Hal Robinson plays orchestral excerpts

This video has been floating around for a long time in the libraries of bass students, and it looks like someone finally posted it on YouTube.  It really is a must-see if you haven’t checked it out before.  It features Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Bass Hal Robinson in a lecture-performance playing and talking about major double bass excerpts.  This is like excerpt school, folks–there’s a huge amount to learn from this video.  The actual video quality is fairly rough (looks like it’s a videotape copy of a copy of a copy that was finally transferred digitized).  Sit back (for a while–it’s 70 minutes just for part 1) and get ready for a remarkable experience:

Bass News Right To Your Inbox!

Subscribe to get our weekly newsletter covering the double bass world.

Powered by Kit

3 Comments

  1. Jeremy
    Jeremy on April 10, 2011 at 2:08 pm

    This video is why I have always admired Hal Robinson. It was one of the most important pedagogical resources in the ASTA library, which was a members-only media resource center. For many years before youTube (decades probably), Hal was the only one that had the balls and the chops to demonstrate (in a live performance setting with an audience) what so many others would just prefer to just talk about.

  2. anon
    anon on April 13, 2011 at 9:02 pm

    Does anyone know if Hal approves of this being on youtube? My understanding is that he would not approve of this being placed on youtube.

  3. Zach Moore
    Zach Moore on April 28, 2011 at 10:28 pm

    Hey Jason thanks so much for posting this! Really helpful right before I have to play Ein Heldenleben!