoustic shape first!

Q: What type of music do you usually work on?

A: Classical, film scores and songs.

Q: What's your strongest skill?

A: Communication. With the composer at first through listening and discussing, and then through our instruments as we convey the clients’ ideas to their audience.

Q: What do you bring to a song?

A: We bring a warm, soulful sound, naturally lyrical phrasing, all captured in a pristine quality recording.