There is a slightly dangerous point in the life of any musician when everything is working perfectly well. The instruments are reliable, the amplification behaves itself, audiences are happy and nobody has written an angry email suggesting that the second C-sharp in A Thousand Years lacked sufficient emotional depth. It is at precisely this moment that sensible people leave things alone. Musicians, unfortunately, are rarely sensible people. We hear tiny differences that nobody else notices, spend unreasonable amounts of time adjusting things by fractions, and remain convinced that somewhere, somehow, there is a slightly better sound waiting to be found. Which is essentially how JAM Duo came to upgrade our electric cello to the new Yamaha SVC300F.
Why Change Something That Was Already Working?
For many years Anne-Marie played a Yamaha SVC110, an instrument which served us extremely well through hundreds of weddings and many thousands of miles around Britain. It allowed us to produce a consistent cello sound in circumstances where an acoustic instrument is not always practical: outside on lawns, inside enormous barns, in hotel ballrooms, stately homes, marquees, restaurants and occasionally in places where the words “performance area” turned out to mean approximately four square feet between a fire extinguisher and the cake. The SVC110 was reliable, familiar and, through good amplification, capable of producing an excellent sound. There was therefore no urgent need to replace it. And naturally, this meant we started wondering whether we could replace it with something even better.
The arrival of Yamaha’s new SVC300 series caught our attention because it appeared to address the one thing that matters most to us with an electric cello: it should still sound like a cello. That might seem an extraordinarily obvious requirement. It is rather like suggesting that a grand piano ought ideally to sound like a piano. But the world of amplified string instruments can sometimes become rather distracted by the fact that they are electric. There are instruments designed to look futuristic, produce unusual effects or cut through a rock band at a volume capable of upsetting neighbouring counties. All of that has its place. For JAM Duo, however, the objective is rather different. We want the practicality and consistency of an electric instrument while retaining as much as possible of the warmth, resonance and character associated with a traditional acoustic cello.
The Yamaha SVC300F: Designed to Sound Natural
That is exactly why we chose the SVC300F. The important letter there is the “F”, because Yamaha has produced two versions of its new flagship Silent Cello. The SVC300F is the model deliberately aimed towards a warmer, more acoustic-style sound and feel. For us, that made it the obvious choice. We are not trying to make Anne-Marie’s cello sound like an electric guitar with ambitions. We want somebody standing at the back of a wedding ceremony to hear Canon in D, Can’t Help Falling in Love or A Thousand Years and simply think, “That cello sounds beautiful.”
And, rather pleasingly, that is exactly what has started happening.
Since putting the new cello into regular use, we have had noticeably more comments about the sound from couples, guests and venue staff. Quite a few people have specifically remarked on how natural it sounds. Others have said that they assumed it was an acoustic cello until they looked more closely. One of the comments we hear most often is some variation of: “It sounds just like a real cello.”
Which is wonderful, because that is entirely the point.
There is perhaps an amusing irony in spending a significant amount of money on a technologically advanced electric instrument so that people think it sounds like something invented several hundred years ago. But that, in a nutshell, is progress. We are not interested in technology merely for the sake of having newer technology. The attraction of the SVC300F is that Yamaha has used technology to put back some of what electric string instruments can traditionally lose: resonance, warmth, depth and the impression that the sound is coming from a wooden instrument rather than simply from a pickup connected to a loudspeaker.
A Replacement Instrument – And Now It Is Working Beautifully
Our first SVC300F did have a problem and was ultimately replaced. There is no particular drama to add to that story: occasionally a new piece of equipment develops a fault, Yamaha supplied a replacement, and the replacement instrument has since been working beautifully. More importantly, it has allowed us to hear what the new cello is properly capable of. Once everything was functioning as intended and we had spent time refining how the instrument worked with our amplification, the improvement became much more apparent.
The difference is not simply that the new cello is “better” in the rather vague way one might describe a new television or washing machine. What matters to us is the quality of the sound within the duo. Cello and piano occupy a surprisingly large musical landscape between them. The piano can provide bass, harmony, rhythm and melody simultaneously, while the cello has one of the widest emotional ranges of any instrument. It can sing above the piano, provide warmth beneath a melody or become almost vocal in the middle register. When the cello sound becomes richer and more natural, the whole duo sounds better. Suddenly a phrase sits differently within the piano harmony. Sustained notes have greater character. Quiet passages feel more intimate and larger passages have more depth without merely becoming louder.
Better Sound Does Not Mean More Volume
That last point is particularly important at weddings. Volume and quality are not the same thing.
We have never subscribed to the theory that the best way to improve live music is simply to make it louder. Our job during most of a wedding day is to create atmosphere without preventing people from speaking to one another. Guests should notice the music, enjoy it and occasionally stop mid-conversation because they recognise a song they love. They should not have to communicate by semaphore because the musicians have decided that the drinks reception is actually Wembley Stadium.
