zbd1960

The German bow hold seems to have come from the viola da gamba. Given that the double bass is a descendent of the violone - the double bass viol - (mostly, some are bass violins) this makes sense. What is slightly odd, is that certainly after about 1600, the viol bow hold was not on the end, which it had been in Renaissance era but along the stick. The two commonest bow holds for viol being those advocated by Christopher Simpson in England or by Forqueray in France. Both of these are underhand grips the main difference being that Forqueray advocates rotating the wrist to add more tension to the hair... both grips do have the middle finger on the hair. As ever, the problem with this is there is little documented about what went on then. We rely on the fact that Simpson and Forqueray for wrote tutor books so we have what they wrote, what we don't know is how representative of practice these writings are.

I have very deliberately stayed away from trying more expensive cello bows... My main bow is a conventional Dörfler pernambuco bow, which cost £450 ten years ago when I started playing...

If true, it's the most egregious example of the most utterly pointless pretentious tripe. You don't need a nuclear fallout zone to find out what a neglected musical instrument sounds like.

I'm not a bass player, but... 'German' bow hold is different and is similar to a Renaissance viol bow hold. The frog is much wider and you hold it at the end with fingers through the frog. I'm assuming that 'French' is what I would call 'standard' (for cello) bow hold held overhand with fingers coming down the side of the frog. I'd take advice from a teacher if unsure which to opt for.

The different string instruments have bows with different characteristics. A double bass bow is shorter, heavier and wider at the frog than a cello bow. And a cello is shorter, heavier... than a violin bow etc. You don't need to pay a fortune for bows, but avoid fibreglass ones and the really cheap £30 ones. Assuming prices are 'similar' to cello bows, a £100 basic carbon fibre one would be OK. Your local string instrument shop / luthier might have some good options (I have a nice german back-up bow which was £70 from local luthier).

Fortunately, no. We were playing this, but with 4 not 12

The cognitive dissonance where they don't "get it" is perplexing

Worst I've had is low league compared to some here... but my orchestra had been asked to provide a group to provide music in a cafe as part of a charity weekend event. So 4 of us provided a quartet (4 cellos in this case). So, we're sat their playing a Piazolla tango, which requires a lot of concentration on reading the music and playing... and people start talking to us... I've just about got enough brain power to play the Piazolla... there's none left for anything else! btw playing unamplified strings in a cafe setting is hard going

Most of my experience is with much bigger groups (orchestras etc) where a big part of the purpose of the rehearsal is to understand how your part fits in with the other parts

That's painful.... the crows often come in flocks... Definitely check the Sale of Goods Act as good have to be of 'merchantable quality' so something like a cooker is expected to last for years without issue. That means manufacturers can't just hide behind 'warranty expired'.

I know I come to this from a different angle as my background is classical... I'm probably weird, but I enjoy theory and that's not just about various flavours of 7th chords, but things like writing four part SATB harmony, realising a figured bass, score analysis... Do you need to be able to identify a Neapolitan 6th chord? No, you don't, but theory and understanding how/why harmony works is useful information and will help with understanding why some things work and some things don't. As I've said before, I don't have issues reading music and all the music I currently perform involves reading - I currently play cello in two amateur orchestras, and bari or tenor sax in a sax group. You don't need loads of theory to get along as a player, but having some understanding will help. and it can be useful when you encounter problmes with a part and need to work out what's wrong with it when the music publisher/editor has got it wrong.

Concert A = 440Hz is a relatively modern convention, which loosely speaking dates to early C20th. Modern period instrument performance practice for playing baroque music mostly uses A = 415Hz, which is about a semi-tone below A440. I play the viol and when playing with other period instrument players, you are expected to tune to A415. Not everyone will have recorders for example at A415, which means you end up playing at A440 as well, which is a pain with gut strings as they take ages to stabilise when re-tuned. I've sung in concerts accompanied by period instrument orchestras where tuning is at A415 - it makes the high notes easier... but is a right pain for the low notes. You will also come across A382 and A462 for some specialist players/repertoire. On the whole, it is easier to stay at A440.

