What size cello does my child need?

Cellos run from 1/8 up to full size, sized by height, arm reach, and torso length together, and the honest answer is that no chart can do it: bring your child to their teacher, or to a shop with a cellist behind the counter, and sizing takes two minutes.

The fraction chart says cellos run 1/8 to 4/4. The fraction chart is hiding something: there are at least ten different sizes of cello that all get called “full size” or close to it. True 4/4, 7/8, big 3/4, small 3/4, and a Suzuki 3/4 built like a standard half. Two cellos wearing the same label can be very different instruments under a child’s arms.

And cello sizing involves the whole body, not just the arms. Leg length, torso length, and reach all matter, and children are built in every combination: long torso and short legs, the reverse, long arms on a small frame. A chart cannot see any of that.

Which is why our answer is: get sized by a cellist. Our founder is one. He trained at Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard, and Yale, recorded six albums, and has spent a career on some of the finest cellos in the world. He still sizes students at the counter. You will not find that at many rental counters anywhere, and it is precisely the kind of thing a good shop is for.

The other half of the answer is stock. We carry the in-between sizes most shops skip: 1/16 and 1/10 for the smallest beginners, and 7/8 for the player caught between 3/4 and full. Good advice only helps if the right size is actually on the shelf, so we stock them.