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Double Bass Russian Christmas Music

QweziRider

QweziRider

Sep 15, 2008
2,503
4,659
Nevada, U.S.
www.brucethomsenmusic.com
#1
Venturing from the electric side to over here in DB land. Having my "symphonic" debut this weekend with the Reno Wind Symphony (wife is an oboe and English horn player with them) on this piece. I have not "had" to read since 1984 (tuba), nearly all my livelihood has been playing by ear or with charts on electric bass, and I only have an Eminence EUB, not a real double bass. Lord o' lord, am I way out of my element, but this is going to be a blast. Nothing like a little stretching (or maiming of limbs in my case) to grow.
 
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#2
I bet you'll love it.

I'd suggest making sure your Eminence is setup such that you won't ruin your hands and fingers. And work on building your right and left hand strength and especially your DB calluses, that is if they would be any different from your EB calluses. And don't leave your "playing by ear" at home, you may need it to keep up with your section leader.

I suppose you're using an amp for this performance???
 
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#5
QweziRider said:
Venturing from the electric side to over here in DB land. Having my "symphonic" debut this weekend with the Reno Wind Symphony (wife is an oboe and English horn player with them) on this piece. I have not "had" to read since 1984 (tuba), nearly all my livelihood has been playing by ear or with charts on electric bass, and I only have an Eminence EUB, not a real double bass. Lord o' lord, am I way out of my element, but this is going to be a blast. Nothing like a little stretching (or maiming of limbs in my case) to grow.
Click to expand...

We had Harry Begian as a guest conduct on tour with my first military band assignment. He wore me out on Russian Christmas music, specifically the walking part. It's not so much the part is all that hard if you can read notes, but he conducted it extremely rubato, so I had to watch his stick like a hawk.

Unfortunately I found the part challenging to memorize. If I remember correctly it's written in 6/4 but the grouping of the eight notes seems to change with the phrasing. As I am used to walking bass lines in four, the phrasing goes against my instincts a bit. Some of it sounds like it is in four, and then I get thrown when it doesn't. As I said, much easier if I can follow the notes in the part.

It was one of my favorite pieces and I played it many times throughout my career...even played it in Russia ;).
 
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#6
AKA - "I'm Dreaming of a Red Christmas"?
Srsly - Check out the poor, solitary Double Bassist being (sonically) buried alive by the massive Wind Ensemble and Singing Comrades.
I had to do a half-semester rotation in Wind Ensemble in college - what a colossal drag of an experience. What genius came up with the idea of adding ONE (low) STRING PLAYER to this Petrified Marching Band?
Send me to the Gulag, instead. Bah Humbug!
Happy Holidays!

 
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#7
Don Kasper said:
AKA - "I'm Dreaming of a Red Christmas"?
Srsly - Check out the poor, solitary Double Bassist being (sonically) buried alive by the massive Wind Ensemble and Singing Comrades.
I had to do a half-semester rotation in Wind Ensemble in college - what a colossal drag of an experience. What genius came up with the idea of adding ONE (low) STRING PLAYER to this Petrified Marching Band?
Send me to the Gulag, instead. Bah Humbug!
Happy Holidays!
Click to expand...


The string bass part was cued in the tuba parts in the versions I have played. About mid way through my first band assignment, my commander asked me to start playing with an amp in concert band. I usually set the volume to blend with the low brass for concert band literature, and bumped it up when we played jazz or other commercial music.

Actually I had just started using the amp for classical playing when Harry Begian was our guest conductor. He was old school and insisted on it being a string bass solo. I would have preferred the tubas to cover it on that tour, as I wasn't ready to carry the load.
 
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#9
Don Hergert said:
And don't leave your "playing by ear" at home, you may need it to keep up with your section leader.

I suppose you're using an amp for this performance???
Click to expand...
I'm it on string basses. No section leader. The only string in the group for this one. The director wanted a different sound than tubas in the middle "walking" section of the piece, so he leaned on my wife to lean on me for several weeks.

And yep, using the amp. Learning how to keep it at a level where dynamics are in check. Or, crank it if the French horn section in front of me gives me guff.
 
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#11
Wasnex said:
We had Harry Begian as a guest conduct on tour with my first military band assignment. He wore me out on Russian Christmas music, specifically the walking part. It's not so much the part is all that hard if you can read notes, but he conducted it extremely rubato, so I had to watch his stick like a hawk.

Unfortunately I found the part challenging to memorize. If I remember correctly it's written in 6/4 but the grouping of the eight notes seems to change with the phrasing. As I am used to walking bass lines in four, the phrasing goes against my instincts a bit. Some of it sounds like it is in four, and then I get thrown when it doesn't. As I said, much easier if I can follow the notes in the part.

It was one of my favorite pieces and I played it many times throughout my career...even played it in Russia ;).
Click to expand...
You're right about that section not being all that difficult. But since I'm re-learning to read while getting this ready for the weekend, I found the quickest way for me was to memorize the section. Which, in turn, has helped me regain some reading skills in the rest of the piece.

And you're dead on about the grouping seeming to change with phrasing. Several places I need to force myself to pay attention, count, and not rely on what I think I'm hearing. Overall, I very frustrating exercise last week, but making sense and actually becoming enjoyable this week.
 
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#17
Russian Christmas Music is a blast. I played it at university years ago. I played unamped as the only DB, but I could get away with it on that bass. The director actually didn’t have me next to the tubas as usual, but all exposed next to the clarinets. That was interesting. To me, the solo feels a bit different from a walking bassline. I treated it more like something in between an orchestral 1/4 note pizzicato section, a walking bassline, and a melody. I didn’t go ham with the right hand, and with that bass stationed out away from the low brass, I didn’t need to.
 
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#19
SiliconElle said:
Russian Christmas Music is a blast. I played it at university years ago. I played unamped as the only DB, but I could get away with it on that bass. The director actually didn’t have me next to the tubas as usual, but all exposed next to the clarinets. That was interesting. To me, the solo feels a bit different from a walking bassline. I treated it more like something in between an orchestral 1/4 note pizzicato section, a walking bassline, and a melody. I didn’t go ham with the right hand, and with that bass stationed out away from the low brass, I didn’t need to.
Click to expand...

I agree; It should definitely be approached like a solo with attention to phrasing, dynamics, and tempo variation. The bass line should breath with what is going on in the rest of the ensemble.

But the subconscious is not shy about trying to make sense of what you are doing and does encroach upon our conscious processes, especially when our conscious processes are spread a bit thin.

The line itself is fairly simple and easy to play if you just read the notes and play without interpretation. I would not say performing the line artfully when it is conducted expressively is simple though. There is an immense amount of very subtle musical nuance that can be packed into the line beyond just playing the notes.

When your conscious mind is at its limit trying to process all of the musical nuance, your subconscious can lead you astray by trying to impose the rules it normally goes by. When Mr Begian pushed me beyond my abilities, I found the line was deceptively difficult because my subconscious is used to walking in four. I am not saying it will pose a problem for anyone else. But the experience left me stigmatized for years. I had never had serious problems with the piece before, but I struggled to play for years after that tour.
 
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#20
I’m sorry you had such a bad experience. My brain occasionally plays metric tricks on me as well. Things like listening to something that’s in three and feeling it in four. It has occasionally happened during things like rhythmic dictation tests and the like.

Personally, my biggest problem when playing Russian Christmas Music was the soft exposed arco sections after the solo. Accompanying the cor anglais while my adrenaline was crashing after the bass solo proved to be difficult for me. I wound up getting a bit of shaky bow there. You can year it on the recording, and it’s embarrassing. However I think the good outweighed the bad, and my peers seemed to agree.
 
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