Always by my side: what do cellists keep in their case?

Johannes Moser, cello

I carry my accessories in a separate roller bag rather than my cello case because I carry quite a lot! I always have a yoga mat to stay fit on the road. It’s a great way to start the day, either on tour or at home before a practice session. A bottle of water is also really important for travelling, especially on long flights where I chug it like crazy. Masks are still a good choice when boarding flights and on tight public transport, so I keep some of these.

I carry some books, cross-reading between fiction and non-fiction. At the moment I’m reading a Brahms biography. I also always have my laptop, mainly for video and picture edits as well as day-to-day planning and occasional gaming. This is accompanied by noise-cancelling headphones: the international sign for ‘leave me alone please’!

Instrument-related accessories include the usual strings (Larsen, because I’m a Larsen artist), a metronome to keep my practice in check, sheet music, and some rosin. I use Bernardel but am also happy with Opera. And of course, pens and pencils for marking up my parts is a passion.

On the tech side, I always have a cable bag and an audio recording device for quality control and better-sounding social media videos on the go. Finally, I carry earplugs to remove nine decibels for everything: practising, concerts, chamber music and concertos. And I musn’t forget my glasses and shades!

Astrid Schween, cello

I love the topic of this article! I always find it interesting when golfers and tennis players reveal what’s in their bag. I don’t carry much in the actual cello case other than the instrument and two bows, some Dampits, a Stretto humidification pack (above), and maybe a cloth or two. I do carry an additional accessory bag in my hand luggage, in which I have a number of important items that I find very useful, especially when travelling.

For my strings, I use Thomastik Rondo strings when lower-tension strings are needed and Versum strings when I need higher-tension ones. I usually have two sets of each. I will also swap out a Spirocore Tungsten for the C string when playing quartets. I then have at least two cakes of rosin. I use a Pirastro rosin, which has proven the best for my needs.

I then have a practice mute for practising in hotels, tweezers for stubborn strings with frayed ends, a clipper for the same purpose, shims, bridges of various heights, and a nifty little wooden tool for measuring string height, created for me by dear friends. There’s also a plastic bridge jack so that I can safely adjust the string height when needed. Travelling with these tools gives me options to manage the instrument best in various climates and humidity levels.

Christian-Pierre La Marca, cello

I keep my cello in the Gewa Cello case High Performance Carbon 2.7 – it’s ultra light, solid and a good-looking case. I use Larsen Strings Magnacore and Arioso sets and prototypes. I also have a set of Pirastro Eudoxa and Oliv strings, which I use when I’m playing Baroque cello and I mix sometimes with natural gut strings.

For rosin, I like the Royal Oak Profi-Line – it’s sticky and light and not too strong. The Dolfinos Cello End Pin stopper (above) is a new discovery for me. It is reliable on most floors, and it’s light and small too!

My MontBlanc Portemine Classique is a very special tool for annotating my scores. It feels very clean to write with. I have a Henle jotter for writing down ideas, music, exercises and notes. I also keep a Dolfinos Miniput ultra-light stand for my iPad and music. It’s a great way to travel light. The most important tools are my Apple iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and Airturn pedal. They are reliable and beautiful, and make your score personal and easy to play in any circumstance.

For classical music, the best iPad applications are: the Henle Library, for fingerings and bowings of major repertoire; ForScore, for scores, as a metronome and for tuning; and Tunable, a very sensitive tuning app with temperaments and different settings.

Subscribers to The Strad receive the 2025 Accessories supplement free with their copy of the June 2025 issue

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