Double Bass Q for anyone using Vance's vol 2 Progr Rep

[Andy Mopley]

Hi all

do you find the exercises arranged in progressive order of technical difficulty, eg track 1 is the easiest? I am not quite finding that. For example, Rigadoun (piece 9 track 8) is in my opinion harder to play than say Minuet in D, track 15...

Or is it technical AND interpretation that get harder?

Thanks for reading!

 

[coldtrain]

My feeling is that the "progressive" nature of the material is more about building the shifts/pivots and increasingly closer intervals than necessarily the difficulty of each piece. Some folks might find the opposite true of the Rigaudon/Minuet comparison.

Probably better to not even be too concerned with the perceived difficulty of each piece but just take each one in stride as its own lesson and try to play it as musically as possible. After all, whether you're playing "Go Tell Aunt Rhody" or the Dragonetti Concerto, you should still be working on playing "musically", right?

Things really heat up towards the end of Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 has a number of wonderful pieces that really start to tie everything together. You're in for a fun ride!

 

[Andy Mopley]

Thanks coldtrain - I guess I tend to go through the book in terms of "complete exercise 1 BEFORE you go to exercise 2" but I see your point about the musicality aspect though..

 

[coldtrain]

I looked at both tunes last night and I think the minuet is later because of the string crossing, which Vance might have deemed a bit more challenging than the TP work and slurs in Rigaudon. Just guessing though.

 

[Andy Mopley]

Uhm..don't know...the shift to thumb position is pretty quick and challenging compared to string crossing, coldtrain..but we are all different and that's what makes the world go round!

Thanks for looking into this