A good amplified cello therefore needs presence without aggression. It needs to retain detail at a sensible volume. The SVC300F has helped enormously with that. We can produce a full, convincing cello sound which sits comfortably alongside the piano rather than having to force the instrument forward in the mix simply to give it character. That makes the entire sound of JAM Duo more refined.
Consistency Matters at Every Wedding Venue
There is also the question of consistency. Anyone who has played hundreds of weddings will know that venues vary enormously. One week we may be performing in a stone hall with enough natural reverberation to make one piano chord last until Tuesday. The next we are outside under a tree where the nearest reflective surface is somewhere near Oxford. Then we might be in a heavily furnished hotel room where sound is absorbed by carpets, curtains, people and an alarming quantity of decorative foliage.
Our instruments therefore have to work in all of those environments.
This is one of the reasons we use professional stage equipment rather than relying entirely on acoustic instruments. An acoustic cello is a magnificent thing, but outdoors or in a large wedding space it usually needs amplification anyway. Once microphones, pickups and speakers become involved, you suddenly have another chain of variables to control. With the Yamaha we can create a consistent starting point and then adjust our overall sound to suit the room. The technology becomes invisible, which is precisely how we like it.
The same philosophy applies to my piano setup. I use a Nord Stage piano because it gives us a superb and consistent piano sound wherever we perform. If a venue has an excellent grand piano, I am always delighted to use it. But wedding musicians cannot build a professional service around crossing their fingers and hoping that the piano supplied by the venue is in tune, recently serviced and not primarily used as somewhere to display framed photographs. Our own equipment means the musical standard remains under our control.
And that, really, is what this latest cello upgrade is about.
Constantly Improving the Sound of JAM Duo
JAM Duo has now performed at an enormous number of weddings. It would be very easy at this stage simply to keep doing exactly what we have always done. We know our repertoire. We know how ceremonies work. We know how to move from a ceremony to a drinks reception with considerable amounts of equipment while simultaneously avoiding photographers, waiters, flower arrangements and a newly married couple coming the other way. We could reasonably decide that we have mastered the mechanics of the job.
But music does not work like that.
You never actually finish improving as a musician. There is always something else to refine: balance, phrasing, arrangements, repertoire, equipment, dynamics or simply the way two musicians listen to one another. Anne-Marie and I play together so frequently that a great deal happens without either of us needing to say anything. We can extend an entrance piece when a bride takes longer to reach the ceremony. We can shorten something naturally when everybody is suddenly ready. We can change direction in the middle of a piece because one of us senses what the other is doing. That sort of musical communication only develops through an enormous amount of playing together.
The instruments should support that rather than get in the way of it.
Our decision to invest in the Yamaha SVC300F is therefore part of a much wider process. We are constantly looking at how JAM Duo can sound better, work better and provide a higher musical standard. Sometimes that means learning a new arrangement. Sometimes it means completely rewriting an existing arrangement because, after playing it fifty times, I decide that four bars in the middle could be better. Sometimes it means changing amplification, altering balance or spending a suspiciously long period discussing whether the cello should enter two beats earlier.
And sometimes it means buying a new cello.
What Wedding Guests Actually Notice
Of course, the average wedding guest neither knows nor particularly cares which model of electric cello Anne-Marie is playing. Nor should they. Nobody arrives at a wedding hoping for a detailed seminar on Yamaha’s latest string instrument technology before the canapés. What they care about is what reaches their ears.
Does it sound beautiful?
Does it feel live?
Does it suit the moment?
Does the music make the ceremony more emotional, the drinks reception more atmospheric and the wedding breakfast more enjoyable?
Those are the things which matter.
The new Yamaha has simply given us a better tool with which to achieve them.
Every Note Still Played Live
It also reinforces something we have always felt strongly about with JAM Duo: live wedding music should genuinely be live. We do not use backing tracks. There is no hidden orchestral recording filling in the gaps and no laptop quietly doing half the work. What you hear comes from the two people sitting in front of you: Anne-Marie playing the cello and me playing the piano. The sound may be amplified and the instruments may contain some extraordinarily clever technology, but the performance itself remains entirely human.
If Anne-Marie changes the shape of a phrase, the music changes. If I hold back the tempo as somebody walks into a ceremony, the music responds. If a couple pauses halfway down the aisle because they have suddenly realised that this is actually happening and become overwhelmed by the moment, we can simply keep playing.
No backing track can watch the room.
For us, this combination of traditional musicianship and modern technology is where things become interesting. We can carry a professional cello and piano setup into virtually any wedding venue in the country, create a consistent high-quality sound and still retain the flexibility of two musicians playing every note in real time.
Modern Technology Serving Traditional Musicianship
The SVC300F fits that philosophy remarkably well. It is modern technology being used not to replace the traditional cello sound, but to get closer to it.
And perhaps the greatest compliment we can give the instrument is that most guests do not notice any of this.
They simply tell us the cello sounds amazing.
Which, after all the research, experimenting, replacing, adjusting and inevitable musician-level obsessing, is exactly what we were hoping for.
