Hi! I'm a double bassist and teacher, wondered if there were any other bassists (or bass lovers) around.....

I am a bass player. It would be stretching a point to describe me as a bass lover. I love music, and bass is what gets me into the best company to play it. However, I play some of the best music on piano (chamber music without bass), horn (those lovely wind works by Mozart, of which only the Bb Gran Partita, K361, has a bass in it, the early two by Strauss and Janacek's Mladi), recorder or mute cornet (mostly for Renaissance polychoral music).

I enjoy listening to bass pieces, especially the Koussevitsky Concerto and Bottesini's Elegie in D, which my very good friend, a double bassist, is playing. He's a high scorer for grade 7 double bass and I accompanied him playing Rach's Vocalise at the High Scorers' Concert. He enjoys playing the bass very much but always complains about the hassle of transporting it.

I shall be accompanying him for his grade 8 soon. He's playing Britten's Variation H from Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Keyper's Rondo from Romance and Rondo, and Ridout's Concerto for bass. Somehow it makes me more interested in the bass.

Yes, I have been known to curse having to carry mine about..... much better now I've moved out of London and it's easier to drive everywhere! I have developed quite a talent for conjuring parking spaces within feet of the entrance of any given performance venue!!

The Kouss and Bottesini are both wonderful pieces, I too encountered them first at school but they are still in my repertoire today- I would have put them way harder than grade 8 though!! I don't know the Keyper or the Ridout well at all, but I remember doing the Britten for my exam and the hours spent with my teacher trying to get the rhythm correct in the middle section. It took me ages to work it out! All the best to your friend for their exam.

At the moment I am doing a lot of orchestral playing, as that's what I enjoy the best and hope to make my career doing. When I teach I use orchestral excerpts instead of studies!! The parts are amazing sometimes, I especially love the way the bass underpins the whole structure of some works. However, I have just started learning the Bottesini Passione Amorosa to play with a friend next term (it's HARD), and I have hijacked another friend's string quartet and made them play the Dvorak G major Quintet with them!

I have a reputation for insanely high-achieving insanity amongst my pupils- I teach so many cellists and violinists that the basses know they are special At the end of last term I set up a quartet with my three most advanced pupils and we ended up doing a little tour of the music service end of term concerts. Four double basses doing Star Wars and the Pink Panther music brought the house down, and by popular demand I am now arranging Christmas Carols for groups of four....or even bigger.....

I really do love the bass, even though I know it's very sad. I wouldn't play anything else!!

I know of several violinists who've swapped to double bass and made a fortune from all the extra work it's given them.

I've been very tempted myself over the last two years, but the bass is a bulky instrument to lug around (especially up and down staris) when you're only 5 feet tall.

I know of several violinists who've swapped to double bass and made a fortune from all the extra work it's given them.

It's amazing isn't it? I run myself ragged doing auditions and pimping myself out to fixers, making such slow progress because there are too many people better than me out there. Then I talk to violinists who are working just as hard (if not more so) and getting *nowhere*. I sigh every time I look on musicalchairs to see a string of fiddle jobs and nothing for bass, but my friend who's actually applying for them doesn't even get an audition!

I've been very tempted myself over the last two years, but the bass is a bulky instrument to lug around (especially up and down staris) when you're only 5 feet tall.
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Yes I can see how that would put you off! When I was 5 feet tall I had my Mum to do it for me..... It's perfectly possible, however- in fact one of the best players I knew at college was the same height. The concept of "full size" doesn't apply to the bass in the same way as the other strings. You just pick an instrument you like, that's a size you can handle easily (and therefore play in tune!!) and away you go! I am almost 6 feet tall and BIG, but I can't even lift the instrument my childhood teacher plays. Nor the beast with a 42 inch stop that my luthier tried to lend me while my own cute little "sports bass" (fits in a 3/4 case) was in for a repair!

My daughter's violin teacher c.1975 (ex-Halle) used to quote an aphorism from his professional playing days: "If you can hold a bass you can make a living; if you can play the bass you can make a fortune." Unfortunately for bass players, but fortunately for listeners, those days are long past.

Would it be very hard to learn double bass and violin at the same time? My sister is about G2 violin standard and is possibly considering the bass as a 3rd instrument as there are no basses in our school at the moment...

It should be possible! The techniques are obviously very different, which should help reduce any confusion between the two instruments. I play the violin a little too- only been learning for a few months but no problem so far. I also know people who have got to grade 8 in both!

The biggest problem I can think of is that once orchestras find out she can play the double bass as well, they will want her to play that instead of the fiddle! I had the same problem at school- joined the junior orchestra on cello and every week was packed off to help the struggling year 7 playing bass But on the plus side, she will get a lot more orchestral experience, playing more interesting music at a higher level, sooner on the bass than pretty much any other instrument.

Good luck! PM me if you need any more advice

To get even more breadth of experience, combine double bass with viola. Then you can combine with a string quartet in two capacities: on bass to play Dvorak; on viola to play Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Mendelssohn and, above all, Mozart, the first master of the string quintet.

As a professional violinist I've been playing the instrument for more years than I care to remember. By now, no string instrument would confuse me or leave my violin playing in tatters.

I have already spent a little time learning the bass, nothing serious, but enough to find my way around grade 1 and 2 pieces with competence, and good intonation!. I don't have an instrument at the moment, although know of a small lat 19th century instrument that is available.

Finding the time to practice properly would be the toughest part.

[quote][quote name='AmandaL' date='Aug 19 2008, 01:23 PM' post='734767']
[quote name='musicfreak' post='734323' date='Aug 17 2008, 10:19 PM']Would it be very hard to learn double bass and violin at the same time?[/quote]As a professional violinist I've been playing the instrument for more years than I care to remember. By now, no string instrument would confuse me or leave my violin playing in tatters.

I have already spent a little time learning the bass, nothing serious, but enough to find my way around grade 1 and 2 pieces with competence, and good intonation!. I don't have an instrument at the moment, although know of a small lat 19th century instrument that is available.

Finding the time to practice properly would be the toughest part.
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Thanks, I'll pass it on . The trouble is, she has been sort of put down by her former primary school which has gone very snooty and upper class and has really little confidence because another very pushy child who rules over her won the music prize, and this child is no better than my sister on any instruments, my sister will be leading the junior orchestra in September and is working to grade 3 on piano and violin and had g1 theory distinction. This child with a handful of others got several prizes and she got none . So we are trying to give her a bit of a boost when she goes up to high school. It looks like it might be a sax now though, to solve the group playing problem...

But I'll reiterate, I've been playing the violin for the last 24 years, 13 of those professionally and I didn't start the double bass until about two years ago.

Your sister is only at Grade 2. I think she needs to concentrate on her violin for a while longer and establish a firm and correct technique in that, before engaging herself with an additional string instrument.

I can play one-octave G major scale on the double bass! (Next stop, world class soloist?)

Hi all,
I have been harbouring lust for the double bass for some time now and am soon to hire one to start learning. I will be self teaching and was wondering if anyone can recommend any dvds that teach double bass. I can read music and play the piano reasonably competently (grade 8 many moons ago). I've seen the Todd Phillips dvds on musicroom which look OK but was wondering if anyone has used them?

lets not forget Bartok and Ligeti..

What works did you have in mind?