A comparison of fractional-sized to full-sized cellos
Thomas E. Blanford, Micah R. Shepherd · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2018
Fractional-sized cellos (3/4, 1/2, etc.) are designed for the same musical playing range as a full-sized cello (4/4) but with scaled proportions for players for whom a full sized cello is too large. To compensate for the shorter string length of the smaller instruments, the strings are adjusted in order to obtain the correct tuning. The cello body vibration, which is strongly coupled to the internal air cavity, would not be expected to scale in the same manner as the strings. This causes the bridge impedance seen by the strings on the fractional-sized cellos to differ from the bridge impedance seen by the strings on a full-sized cello. In this talk, the physical dimensions of a ½ and ¾ cello are compared with a full cello. Drive point measurements are also compared to illustrate how the strings couple differently with body of each size cello. The fractional-sized cellos are found to exhibit a slightly different sound due to the bridge impedance mismatch.