Double Bass feasibility of bass line

[koa39]

Greetings everyone,

I am a composer and not a bassist. I have written a work in the "classical" vein for alto sax, flute, bass and piano. It's a work that has some jazz undercurrents, though it is not a jazz piece. There is a section that includes very fast solos and duets between instruments including two solos for the bass. The tempo is a dotted quarter note equals 96. I would like the bass to pizz all the notes, similar to a jazz technique. I've attached a jpeg of the parts I am talking about.

My question is whether or not this is possible at this tempo. Also, to be able to play this fast do I need to write certain types of patterns for the bass? If so, what kinds of patterns are these? Any help or direction would be grateful. Thanks!

Kevin

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[User4843936]

Hi Kevin,

After having a quick go I would have to say I would not be able to play this passage at the required tempo. I think if you to present it to someone who does a lot of pizz it would still be a very significant challenge, and this sort of thing is certainly not going to work if the player has to have a bow in their hand for previous/upcoming passages and doesn't have time to put it down.

I would suggest two potential problems with the actual notes themselves - first, the wide interval leaps as seen in the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th bars. With intervals on the bass, anything larger than a fifth where the lowest note is not an open string requires either a shift or a string crossing (across two strings for the second third and fourth notes in the 3rd bar). The second is the spread in the 6th bar. I say this because I would imagine playing this passage would require the right hand to be 'anchored' to the fingerboard by means of the thumb, which would probably be the digit of choice for executing a bass-to-treble spread.

I would advise that writing this kind of passagework does really need a working knowledge of the instrument for it to be truly effective, or consultation with someone who does. Which is why it's a nice to see it posted here before being put on a stand in front of someone! What I've said here is only what I think, but I do play professionally. 99.99% of what I do is with the bow, but thought you might find it useful anyway. But to sum up I would say at the tempo specified, I would think this passage to be difficult to impossible, certainly for anyone who doesn't specialise in virtuoso pizz technique.

Hope that's of some use,

Adam

 

[notabene]

I don't understand the metronome marking. Doesn't a dotted quarter note represent 3 eighths? Were I you, I would give the mm in eighth notes.

Steven

 

[User4843936]

At that tempo the music would most likely be conducted in 3+2 or the other way round, so it's useful to know how fast the beats (or some of them) are going to be when you're in situ...

 

[Ed Fuqua]

No, I agree a more useful mm marking would be a quarter note or 64BPM. This way you get a click on the downbeat of every other bar.

 

[User4843936]

I agree that it's not useful for practise purposes (Ed's suggestion is, in that regard, actually) but this is convention for markings for compound time signatures when you're going to be playing with a conductor. Metronome marks relate to what you're going to see, which in this case would predominantly 3+2 according to the way the music is beamed. I think conducting fees tend to get quite high if they have to wave at 288bpm

 

[koa39]

Adam,

Thanks for the info. I'll go over it and make the changes I need to make it work. I'll also find a bassist who I can consult with after I do that.

Is it best to find places where the left hand can stay in one position while the right hand can pull across two or three strings in one sweeping motion from left to right?

`I'll keep the suggestions for the metronome marking under advisement.

Thanks!

Kevin

 

[koa39]

Hello again,

Thanks for the input. I have made some revisions and posted the new version below. I still plan on taking this to a bass player to play through it, but thought I would get additional comments here first, to see if the changes I made were in the right direction.

With the tricky jumps I tried to include open strings to facilitate them, and was actually able to get larger leaps that way. I was careful to include patterns that allows the right hand pluck over two or three strings without moving the left hand. I included some slur markings to indicate hammer-on or off. And lastly, the tempo was crazy fast so I changed it to 88. Let me know if these changes make sense. I appreciate the help.

Kevin

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