Double Bass Firebird Suite Intro Question

[LBbassment]

Hey y'all, just wanted to pop in with a quick question about some school audition material I just got.
Part of what they want is this:

Now that would all be fine and dandy if I had a C-extension, but alas, I don't. How would you recommend going about playing it? Should I just stick with octave jumps where necessary or just drop the E to a D and play like that? Forgive my ignorance on the subject, I'm mostly a jazz guy so this doesn't come up very often.

 

[David Potts]

I am leaning towards tuning the E to D because it will demonstrate confidence in your LH shifting technique and intonation to produce notes at pitch, also tuning down/up quickly. Perhaps also consider how much sustain with your RH pizz to emulate the smooth character of the passage in "real life" - the orchestra (observe on Youtube). Will this approach work well on your bass with its current set-up?

If you are still worried you could also try contacting the school to see which version they would prefer. Just my opinion.

 

[s van order]

One season my orchestra performed this one, I tuned EADG so I dropped to D to start and oh so quietly tuned up the E after that section of the part.

 

[eerbrev]

Last time I saw someone do it without an extension they just played the Eb and D up. It fits under the hand just fine and if you're in a section someone else likely has the note.

Don't shag around with detuning and retuning, especially if it's on an audition. Focus on the musical shape instead. it's more important. If you must detune, tune your bass to DADG and keep it that way for the whole audition instead of futzing about with a retune during an audition. One of my teachers just stayed in this tuning all the time!

 

[neilG]

I wouldn't be bothered by somebody re-tuning during an audition, as long as it's quick and quiet. I'd rather hear that than notes played up an octave.

 

[eerbrev]

I'll defer to you on that, but I have to say my preference is for someone to have a tuning and stick to it - meaning, do it all in DADG, or don't detune. This is less of an issue with gut strings, but with steel strings in particular changing the tuning causes the other strings to go sharp because of the change of tension on the top.

 

[neilG]

It's a reasonable assumption, in an audition, if someone re-tunes, they'll tune the whole instrument.

 

[eerbrev]

It's a reasonable assumption, in an audition, if someone re-tunes, they'll tune the whole instrument.

Ok, but to me, that's no longer possible as a "quick and quiet" operation. That's getting out the tuner and spending a minute to do it.