Double Bass BachSonata #1 in G Minor pointers please!

[Aragorn35016]

I’ve been working on this piece for 3 months, religiously for at least an hour a day, taking lessons biweekly with this piece, feel like I’m getting know where and getting ready to hang it up. My garbled notes are the fingerings my teacher worked out with me, this particular section is killing me. I can either play those long slurs at 80 bpm with no volume/clarity, and going into the next section I’m so stiff I choke everything out, or I can speed up the bow but run out of stick. Can anyone ANYONE that has played this piece please post a short slowly showing me how it’s done before I raise the white flag.

Thanks

John

 

[Aragorn35016]

Sorry that last slur goes to an E natural in the next bar then goes into a different set of patterns all together.

 

[garrett2]

The first violin sonata? That is serious stuff. Is that from the Presto section? Way beyond me.

 

[Scott Lynch]

Hey. I'm not that familiar with this piece and honestly feel hardly qualified to answer here, but I feel your frustration. What arrangement are you working from?

Is the excerpt you posted from the Presto? I found a video of Ödön Racz playing this here, maybe you can see how he approaches this -

Why not try changing the bowings? Correct me if I'm mistaken but I think this may actually be acceptable in practice. If it were me I'd just do separate bows for each note for now. This can be changed later.

3 months seems like a long time to be hung up on a passage like this. Personally, I've learned the hard way that white knuckling through a challenging passage usually leads to more problems, like tension, or worse, a mental barrier. It's okay to take a break and come back to it again when refreshed. This is not giving up - it's strategizing.

 

[Aragorn35016]

Sorry that last slur goes to an E natural in the next bar then goes into a different set of patterns all together

Hey. I'm not that familiar with this piece and honestly feel hardly qualified to answer here, but I feel your frustration. What arrangement are you working from?

Is the excerpt you posted from the Presto? I found a video of Ödön Racz playing this here, maybe you can see how he approaches this -

Why not try changing the bowings? Correct me if I'm mistaken but I think this may actually be acceptable in practice. If it were me I'd just do separate bows for each note for now. This can be changed later.

3 months seems like a long time to be hung up on a passage like this. Personally, I've learned the hard way that white knuckling through a challenging passage usually leads to creating more problems, like tension, or worse, a mental barrier. It's okay to take a break and come back to it again when refreshed. This is not giving up - it's strategizing.

Sorry let clarify I’ve been working on the entire piece for 3 months, I’ve been working on these 4 bars every day for about 2 weeks . I can play none of it well, and definitely no where near the speed of the video posted above!

 

[Don Kasper]

I’ve been working on the entire piece for 3 months, I’ve been working on these 4 bars every day for about 2 weeks . I can play none of it well, and definitely no where near the speed of the video posted above!

The bowings are the least of your problems....Look for a new teacher.
Seriously - one of the most challenging aspects of "teaching" is identifying the NEXT thing that the student needs to address (successfully). (Ask me how I know.)
Why on earth does your teacher have you experiencing "failure & frustration", instead of working with you on a piece that is within or slightly ahead of where you are?
You sound frustrated, and you have every right to be.
Repeat after me : "You're FIRED".
IMFO, of course.
Good Luck.

 

[Mark_T]

The bowings are the least of your problems....Look for a new teacher.
Seriously - one of the most challenging aspects of "teaching" is identifying the NEXT thing that the student needs to address (successfully). (Ask me how I know.)
Why on earth does your teacher have you experiencing "failure & frustration", instead of working with you on a piece that is within or slightly ahead of where you are?
You sound frustrated, and you have every right to be.
Repeat after me : "You're FIRED".
IMFO, of course.
Good Luck.

I wasted a lot of time earlier on trying to be perfect on something (anything) and reserving anything challenging for once I was perfect on something easier. Recent teachers have helped push me into challenging myself more, and I think I've grown faster as a result. But, like @Scott Lynch said, I've also had to put things down for a little while and come back to them later (Bottesini elegy and concerto, Bach 1st suite prelude). I still haven't mastered those, but I learned a ton from working on them that I have applied subsequently and when I come back to them I find that things I struggled mightily with are not so challenging as I remember them.

So I'm with @Don Kasper as long as you feel that this music is way beyond you, but not if you feel like you're just a short struggle away from being able to make music with it. The most alarming thing about your original question to me is actually that you want an explainer from someone that's not your teacher, which suggests that whatever they're suggesting isn't helping you get it.

 

[ole Jason]

It's perfectly acceptable to change the bowings for Bach when needed IMO, doubly so when you're adapting a piece written for another instrument to the bass. I'm not sure I'd do those fingerings any differently but I can see why you find it challenging/awkward.

