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Double Bass Going to Germany with Orchestra!

J

JamieParkinson

Apr 23, 2010
37
0
London, UK
#1
I've been playing in a local Youth Orchestra for little over a month now, but I've been invited to go with them on tour to Karlsruhe, Germany! It's super cheap for a week, too.

Anyhow, they've somehow managed to find me a hard case for my battered plywood rental bass, but I was wondering if anyone had any tips for travelling with a bass, and more generally just touring with an orchestra etc?

Thanks!
 
#4
JamieParkinson said:
It's nothing special, pretty beginner level with kids mostly younger than me, the Nottingham Musicschool Senior Concert Orchestra.

I believe we're playing with some equivalent German youth orchestras.
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My god, that's awesome.

I don't know of any orchestras around here that do that, even just traveling around the U.S.

Lucky!

My suggestion is get a good room-mate. I went to the Netherlands three years ago as a sports ambassador and the bane of my fun on that trip was my room-mate. I couldn't stand him and I would have had a much better time without him. I always had to wake him up in the morning for breakfast, he never cleaned his stuff up in the room, hogged the shower, etc. I found better friends in some really strange kids, though. I believe one of them was from Mississippi, another from Arkansas and one more from Missouri. Briar, Shelton and Josh. They were funny guys, and Shelton was completely and utterly ignorant to social norms, which made being around him a great time.

So yeah, get a good room-mate.
 
#8
JamieParkinson said:
Funny you should mention that about the low brass, I get on well with them :p I'll try to engineer getting a decent room mate if I can...

Is there anything I should bear in mind apart from using the hard case to make travelling with the bass easier/safer?
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Perhaps a wheel or a trolly would help getting it around on foot. I just lugged my bass home a half mile from the bus stop without a trolly or anything and it really makes my forearms hurt to do it. I'm sort of used to it, but that was a hike.

Low brass players are great. I think, universally, bassists and low brass mesh. It's probably something in our DNA, encoded in the "Homo Bassian" genome that lets us make mischief and fun with "Homo Lowbrassian".
 
#9
ThumpPlunkJunk said:
Perhaps a wheel or a trolly would help getting it around on foot. I just lugged my bass home a half mile from the bus stop without a trolly or anything and it really makes my forearms hurt to do it. I'm sort of used to it, but that was a hike.

Low brass players are great. I think, universally, bassists and low brass mesh. It's probably something in our DNA, encoded in the "Homo Bassian" genome that lets us make mischief and fun with "Homo Lowbrassian".
Click to expand...

TPJ where are you at? I'm in Philly and diffenatly not a fan of walking my URB around this city let alone get on the bus/sub system with it..
 
#11
Two of my students just went to Disney for a week with their school orchestra. I made sure to let them know that they were getting cushier travel gigs than I was.

Good luck and enjoy yourself. I'm off to TX for week and a half of gigs and in Aug hitting Sweden/Finland. Unfortunately I'm not in high school.

+1 for hanging with the low brass
 

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