Almost all music of any genre is period specific - doesn't matter if we're talking "classical", or rock, pop, jazz, or whatever. The reason is that things like instrumentation, the technology of production, as well as harmony/melody are always evolving. What William Byrd wrote in the late 1500s is very different to Bach writing in the early 1700s, is different to Beethoven in the 1800s, to Mahler in the 1900s... and equally Glenn Miller in the early 40s compared to early rock n roll only a decade later, to the glam rock of the 70s etc. The added dimension of the last 50 years is the evolution of music technology

Recent update on the status of the build.

This is a common issue no matter what genre of music you're involved in. I've sung a lot in choirs. Some of the stuff that puts bums on seats in the audience choirs often don't particularly enjoy. My personal dislike is the Armed Man (Jenkins). It's utterly tedious to sing, but audiences love it...

I'm a fan of nice wood. Current basses are black, tobacco sunburst, and walnut. More interesting stuff is being built...

Hi welcome.

Sorry, but he is not entirely right. I have performed music with 4/1 time signatures (polychoral music by Heinrich Schutz for example). 2/2 is not the same as 4/4. The symbol for 2/2 which looks like a C with a line through it and is often mistakenly referred to as 'cut common' (because the symbol used for 4/4 looks like a C). It's not a C it is in fact a circle with a gap in it. It is a remnant of a previous way of denoting time signatures and was part of 'mensural notation' which uses a tempus and a prolation. To avoid me writing reams the wiki below provides a detailed explanation. In case you're wondering, mensural notation was the method used from about 1200 to 1600. It's advantage is it separates 'how many beats' from 'how is the beat divided' removing our messy notation of compound time signatures such as 12/8 etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensural_notation

Production of many things is dependent often on key components which are only produced in one or two factories, frequently but not exclusively, in China. The spreadsheet manglers need to learn to see beyond 'cheapest is best'...

What we're seeing is the result of a coalescence of various long-term structural issues which various events have brought to a crunch. These include but not limited to: outsourcing / offshoring production; just-in-time production methods; Covid; Brexit etc. For example, outsourcing/offshoring makes sense to creators of spreadsheets since it seems to reduce fixed costs and overheads. It makes no sense whatsoever in terms of resilience, control over production etc. Equally, just-in-time makes sense to those managers of spreadsheets since it reduces the need for storage costs etc., but it has very low resilience to pipeline disruption - it only works when everything works. Certainly in the UK Ts&Cs for HGV drivers have deteriorated significantly over the last 20 or 30 years and it is hardly a surprise that it struggles to recruit, combined with the double hit of Covid preventing people from taking tests and Brexit. There is going to have to be some serious thinking about the long term way in which various industries are structured/operated to avoid this kind of thing repeating. One of my other interests is astronomy - the kit for that has been seriously impacted as well and there are long lead times for stuff and prices have had a huge hit due to shipping costs going through the roof.

Yay - celli 😄

I'm a relative novice bass player. I don't have any issues reading music as I play cello... I'm interested in getting to grips with some jazz and and possibly big band repertoire

I can confirm as a recently retired computer person that youngsters tend to want to indulge themselves in whatever is the latest piece of gimmickry flim-flam without stopping to think if it's even necessary, relevant, or a benefit.

There's a lot of disruption to supply chains for many things, especially more specialist stuff. Most of the hiatus is Covid related one way or another

This is something which people really need to be wary of. My dad had it quite badly, his due to his National Service back in the early 50s. It's one of the reasons I avoid discos / night clubs - the odd time I've been I end up with ringing ears, which is not good. I had some ACS plugs made when I was playing in a big wind band and I was sat in front of 4 percussionists (timps, drum kit plus two others) and 9 trombones...