I haven't played that piece but have played similar pieces from the Bach catalog and my teachers always stressed phrasing over any written slurs. So if a line has 6 slurred notes maybe you do 3 and 3, at least until you're comfortable doing more or until you're happy with the phrasing. My teachers also put a lot of emphasis on giving weight to certain notes to bring out the implied polyphony, which can make those lines a little easier when the rhythm isn't strictly metronomic. Just some food for thought to bring to your teacher. Tough piece!

 

[Aragorn35016]

I must apologize if I implied in anyway that my teacher had any fault with my incapabilities, he’s been a fine teacher, and has a pretty extensive professional background. He mapped out all the fingerings in this piece for me, and we have in fact changed some of the slurs in other parts of the piece and talked dynamics. We have bi-weekly lessons, and he has a lot of students (college DB teacher). In saying all that I think it is impractical for him to know how to play every piece a student is working on, as I’m a visual learner I was just hoping to supplement my learning with someone with maybe some expertise/experience playing this particular piece, so I could maybe see it executed in a slow speed. I will say that this is probably 8 degrees higher than my skill level, but it is making some older stuff that I have problems with seem a little easier!

 

[garrett2]

I can’t play it for you because my bass is in the Meyer tuning, but I tried it & the fingering seems very sensible and natural. The last one looked wonky but it makes perfect sense. If I were you I would play each as an arpeggio and then try to connect them as sequences of descending arpeggios. The most difficult part is the 4 2 2 1 on D because it has to be fast. But it’s beyond my skill level!

 

[Ryan in PDX]

Hope you are doing well, @Aragorn35016 (all things considered). Of course I have never attempted that piece... But if the teacher in question is the one I'm thinking of, I'm guessing he would be shocked to hear you've put an hour a day for two weeks into one line! He and I were discussing mental fatigue not long ago, specifically in the context of playing classical pieces. Hopefully you're still working on other things as well...

I have had the best results by limiting my time on any one thing, setting a strict time limit (nowhere near an hour!) before moving on to something else. I can come back to that one thing later, but I don't try to steamroll through. That time management technique has made the single biggest improvement to my playing of anything in the last year.

 

[Aragorn35016]

Hope you are doing well, @Aragorn35016 (all things considered). Of course I have never attempted that piece... But if the teacher in question is the one I'm thinking of, I'm guessing he would be shocked to hear you've put an hour a day for two weeks into one line! He and I were discussing mental fatigue not long ago, specifically in the context of playing classical pieces. Hopefully you're still working on other things as well...

I have had the best results by limiting my time on any one thing, setting a strict time limit (nowhere near an hour!) before moving on to something else. I can come back to that one thing later, but I don't try to steamroll through. That time management technique has made the single biggest improvement to my playing of anything in the last year.

Hey Ryan, good to hear from you! It is indeed the teacher you are thinking of, I have much respect for him, and he’s very patient with me! My time management definitely needs work, I’m a raging perfectionist, and to he honest no I’ve pretty much dropped down to a 3 octave warm up scale and this piece every night. I did finally finish the Blue Spring Shuffle Solo from John Goldsby/DDB lesson video 2 weeks ago, but have tabled it trying to work through this slur madness!

 

[Ryan in PDX]

Hey Ryan, good to hear from you! It is indeed the teacher you are thinking of, I have much respect for him, and he’s very patient with me! My time management definitely needs work, I’m a raging perfectionist, and to he honest no I’ve pretty much dropped down to a 3 octave warm up scale and this piece every night. I did finally finish the Blue Spring Shuffle Solo from John Goldsby/DDB lesson video 2 weeks ago, but have tabled it trying to work through this slur madness!

I think you may be giving yourself tunnel vision... If I told you I ate 100 Mandarin oranges today, and nothing else, you might worry I'm missing some key nutrients! But I actually ate two, as I do most days, along with quite a few other foods.

I'm actually glad you brought this up, because I'm at a great point right now to shake up my practice habits a bit. I'm also finding the time limits very important for my piano class. I have to record a piece tomorrow, so that's my primary focus, but I'm splitting the parts up between hands individually, and stopping to work other tunes, scales, etc., just to keep my brain from glazing over. Stepping away from the keyboard to post on talk bass is also helping, believe it or not...

 

[jheise]

Caveat: I am an amateur - and will probably never play a piece like this in public. So I will probably get torn apart by the pros here ;-)

- slow down you practice, your metronome is probably too fast, move the bow towards the bridge so it can move slower
- as others have said already: re-bow. Find a bowing that works for you musically. The only real authority to judge your interpretation (if he was ever into something like this) is not coming to your gig to listen. I'm sure he's too busy writing for heavenly choirs
- try different fingerings, too. I would never jump all 4 strings with the same finger, move the bow over and change direction. Can't make that work.
- why not use open strings once in a while. If it's a solo piece, who cares if you incorporate this musically?

