Devil's Thrill Sonata.. on Bass?

[Aka Nameless]

Hello all,

I'm looking or a challenge, and I love the Devil's Trill Sonata by Tartini. Its a piece for violin, and supposedly the toughest violin piece to play. I play guitar normally but just recently picked up bass and fell in love.

Anyway.. my question is, on bass, when playing notes rapidly on bass, in my opinion it tends to start sounding muddy. In turn you cant hear every note clearly. Do you think doing quick double stop thrills and such is possible to pull off on bass while keeping the notes clear and unmuddy? While keeping a sexy tone? Could cut the lows/ low-mids but it changes my sexy tone.. Maybe some compression with fast attack/release?

Will be playing it on a 6 string fretless btw.

Here is a video of the Devil's Trill Sonata being played on Violin. It is a 3 part piece/song, this is part 2 which is my fav part, and prolly the fastest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAj1x...elated&search=

What do you think? Possible?

Edit: Oops, spelt it Thrill in title, its Trill..

[lemur821]

It all depends on your tone, I think. On my bass (a four-string fretless), with my EQ, it would be very clear (my ability to play the trills notwithstanding). Maybe not so much on yours. Add some highs and mids and raise your pickups if you're muddy. Your playing, of course, makes a big difference too.

I see no reason it couldn't sound good on a bass, depending on the bass.

[All_¥our_Bass]

It would be very helpful to play this in a higher register, not only to help with the mud, but to sound more true to the original.

[Jazz Ad]

You're going to need a lot of sustain. Basses don't play continuous notes.
It's a mostly monophonic piece so conversion shouldn't be an issue.

[Bruce Lindfield]

Originally Posted by Aka Nameless

supposedly the toughest violin piece to play.. ..

It may have been this a few centuries ago - but many composers since then have written works with much greater difficulty and complexity.

As just one example I would cite Ligeti's Violin Concerto, which I saw performed by Tasmin Little and the Berlin Philharmonic at the Royal Albert Hall - in this, the Violinist is required to play in slightly different tunings - microtonally away from the ensemble, who also have altered tunings - and is fiendishly difficult in itself. At the end, the soloist is instructed to play an unaccompanied, improvised cadenza which sums up their feelings about the whole work and summarises what they felt about the performance, orchestra etc.

[fcleff]

Originally Posted by Bruce Lindfield

It may have been this a few centuries ago - but many composers since then have written works with much greater difficulty and complexity.

As just one example I would cite Ligeti's Violin Concerto, which I saw performed by Tasmin Little and the Berlin Philharmonic at the Royal Albert Hall - in this, the Violinist is required to play in slightly different tunings - microtonally away from the ensemble, who also have altered tunings - and is fiendishly difficult in itself. At the end, the soloist is instructed to play an unaccompanied, improvised cadenza which sums up their feelings about the whole work and summarises what they felt about the performance, orchestra etc.

+1 That Ligeti concerto is a bear!