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  #1  
Old 01-26-2007, 04:47 AM
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Lightbulb Your first Bass Books...

I started playing Bass in 7th grade and can't remember the name of the Book we used. When I got to High School the Bass teacher told me to buy the Simandl Book. This was the first serious Bass book I had seen. Just about every private teacher I went to used the Simandl along with their own exercises for training and breaking bad habits.

Here's a thread I started on Talkbass about a year ago. it is still a Sticky in the Orch section.
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Orchestral Technique & Method Studies Thread (pub. on TB 3/06) I am starting this thread to compile a list of method books and fingering styles as well as Bow Techniques for the Double Bass student. I myself am still a student after starting slightly over 40 years ago.

Here's one brief story and my inspiration why I have most recently begun to study again. I played professionally in NY for about 20 years. In that time I had a few private Bass teachers formally. One of them (a top student of John Schaeffer, NY Phil. Prin.) worked mainly with my Bow hand to correct bad habits. After he had left NY for an Orch. Job I found another teacher in the NY Phil.. He said my bow hand was good now and we worked on technique. I also did the Dragonetti, Eccles and a bit on the Marcello. After a few years on and off as our work schedules allowed he told me that unless he trained me through Orchestral Repertoire he couldn't teach me anymore. At that stage I would get up in the morning and play some the Dragonetti before breakfast and some of it from memory. I was at a peak at that time. I will mention that prior to this teacher, another in the NY Phil. turned me down as a student for the same reason as far as goals go. Some teachers would only work with students training for an Orchestral career.

After retiring in 1988 officially I gave up playing for the most part and eventually sold all my Basses. After a few years I got the bug and bought a new Bass. A few years later I bought 2 more. Then I just had to play. Shortly after I joined a local Orchestra and then another. The music seemed so hard to me as I usually would avoid playing excerpts or pieces that I didn't like. In Orchestra, you have no choice but the play the program they choose for each concert. Now it had me pulling out all my old books and practicing again. I soon realized I had made a HUGE mistake turning down my teachers offer to train me with Orchestral studies. Since playing about 4 years now in 3 Orchestras as well as some chamber groups I have developed a new found respect for the difficulty of playing the Double Bass as it had been intended (Jazz etc excluded).

Here’s is a list of some of the Books I have as well as methods I know of. Please feel free to discuss these and add to my list. This will become the official TB ' Orchestral Method' thread for the Double Bass. I may also start one on the Regular Technique to discuss the non-orchestral styles of the Double Bass.

Books and methods; Simandl - Zimmerman, Simandl - Sankey, Simandl 30 Etudes (now available from MMO with CD and Piano), Classical and Modern Duets - Zimmerman, Kreutzer, Storch-Hrabe 57 studies I and II, Sturm 110 studies, Classical & Modern Works Excerpt and Contem. Bow Tech all by or edited by Zimmerman. Modern Methods by Hal Robinson, Eugene Levinson, Tom Gale, Rabbith and New Dutch School by Dalla Torre to name a few.

I have some more books at my office as I am home now and will list them as well. Please feel free to contribute and discuss any Technique for the Orchestral Double Bass for the Left hand and French or German Bow as it applies regardless of your playing level.
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also from 4/06;

I have about the entire set of Bille. Regardless of your level, I suggest you get Book I if for any other reason than to understand his approach. Warning: Bille uses the 1-3-4 Italian fingering method. For starters, read thru using 1-2-4 using the 2 instead of 3 unless it's in TP. Then, try the 1-3-4 fingering to strengthen your 3rd finger. I use the 3rd now quite often with a pivot to get 1 1/2 steps in a position when I so desire like for instance on the G-string, C-D-Eb using 1 - shift 2-4 as in Simandl or 1-pivot slightly 3-4. I have seen many Players using this including the Philly Principal and his students.

For Beginners or younger students a new Book came out just last year (August, 2005) called 'My First Simandl' .. http://www.carlfischer.com/fischer/nraug2005.html

This guy played in the Rochester and Dallas Symphony and is not an un-known by any means. He was a student of Oscar Zimmerman. This book as described is a good way to get younger players into Simandl on the gradient approach from what I have read. I called a local store yesterday that sells Carl Fischer books and ordered one for my collection and review.
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Current;

I believe that studying the Bass as did the greats from the Prague School, one will develop strong hands and fingering. Playing Jazz requires different skill but using some of the same notes. Bowing a string holds the note longer to built finger strength. Pizzing the note puts more pressure on the finger holding the note during the attack and in a different direction than the bow vibrates the string against the finger. All practice is good practice but these books and methods listed above have developed some of the greatest Bass players in history.

Feel free to continue this discussion over here on 'Ken's Corner'.
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  #2  
Old 01-26-2007, 08:22 AM
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Brian Gencarelli Brian Gencarelli is offline
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Default

Ken-

As a public school teacher, I am willing to bet it was Muller-Rusch. Just a guess.

Brian
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Old 01-26-2007, 09:03 AM
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Question Bet?

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Originally Posted by Brian Gencarelli View Post
Ken-

As a public school teacher, I am willing to bet it was Muller-Rusch. Just a guess.

