Hi, this is my first post ever, very exciting!! Since I started college I picked up the DB and began taking lessons. I used to play cello when I was a kid but never properly learned how to read music. I still have my cello and am hoping to pick it back up again. I never got very far, only through Suzuki book 2. I am also very rusty (and still can’t really read the music haha). I love the DB but I think it could be fun to play cello because there is more solo repertoire. I’m wondering if anyone has experience with playing both the upright bass and the cello. It seems like it is not super common. Is it better to focus on one instrument at a time? How do you avoid getting mixed up with them being tuned in 4ths vs. 5ths? Do you think it’s worth trying to get good at both or will I just slow my progress. Any advice appreciated/ would love to hear your experience. Also curious to know what you love about each instrument, why you chose to play both, the benefits you feel you get from playing both, etc.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Double Bass Anyone play cello and bass?
- Thread starter hp_playsbass
- Start date
Welcome to the TalkBass forum.
I don't think it's all that uncommon. Probably more folks start on cello then add or switch to bass than the other way around, I'll guess, because cello is more popular among students, in schools, and the like.
FWIW, I play bass, cello, viola, and violin. I grew up a jazz guitar player, started college as a classical guitar performance major (before I switch to voice), and am now a church organist and a private teacher of all the above plus a few others.
What's better and how to not get confused is going to be based on you, the way you learn. I can tell you what I've read and I can tell you about my own experience.
I've read that "interleaving" of skills, skills in the general sense of the word, produces the best long-term results across multiple skills.
As a musician, I don't buy into that research at all. I find that I need one or two things to focus on and the rest have to be in maintenance mode. I still get confused if I go back and forth between cello and bass too much. Since you played cello, my recommendation would be to put that aside for a while and focus on playing bass.
Again in the FWIW department, I don't find going back and forth between viola and violin difficult - they're very similar. Bass and cello, for me at least, fall into that weird zone of being similar enough but different enough that I find myself using cello fingerings on the bass when I've been practicing cello, and the other way around, too.
I think bowing other members of the string family has helped my French bass bowing - a lot. Again, for me, the carryover falls into an OK place on the same-but-different continuum.
This probably doesn't apply to you, but for me, bass came before cello and learning the spacing on the double bass was challenging. OTOH, the scale length of a cello is very close to that of a guitar - it's just a bit bigger - and finding the note on the cello was and is a no-brainer for me.
I don't love that the proverbial "everybody and their brother" plays the cello and I like to play instruments that aren't popular, e.g., my first brass instrument was the French Horn, which has a reputation for being difficult to learn. But the real attraction of the bass for me is the register - as a singer I'm a tenor who has no low notes, and as a theory geek I love playing the lowest line in things, so playing the bass literally lets me go where I couldn't otherwise.
So enjoy playing the bass, put the cello aside for a bit but visit it every now and then at least until you've come up to speed as a bass player, whatever "up to speed" may mean to you. (For me, every time I've learned a new instrument, there's a distinction between being a non-player and being a bad player. I'm a bad bass player.)
-S-
I play in a community orchestra. One of my colleagues had health issues and now it's hard for her to play double bass. So she switched to playing double bass lines on cello - usually an octave higher.
It works for her.
It works for her.
Here's a thought for your colleague: if she can find a 1/10 size double bass, they are very close to the size of a 4/4 cello, often the case for them is a cello case. She could play that like a cello with appropriate strings and then use bass fingerings and have it sound at bass pitch. I know these things because I own a 1/10 size double bass that I have used for small and/or very young students.
-S-
That sort of thing is where I'd like to have something like Robert Spear's bassetto/chamber bass from his adding on to the whole New Violin Family experiment. Whether in fourths A to C or in fifths G to E.
Welcome!
I played cello from 4th grade through high school, and considered it to be my main instrument. Meanwhile, I started playing electric bass in the school jazz band, because our school system didn't have an orchestra program. In fact I learned bass by getting a second-hand Fender Mustang (still my main electric bass) and working through my Dotzauer exercises during summer vacation -- without a teacher for better or worse.
What I discovered was that switching between 4ths and 5ths became second nature. I could go back and forth, and even sight-read both. It's almost like I had two brains, and activated the one needed for each instrument.
When I went to college, I stuck with bass but not cello, and switched to upright. But during the pandemic, I got my cello back out to see if I could still play it. Of course I'm not as agile on it as I once was, but it's still not too bad to deal with 5ths tuning.
I think whatever level you're at on either instrument, among the many obstacles to playing these instruments, the different tunings are probably not all that big a deal.
I played cello from 4th grade through high school, and considered it to be my main instrument. Meanwhile, I started playing electric bass in the school jazz band, because our school system didn't have an orchestra program. In fact I learned bass by getting a second-hand Fender Mustang (still my main electric bass) and working through my Dotzauer exercises during summer vacation -- without a teacher for better or worse.
What I discovered was that switching between 4ths and 5ths became second nature. I could go back and forth, and even sight-read both. It's almost like I had two brains, and activated the one needed for each instrument.
When I went to college, I stuck with bass but not cello, and switched to upright. But during the pandemic, I got my cello back out to see if I could still play it. Of course I'm not as agile on it as I once was, but it's still not too bad to deal with 5ths tuning.
I think whatever level you're at on either instrument, among the many obstacles to playing these instruments, the different tunings are probably not all that big a deal.
