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I'm looking for a word to nicely describe how a cello sounds, and I think that an opposite of wailing might be a good description.

The definition for wail describes a high-pitched tone:

Wail

1 A prolonged high-pitched cry of pain, grief, or anger.

So what would be the word for the same description, except it's a bass (or just low-pitched) tone?

The purpose is preparing subtitles for a music video which has cello playing, so it would be something like:

[Cello playing]

(But I want to replace "playing" with the cello sound word, in verb form)

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  • i’m not sure how many of the descriptors you mean to invert. For instance, I’m pretty sure you still intend “prolonged.” So are you looking for a low-pitched cry of pain, grief, or anger, or for more pleasant connotations?
    – Andy Bonner
    Oct 19, 2021 at 19:43
  • Prolonged - yes, pleasant - not necessarily.
    – HeyJude
    Oct 19, 2021 at 19:59
  • I hear a cello as a melancholy groan.
    – Yosef Baskin
    Oct 19, 2021 at 20:28
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    Patrick O'Brian sometimes refers to a cello 'booming'.
    – Kate Bunting
    Oct 20, 2021 at 7:49
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    @AndyBonner - when I was 12, my secondary school was misguided enough to offer me free music lessons (my choice of instrument from a limited range) and I chose the cello. Old fashioned people still wrote 'cello because it's short for violoncello. Laboriously over a term I learned to hold the bow properly and play 'Baa Baa Black Sheep'. One weekend I took the school cello home on the bus. I set it up and began playing. Our family cat became very distressed and rather vocal. My father, grinning, said 'She can hear her mother'. I gave up soon after. I am not musically gifted.
    – Michael Harvey
    Oct 20, 2021 at 9:11

2 Answers 2

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A low-pitch corollary to wail is moan: prolonged, primarily associated with grief or pain but can also have a counter-intuitive positive connotation ("a moan of pleasure").

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I think that if you choose a verb other than playing, it should also reflect how and what the cello is playing. I would describe the cello in the clip more as droning or humming than low-pitched wailing. These verbs are also more neutral in connotation and perhaps a better fit for the mood being created.

drone (v.)

To emit a continuous steady deep humming or buzzing sound, esp. a continuous musical note of low pitch; to hum or buzz, like a bee or a bagpipe. OED

The wind in the leaves hums like the violins singing; the clouds scud across a quarter moon like the mellow drone of the cello. Elaine Alphin; Simon Says

While the simple duple meter is maintained in the drone of the cello , the Indian theme uses a combination of three quarter notes , or a half note and quarter note per ... Bernadette Kopp; The Twelve-tone Techniques of Adolph Weiss

The instrumentalists took their places, checked their scores, and emitted a drone of notes, moving first from the low-end registers of cello and bass to the violins and then to the winds, like a game of sonic tag, until all the instruments were on the same wavelength.
Eric Siblin; The Cello Suites

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  • droning is not considered a pleasant sound.
    – Lambie
    Oct 20, 2021 at 14:08
  • Not especially on the bagpipes, but the Bach Cello Suites have a fair amount and most folks find them pleasant enough. Drones are a characteristic of musettes. Note "mellow drone" in the example.
    – DjinTonic
    Oct 20, 2021 at 14:15
  • bagpipes are not a stringed instrument. humming and droning are not words I put use in movie descriptor: cello droning.....ugh.
    – Lambie
    Oct 20, 2021 at 14:19
  • If you find a drone on the cello unpleasant, fine, but others may disagree.
    – DjinTonic
    Oct 20, 2021 at 14:28

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