Mahler's 5TH Symphony
 

I am wondering if anyone here has experience with Mahler's 5Th Symphony.
I am trying to figure out how to approach learning this piece.
It has a lot of notes, it's a very long piece, and very demanding technically.
I work full time playing mostly Jazz, and I also teach. So my time is somewhat limited, although I am making as much time as I possibly can in order to play this piece.
I am wondering if anybody care to share some tips, suggestions etc.
Thank you in advance.

ok..
 

I have a CD disc with bass parts so I just looked this up for you. I have never played it as I had to look it over to see if I had or not.

Here is my advice as I would do if this came up for me maybe a month or so before the concert. Also, if you have a teacher that plays in a professional Orchestra, you would consult him to learn it. If you know in advance what is coming up for the season, start on things sooner than later. The CD I have by Cherry Classics is a life saver for me. So go on line and get that if you can.

Now, having the music in hand you should either have conductors notes on tempos in advance or go on YouTube and look up 1-5 Orchestras playing the piece. More than one is good because the tempos vary between conductors but not by that much usually. However, some videos are better than others and you can see the basses and what they are doing with positions and bowings, possibly! If you don't have tempos from the Conductor sit down with the music and your metronome and watch the YouTube. Clock the tempos for every section you can. Take your time and pencil them in on the music at the beginning of each section.

Then, go to your music stand, start with the first section, 4, 8, 50 bars or whatever and try it first at tempo to see how it feels. Then stop and go back. Play thru the notes without metronome as slow as you need until you think you can play that section bars only. Then, set the metronome at a tempo you can play it at. If too hard to play without mistakes, slow it down till you CAN play it. Then, notch by notch, increase the tempo until you get to speed. From time to time, go back and look at the YouTube and see how they are playing it for reference. After you have that first movement, try it with the recording/YouTube. Only one movement at a time or if the YouTube is split in parts, one part at a time. It could be as many as 6 YouTubes, more or less to fit the entire piece as you will soon learn.

This is how I practice. I find recordings on-line at YouTube and play along with them. It's work but when you show up for that first rehearsal, you will look like you have done it before. On this piece, it has some split parts, upper and lower. Learn both if you can. Some are just octave splits and some are different. Some music might be Cello upper and Bass lower but this one is clearly two Bass parts.

Take your time. It will make you a better player, Classical and Jazz. Trust me!;)

Thank you very much for taking the time to help me.
I greatly appreciated it. Those are very good suggestions.
One more quick question.
I seem to do OK following the other bass players. My Orchestra has 5 basses including myself.
This particular piece is very hard, and it has many markings for dynamics, accents, diminuendo,crescendo, sforzando, etc. When looking at the begging of the Scherzo I can see myself spending a lot of time just with the first few bowed measures.
My question is:
Should I spend a lot of time in small spots until I get them right, or should I become familiar with the whole piece and then come back to clean up the difficult passages?
Thank you.

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Get it right. I work on all the hard passages first so that when I play through it, they don't slow me down. You will be a better player for it. Take your time and go slow. Try to go in ready to play and not faking anything. Mistakes will happen but don't plan on them.

Great. Thank you for all the advice!