Double Bass practicing fast, challenging passages to perfection

[ekspain]

Regarding playing things well under pressure...

Record yourself! Constantly! Listen to your playing and be objective. Play for other people, especially for people who don't play the bass. I've been getting amazing advice from a flute player recently. Cellists and violin players are great too. Remember that audition committees are made up of more than just bassists.

Also slightly more practical- Make sure you can play things faster than you need to.

+1 for practicing with the amount of hair you'll need at tempo. For fast articulate passages this will involve a ridiculously small amount of hair at slow tempos. Mr. Muroki recently had some commentary on this, as well as using a light touch on a thread about 35.

Good Advice!

 

[tappingtrance]

After you have broken it down much like all the above posts suggest, looking at your left hand then bowing, which strings, where are the crossings, are their better shifts available, playing it slow adding note by note - all great stuff - then do what George Vance told me (and others) play it as if you don't care - it is the best silver bullet anyone has ever told me and you get immediately relaxed and are able to execute the passage at whatever your most technical proficiency is at the time - great stuff - RIP George Vance.

 

[SVT4001]

RIP George Vance.

Apologies to the OP for going a little OT.

When I was in the scouts we had a saying: "Leave it better than you found it". If ever there was a man who you could say lived by that creed, it was George Vance.

Joe

 

[DanAleks]

If it's an extremely difficult passage, here's what I was taught:

All of this should be played slowly to get the fingering down.
This can be done in one day, one week... whatever you need to do.

Play it as all quarter notes.
Then as all eighth notes.
Then as dotted eighth & sixteenths.
Then reverse that.
Then as triplets.

Then just play it. Your hands should own it.