I did not like the fingerings at all and had some fun this morning doing:

G D G D A G D A D A D A G D G
0 4 4 0 1 0 4 1 4 2 1 2 1 3 3 4 0 4 1 2 4 2 0 4

 

[AGCurry]

I wasted a lot of time earlier on trying to be perfect on something (anything) and reserving anything challenging for once I was perfect on something easier. Recent teachers have helped push me into challenging myself more, and I think I've grown faster as a result. ... I still haven't mastered those, but I learned a ton from working on them that I have applied subsequently and when I come back to them I find that things I struggled mightily with are not so challenging as I remember them.

Excellent observation. My teacher gives me assignments for each monthly lesson. I work on them diligently and master none of them. I demonstrate, and she usually says "That's pretty good." Then, I never play them again; I move on to the next assignments. Chasing perfection is a fool's errand unless you are preparing for a solo performance or audition.

 

[Mark_T]

Excellent observation. My teacher gives me assignments for each monthly lesson. I work on them diligently and master none of them. I demonstrate, and she usually says "That's pretty good." Then, I never play them again; I move on to the next assignments. Chasing perfection is a fool's errand unless you are preparing for a solo performance or audition.

In my case, as someone who started but did not complete a degree in music, my task lately has been to try and get 2 or 3 pieces ready for a mini-recital, to have the experience of finishing a project. Given the 60-90 minutes I get to practice each day, it's been a long, slow task but I'm getting close. I like the music I'm working on, but I'm also eager to start something new.

 

[AndersLasson]

Caveat: I am an amateur - and will probably never play a piece like this in public. So I will probably get torn apart by the pros here ;-)

- slow down you practice, your metronome is probably too fast, move the bow towards the bridge so it can move slower
- as others have said already: re-bow. Find a bowing that works for you musically. The only real authority to judge your interpretation (if he was ever into something like this) is not coming to your gig to listen. I'm sure he's too busy writing for heavenly choirs
- try different fingerings, too. I would never jump all 4 strings with the same finger, move the bow over and change direction. Can't make that work.
- why not use open strings once in a while. If it's a solo piece, who cares if you incorporate this musically?

I did not like the fingerings at all and had some fun this morning doing:

G D G D A G D A D A D A G D G
0 4 4 0 1 0 4 1 4 2 1 2 1 3 3 4 0 4 1 2 4 2 0 4

I agree.
Bach is baroque and at least in Europe is often played with open strings and only occasional vibrato.

That said: I am probably not even worthy of tying your shoelaces.

 

[the_Ryan]

I've been working on this piece for 3 months, religiously for at least an hour a day, taking lessons biweekly with this piece, feel like I'm getting know where and getting ready to hang it up. My garbled notes are the fingerings my teacher worked out with me, this particular section is killing me. I can either play those long slurs at 80 bpm with no volume/clarity, and going into the next section I'm so stiff I choke everything out, or I can speed up the bow but run out of stick. Can anyone ANYONE that has played this piece please post a short slowly showing me how it's done before I raise the white flag.

Thanks

John

Don’t be afraid to use open strings, avoid fingerings that cause you to hop across more than one string with the same finger so that you can keep notes ringing as you make string crossings, and pay attention to when you cross strings to see if you’re gaining or losing bow: going high to low on a down bow or low to high on an up bow will cause you to gain bow by going to a part of the bow that you used for the first note, and going low to high on a down bow or high to low on an up bow will cause you to lose bow on the second note because you’re going to a part of the bow that hasn’t been used yet and you skip over part of the hair.

I can’t demonstrate or write down my probable fingering at the moment, but it does have one flaw where you might end up with double or triple shifts, but often times at least one of those shifts will occur after/during an open string and/or at the bow change, so slides won’t necessarily be audible or present in those moments.

Open strings are very okay to use in Bach and other baroque music: even though it’s not the instrument this was originally written for, one very common sound for bowed strings in that period was the viola da gamba, where the frets cause fingered notes to sound almost like open strings. Violin, cello, viol, etc. solo pieces from this time period were also written in a way to favor the use of open strings and mitigate the need for shifting (especially not under slurs), so the playing style is much more across the string rather than staying on one string. Obviously we don’t want open strings to stick out compared to closed notes and on bass it’s almost impossible to eliminate shifts under slurs (since most of our stuff sounds best on the D and G strings), but it’s still a sound concept that is good to keep in mind as we arrange these pieces for our instrument.