Ohio State bass studio as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
There are 7 guys and one gal in The Ohio State University bass studio of Paul Robinson, so what better way to celebrate Halloween and the 75th anniversary of the classic Disney film “Snow White and Seven Dwarfs” than to dress like the movie? Paul, a true film buff, even matched all the colors to the original character color grid from the Disney production office.
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François Rabbath throws a bass out the window
It seems that François has embraced the world of online video recently. You’ve got to love this video (caught from every angle) of him destroying a cheap bass. I’m hazy on the details of this story from his past, but I seem to remember that this is what François did many decades ago to upgrade his instrument.
listen to Rabbath being interviewed by Jason
How “Not” to Play Hindemith?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPzcsPVyVdM
My student Dave Elbrecht pointed this out to me. Here’s what the video includes as commentary:
A "how not to play" demonstration of the Hindemith Double Bass Sonata, 3rd movement. Don’t play it too slow! Otherwise it will sound like this. Also, be kinder to notes at the ends of phrases, otherwise they will sound choked and squawky (good examples in this video).
Boredom and terror in the recording studio
Most of the time I get called for straight-laced classical fare, usually consisting of endless half notes and whole notes. My chief concerns in these cases usually end up being things like making sure I don’t cough or drop my bow as I go completely mentally vacant with boredom.
What the hey?!?
I was playing bass for one one these aforementioned whole-note sessions, flipping each chart over as we wrapped it up and thinking about my various dinner options.
I flipped the next chart in the stack, and my heart took a sudden leap into my throat. The music I was about to sight-read for this session was absolutely covered in black, with sixteenth notes buzzing up and down the staff, intricate hemiolas and rest patterns, and tons of tricky accidentals all over the page.
Crap!
How could I have missed this one when I was flipping through my music at the beginning of the session? And what on Earth was a nutso chart like this doing in my stack of easy-as-pie first position whole note tunes?
With no time to think (the engineer was ready and waiting for our small string group to start behind the glass), I picked up my bow, knowing that I was about to embark on one heck of a sight-reading adventure.
Click, click, click…
We were off and running, and I was bobbing and dipping like a maniac, navigating these off-the-wall sixteenth note passages as best I could. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that all of my upper-string colleagues were watching me with bemused grins. Their parts were half-note and whole note chords, just like all the others, and I soon realized that this track (for Christmas album, of all things!) was arranged as one bizarre bass solo.
Fortunately, I’m a pretty good sight-reader, and I started to gain confidence as I realized that there would be no respite for me through the entire track. I jammed out as well as I possibly could given the circumstances, and was feeling pretty darned proud of myself as the other string players played the final chords of the arrangement.
As silence filled the studio, I shook out my arms and waited to see what the engineer wanted to punch in. After all, I did a good job, didn’t I? Maybe just few bars here or there to clean up?
Long silence.
My confidence wavered.
Finally, the studio speakers came on:
“Um… Jason. Can I see that bass part?”
I snaked my way through the cables and mic stands, meeting him at the door.
“Jason,” he said, “that’s the electric bass part.”
Apparently, the bass guitar part had been misfiled in my folder. The string tracks were just sonic padding on this record, and the electric people would be in a few days later to lay down the groovier stuff.
Blushing profusely (though it wasn’t really my fault, was it?) as my actual part was handed to me, I took my seat again, and we took it from the top, with my actual part being even simpler than the other tracks. I only played a few pizzicati and a couple of whole notes, in fact.
So much for my rockin’ Christmas solo upright bowed solo jam track!
How to play a bad audition
One of my all-time favorite audition stories came from a member of a major symphony when I asked him what the worst audition he’d ever heard was like:
Apparently, this orchestra never pre-screens their candidates, making for a quite egalitarian yet massively populated pool of candidates. Due to this policy, there are at least a handful of auditionees that have the panel rolling on the floor (figuratively, at least) in suppressed laughter or else slouched in their chairs with tears of pain rolling down their cheeks.
The double bass always attracts a motley crew of candidates anyway, and having no screening process usually means that there are some real characters stepping up on stage to strut their stuff. While painful to the ears of the long-suffering committee, it can also provide for some much-needed levity after hour after interminable hour of nervously executed symphonic snippets.
One such bass player entered for his audition (behind a screen, of course) and started tuning extremely loudly, roaring away on his low strings in an apparently futile attempt to get in tune. Not a good sign.
The committee was fidgeting away while waiting for the candidate to begin, only to slowly realize that, in fact, the candidate had begun, and that these crass attempts at tuning had somehow morphed into the first movement of the Vivaldi Sonata No. 3 for Cello, played as low as possible in the fist position of the bass. The candidate clacked and rattled his way through the first few phrases of this piece, grinding his low strings like some sort of lower life form, with the committee looking at each other with some amusement.
This audition was going to be fun.
The committee cut off the “grinder” after a bit, asking him to play the final movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40, a tricky excerpt that requires quite a bit of agility on the part of the player. Not easy even for a top-caliber player, so how would this fellow fare.
Long pause.
The first four notes came out, a confused jumble of crud, then nothing.
Long pause.
Another attempt at those first four notes.
Silence.
Finally (and with much hysterically silent laughter from the committee), this fellow burped and snorted his way through this excerpt, like a piano falling down a set of stairs, only less graceful.
Having fun now, the committee proceeded to ask the candidate to play rehearsal number 9 from Ein Heldenleben, an even more fiendishly difficult passage for string bass.
Longer pause.
Finally, the proctor (the person with the candidate who points out what excerpts to play and helps coordinate the audition facilitation) calls out from the candidate’s side of the screen:
Proctor: Uh… the candidate declines to play this excerpt…
Committee: OK–thank you!
Don’t you just love bass auditions?
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