zbd1960

I've posted elsewhere about the violone which is the ancestor of the double bass. This gives a brief overview. He mostly talks about the violone in D, which plays an octave below the bass viol - which is the one that I play. In my limited experience, most violones I have encountered are in G, which is probably because they are a bit smaller. https://youtu.be/MgM7Y4xLLB4

hmmm a sorry tale... I worked in financial services for over 40 years, most of it on the IT side. The anti money laundering and corruption legislation, data protection, GDPR, etc. that has come in - especially over the last 20 years - is draconian. An auction house is going to be covered by them. My employer got fined millions for a technical breach of paperwork that affected a very small number of cases and that was only through inadvertence, not a deliberate or malicious act. There are definitely questions to be asked

It's a problem no matter what the genre - pub band or amateur choir / orchestra... what puts bums on sits is not necessarily what you would most enjoy performing... but you have to do that stuff to enable the organisation to continue to exist...

I sometimes go to Steampunk events suitably attired: frock coat, cravat, waistcoat, top hat... There are Steampunk bands around

Glad thread got revived as it was a useful read. People shouldn't be too scared of key signatures - I agree that for a novice it's a bit of a fright having to deal with A#s and things.In the British choral and orchestral tradition, you get stuff thrown at you in almost any key and you 'get on with it'. It may seem a bit fierce, but helps remove the fear factor. I played cello in (for me) very odd gig a few years ago in Birmingham's Symphony Hall. It was a programme of 1990s/00s dance music - a very alien genre for me (and my colleagues in the orchestra). It was scored as two continuous 1 hour sets - keys constantly changing, but nearly everything was in Db, Gb, B, or F#, with only the odd section in more manageable keys. That was hard going.

Yeah you tune the strings... then you tune the frets. If you're playing with other viols you tune to A=415Hz rather than A=440Hz. The first fret in particular is difficult as it tends to move. Gut strings are an absolute pain to tune. Being organic in origin, they 'breathe' - they absorb or release water vapour according to the temperature and humidity. This means that if you take the viol out of its case and the environment is different, it can take a couple of hours for the strings to reach equilibrium. As the mass of the string is constantly changing, so is the tuning. This is why you see players of gut stringed instruments constantly tuning.

I see this is an old thread... a friend of mine's son plays in a resort in France, but he moved there... I've skied a lot and I've missed not being able to ski the last 2 years and I'm hoping net winter will be viable. I'm of an age where after a solid day's skiing, it's dinner, some wine, and then bed... Bars with live music tend to be popular with youngsters and can be busy. Often the base station has a big bar and terrace at eh foot of the home run and they tend to be much bigger places. From talking to seasonaires in chalets etc it's an experience as I doubt you're going to be making money. You'd want it to include a season lift pass, which in France are usually around €700. If you drive over, winter/snow tyres or chains are mandatory.

I can't see a teacher offering free online lessons. There are plenty of free online resources on Youtube e.g. Scott's Bass Lessons and TalkingBass

As long as it's not a crumhorn - they're almost impossible to get in tune

Severe GAS attack... whilst I wait for my nice 4 string ACG to be built decided I'd have an experiment with 6 string basses. I play the viola da gamba aka viol which is a 6 string instrument. The bass viol is tuned DGCEAD, so 4ths with a weird 3rd thrown in in to confuse you. It's played with a bow and it's fretted - the frets are pieces of gut string that you tie to the neck and you have to move them to tune them... The bass is similar size to a cello. The violone is the ancestor of the double bass and is GCFADG - so the bottom G is a 3rd above the E of the double bass in pitch terms. I don't play that but the tenor viol, which is pitched an octave higher. Anyway, viols have 6 strings, tenor and bass use bass and alto (C3) clef, but you do get lyra viol repertoire that uses English/French lute tablature, which fries your brain. Anyway, the Spector is a Legend 6 Classic with burr walnut top and pau ferro fretboard. Standard tuning BEADGC at the moment. Included a pic of my tenor viol and some lute tablature just for fun 🤣

I've bought an arrangement of this for when my sax ensemble resumes and I'm planning to play the bass line on bass rather than bari sax... The other bari gets to play the bassoon riff... I might get my bassoonist friend to join in

Lack of self-awareness... I'm overly self-conscious, something i need to overcome if I'm going to be playing bass anytime with anyone

I noticed the 'work in progress' when I logged on the other day

I refrained from posting that one yesterday... I can confirm that I can only scratch my cello... It had an outing last night at orchestra and I was the only cellists... sight-reading my way through Haydn Symphony 99, Beethoven Egmont overture, and Bach's orchestral suite #2...

My musical background is a little... err... different... for example I was going to sit ABRSM grade 7 theory before lockdown happened... It took me a while to get to a bass teacher I got on with. #1 was highly qualified but kept cancelling lessons to rehearse for gigs... to the extent that I never had a lesson with him. #2 I actually felt was OK, but primarily a guitar teacher. After 3 lessons he said to me that I was a far more experienced and capable musician than he was.... #3 was a joke. He had this converted unit which he ran as a recording studio, with a room either side. So he would have a student in each of the three rooms simultaneously and rn between them... #4 never turned up. I joined the newly set-up branch of Rock School and their adult group. Lockdown happened but they assigned me a bass tutor. We had Skype lessons for a while and now in person. He's a young guy - about 24, but he's got a music degree and training as a music teacher.

My (admittedly limited) experience of pub/band singers is the majority fall under the 'tuned shouting' description. And 'tuned' is not necessarily the same as 'in tune'. Too many think that singing is not a serious technical skill and you can just 'sing'. As with any instrument, there will be the odd person who can just wing it and get away with it - but not many. There's a lot of technique to singing properly to protect you voice and to enable you to sing for a protracted period without tiring or injury

ugh... where did that come from.... quite right, fixed.

I know....

I have yet to gig with bass - I've joined local Rock School and will see where it goes... But... I play in orchestras where you have a guy at the front waving a stick to keep people together. Doesn't stop issues... the commonest are speeding up when it gets louder, slowing down when it's quieter. The biggest tempo crunchers are usually the heavy brass (trombones/tuba) - if they charge off there's not much anyone can do about it. When that happens, the rule is watch the conductor. There is a well-know (probably apocryphal) quote that conductors should never look at the trombones as it only encourages them....

That's a fantastic looking bass. Love the wood and the purple heart accent.

Obviously he must have been a devotee of atonal serialism

e.g. no symphony orchestra concert hall / theatre has been 'tested' with full capacity audiences

Yep. The altos and tenor shawms are also very loud - that was a soprano. They were used outdoors for leading processions etc. I was singing in an early music workshop some years ago and there was a tenor shawn in the instrumental group. It's a long instrument so sitting down, they had the bell playing into a cushion filled with lambs' wool to reduce the volume...

Ahh... you need to encounter shawms... not to be used indoors...

I think I saw a report yesterday showing some preliminary results from the first set of event tests? The whole thing is beyond annoying. The entire arts/events industry has been hung out to dry. A huge number of people who work in this space are freelancers and none of the government's schemes covers them. The failure to address that might be irreversible damage to the sector as people have had to find jobs and may not come back. Without insurance no company is going to even attempt to run an event where they have to commit finances with no idea if it's viable or not. Most major European countries have put some sort of government backed scheme in place to cover organisers. I have heard repeated statements for at least the last 2 months from government mouthpieces saying "We're working flat out on a solution...". Germany announced April last year what it was doing right through to August 2021.