Brian
This was 1964, Miami Beach, Florida. Is that your final answer? I remember some early tab-form showing the string and the finger used, etc before we read actual notes.
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Old 01-26-2007, 12:42 PM
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Brian Gencarelli Brian Gencarelli is offline
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Do you remember it looking something like this?



Brian
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Old 01-26-2007, 01:48 PM
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Wink Remember?

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Originally Posted by Brian Gencarelli View Post
Do you remember it looking something like this?



Brian
No, that was before my brain fully developed. Had to dump some data to make room for new stuff...lol
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Old 01-26-2007, 08:12 PM
Nick Hart Nick Hart is offline
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When I first started learning in school, my teacher created her own method for teaching the orchestra. It was very effective for a beginner.

Then I got my first teacher and started with Simandl as well as Sturm etudes. I must have worked on Simandl pg. 69 for about a year.

Once I went to Levinson, I worked out of his book and worked a lot on trying to get away from playing in positions. A lot scales.

Now that I'm with Mr. Laszlo I use his method called the Double Bass Workbook. It's not published but it's an excellent resource. He always says that the workbook is our toolbox, and he will show us how to use all the tools, and it is up to us to use them.
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Old 01-31-2007, 05:02 PM
JoeyNaeger JoeyNaeger is offline
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I first started on the George Vance books, and am now working through the Rabbath books. I know not everyone likes the Rabbath method, but I've been supplimenting it with Thomas Gale and Mark Morton stuff along with the Petracchi book.
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Old 02-03-2007, 10:39 AM
stan haskins stan haskins is offline
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Default Methods & etudes

I did Simandl book one a couple of times with different teachers. Dave Cobb moved me through the whole book, beginning to end, about 9-10 years ago, and through the 30 etudes and book 2 (I think I need to revisit that one soon, or try some other higher position method)

Currently, I just started working with the Sevcik Bogenstudien, the Zimmerman bowing book, and the Storch-Hrabe etudes. Then, in addition to solo rep, I'm using the revised Suzuki bass repertoire to try to fill in some holes in tone production and musicianship. Has anyone else checked this out? Gary Karr plays the CD examples, it's pretty interesting . . .
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Old 02-03-2007, 08:27 PM
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Cool higher position method

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Originally Posted by stan haskins View Post
I did Simandl book one a couple of times with different teachers. Dave Cobb moved me through the whole book, beginning to end, about 9-10 years ago, and through the 30 etudes and book 2 (I think I need to revisit that one soon, or try some other higher position method)

Currently, I just started working with the Sevcik Bogenstudien, the Zimmerman bowing book, and the Storch-Hrabe etudes. Then, in addition to solo rep, I'm using the revised Suzuki bass repertoire to try to fill in some holes in tone production and musicianship. Has anyone else checked this out? Gary Karr plays the CD examples, it's pretty interesting . . .
I would like to make a suggestion here about the higher positions. First off, there is way less books/methods written for the second octave of the Fb than the first octave, by far. What I found useful was taking something like Simandl I and playing it an octave higher on the same strings. For Jazz players, they improv all the time and do not play just on the G string up there. Playing Book I will help drill those string crossings and intervals you would not otherwise find in the average book written for TP.

Also, I have the Zimmerman Duet books for 2 Basses and have taken these up an octave where and when I was willing just to challenge myself. The other day while breaking in a relatively new Bass, I took as much as possible an octave down to work the lower strings.

Music is music but practice is practice. Sometimes we only get higher notes once in awhile above the G in Orchestral writing. The conductor in the main Orchestra I play in always tries to tell me how hard something is in our Principal meetings but when I get the music, I show him that if one plays the second half of the Bass, it's really not all the hard at all.

Play the book music in different octaves and see what I am talking about. Do it seriously and you will see you have much more TP music in your collection that you thought you had.
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Old 02-05-2007, 11:14 AM
stan haskins stan haskins is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ken Smith View Post
there is way less books/methods written for the second octave of the Fb than the first octave, by far. What I found useful was taking something like Simandl I and playing it an octave higher on the same strings.
Good idea, Ken - Do you have an opinion about the Petracci "Higher Technique" method?

Also, your point about the infrequency of those high notes is dead on. HOwever, it seems like when you get that one shot to enter on a higher pitch, you've go to be able to nail it every time. Right now, I'm working on Prokofiev's first symphony - when the basses get the melody in the middle of the first movement, the line starts (ff) with a high b then down an octave before you get to use a harmonic for the high a - I'd love to be able to nail notes like that every time, on the first try.
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Old 02-05-2007, 11:10 PM
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Default Petracci?

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Originally Posted by stan haskins View Post
Good idea, Ken - Do you have an opinion about the Petracci "Higher Technique" method?

Also, your point about the infrequency of those high notes is dead on. HOwever, it seems like when you get that one shot to enter on a higher pitch, you've go to be able to nail it every time. Right now, I'm working on Prokofiev's first symphony - when the basses get the melody in the middle of the first movement, the line starts (ff) with a high b then down an octave before you get to use a harmonic for the high a - I'd love to be able to nail notes like that every time, on the first try.
Never seen it, sorry.
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