Double Bass Fast Runs - Mendelssohn Hebrides

[CaseyVancouver]

I should add that with ‘Hebrides’ I found it useful, once I started to get up to speed, to record myself and count while listening back. Some phrases stood out and I could hear problem areas better than while going through it. A recording, like the metronome, does not lie. It is what others hear when you play.

The Elgar Variations certainly are a musical and interesting challenge. Thanks David for your pointers for ‘Troyte’. I found it useful to mark a line at each 4 bar section. These 4 bar sections also have a dynamic notation change that help you hear where everybody is. At ‘presto’ it is easy to get a half bar out, with the bass notes wrong but sort of sounding ok.

From wiki:
‘Troyte’ is based on Arthur Troyte Griffith, a Malvern architect and one of Elgar's firmest friends. The variation, with a time signature of 1, good-naturedly mimics his enthusiastic incompetence on the piano. It may also refer to an occasion when Griffith and Elgar were out walking and got caught in a thunderstorm.

 

[CaseyVancouver]

I’m playing the Hebrides closer to the fingerboard now.

I’ve found that playing just above the bridge was the route to get the notes in at tempo, then a light bow touch at speed, higher up the string where the sound is better, becomes possible later. Took a bit of time to get to this point.

One analogy is to think of the mind as the left fingering hand and the speaking voice the right bow hand. So we ‘think before speaking’ not the other way around. When I got the bow to play at tempo it was the bow speaking first and in control over the left hand. So now I’m working on leading the runs with the left fingering hand and the bow speaking in response. I first heard this analogy from a concert cellist.

I can see this process can be applied to other fast music we get called to play.