The Right Hand: Learning to Play with the "German Bow" part 1

When I was 17, my parents bought me a double bass. 

Instead of a lengthy auto-biography let's get right to the point.

I am teaching myself how to play with a "German" bow. While I do understand - and believe - that terminology matters (how were think is everything), unless we are imbroglio-ed by the terminology thus some obstruction blocks our playing, the terminology hardly matters at all. I guess... it matters when it matters and doesn't when it doesn't. Helpful, I know. 

What comes first and foremost is the "hold" or "grip." 

I prefer the term "under handed" rather than "German". That is getting into terminology, so again... let us not get stuck at the thresh hold but enter.

I have a "German" bow, which I've owned since I started playing bass. It's a no name plastic disaster from Guitar Center or maybe - the gone but not forgotten - Sam Ash. I started college playing on this bow and quickly moved to "French bow". Now, 20 years later, I am re-learning this bowing approach.

HOW DO I HOLD THE DAMN THING. 

I asked friends, colleagues, and have been watching youtube videos. 

Here are some excellent resources that I've found very useful.

The absolute most musical and virtuosic german bow bassist I have ever heard in person: Joel Quarrington. I played for Joel in a masterclass when I was a graduate student at the University of Georgia.

 https://youtube.com/shorts/l80404iYEEw?si=to5pllMWNHz01eVO

https://youtube.com/shorts/6nqbaNrim8E?si=6WJgvPyF9XhxuzXZ

The second master is a video by the dear Michael Klinghoffer, who I had the pleasure of meeting and taking a lesson with in 2015 while I was singing at the Detroit Opera in a production of Die Passegerin.

https://youtu.be/ZZA9kE06SVM?si=J8Vptw07HVCmOrGc&t=54

The inimitable Thomas Martin, who I also had the pleasure of playing for in a master class while an undergraduate student at  S.U.N.Y. Purchase.

https://youtu.be/y4Ea49TGj1g?si=nGFuNcztaAnmGsBw&t=175

Here are some detailed insights from David Allen Moore

https://youtu.be/CvTigqfUR_E?si=6VFqajP2XwGeFPnQ&t=257

https://youtu.be/snONbEinP3w?si=AmbwY3LAFzNEA1tL&t=48

While I've never met him, Associate Principal Double Bass Dušan Walkowicz of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, has a rather clear and dry video worth watching.

https://youtu.be/cqi2AZ9tq4c?si=BjARDNOreaivVqsg&t=42 

Lastly, Barry Green has some helpful observations in his book, Advanced Techniques of Double Bass Playing

Preparing of an Orchestral Audition

 Greetings Readers,

As the title of this post plainly states, I will be - rather academically - discussing my preparation for my audition with Lansing Symphony 2025. This will be a stark and pallid post, bone dry and direct. Typically, I prefer - when sharing my thoughts publicly - writing some-what more florid and elaborate content. I yearn to be a writer, maybe a poet. This is not that post. And away we go...

I am sharing my method of preparation below, and some detailed discussion of the excerpts and pieces.  

Final preamble:

There are a myriad of brilliant sources of double bass instruction on the internet. Of course, there are master teachers and pedagogues out there around the actual real live in person world. Yes, the internet and teacher, but also books, too! None of these need any promotion from me, yet I will list a few of the excellent online-resources. The four most prominent internet sources are ToneBase - Bass, Double Bass HQ, Discover Double Bass, and String Virtuoso. Youtube contains a robust repository of videos, but as a platform does not specialize in bass. I would be remiss if I did not mention Orchestra Excerpts.com

Part I: The List

This is the Lansing Symphony 2025 audition repertoire list:

For those who are not in the know, this audition repertoire list is an ideal example of a standard list. These selection that the symphony is expecting to hear are typical excerpts from the symphonic repertoire. To put a finer point on the matter: one may reasonably expect to see each of these excerpts on any audition list around the world.  

That being said, it is - IMO - a short and approachable rep list. In addition to being standard, these particular selections, from Mozart to Strauss, are some of the most playable excerpts. I should also be clear that being a "playable" list, I do not wish to suggest that it is easy. These are not simple, obstacle free, shake-and-bake excerpts. All of these require major, advanced ability. 

What I find elegant about the list is that if one can meet all of the criteria of excellence in these selections, then it is abundantly clear that the player is highly capable. Those criteria are:
1) accurate to perfect intonation
2) accurate to perfect rhythm
3) clear and accurate articulation
4) correct dynamics
5) approximate speed
6) appropriate style nuance

To put it simply: ya gotta play in time, ya gotta play in tune, and ya gotta sound like you know how the piece goes. 

I'll address the choice of solo later, so let's dive into the list.

Part II: How to approach the list

The very first endeavor is compiling the excerpts according to the list.  

One can find these in the printed in the Zimmerman books published by International Music, or through IMSLP, or at Orchestra Excerpts.com.

Let's go one by one.

The excerpts are listed in the following format:

Composer Last Name, Title of the symphonic work, the section or movement of that larger work, the measures to be played (here written as "mm." for measures) + additional information for clarification.

The first listed is:
Beethoven [Ludwig van] Symphony no. 5 mvmnt. 3, mm.1-96; pick up to mm. 141-160 (second ending, no repeat).

We typically call this the scherzo and trio.

The second step to acquaint yourself to the piece. Listen to the entire work! Listen to several different recordings/performances, and absorb the style of the work. 

While you listen, you may wish to also do some study of the piece to place it in its historical context.

Beethoven's 5th Symphony is - what historians and musicologists refer to as - a work of  his middle period. It is also known as the "Fate Symphony" and was written between 1804 - 1808. Fun fact, it premiered on a concert with his 6th symphony (the Pastorale). It is in C minor, and it is Beethoven's opus 67. 

Why are these details important? Because the help us understand the style. A Beethoven forte is different from a Mozart or Brahms forte. The type of articulation and stroke of the bow is not a one-size-fits-all mode.

I also think it is important to review the full score of these sections to understand and internalize what the other parts are playing. This is the intimacy of owning and absorbing an excerpt. 

I have performed this symphony several times, most recently at Carnegie Hall in New York City with the Fort Greene Orchestra. Despite my familiarity, I still listen to recordings. Four of note are:

Riccardo Muti: Philadelphia Orchestra
Michael Tilson Thomas: San Francisco Symphony
Josef Krips: London Symphony Orchestra
Carlos Kleiber: Wiener Philharmoniker

Of course, all the great orchestras in the world have a recording of this symphony. Listen to modern and classic recordings because style preferences change. Listen to L.A. Phil or N.Y. Phil, Chicago, Berlin, etc.

The third step is learn to play the part, which requires a dedicated approach. 

Start slowly, with a metronome. I always find it useful to play the scale of the key that is written, and a short etude to get into the mood and sonic sound scape. Then work through the part systematically, SLOWLY WITH A METRONOME. I suggest trying 20-30 clicks slower than the indicated tempo, but if that is too fast then start slower. The goal is to set in good habits from the beginning. 

Audio-Books - Inspiration and Highway Road-Stops

 05-12-25
(From a roadside center in Ohio)

I am listening to an audio book. 

I am a some what clumsy late-comer to audiobooks. What kept me away for so long? I adore those obvious, probably mundane charms of print books: the weight, the smell, the silent voices spoken in my mind's ear. Yes, above all it is that seductive and unique quality of books to transform me into a co-creator that I love. The "paint by numbers" that comes with reading a story. The author has given my imagination all of the tools to manifest what isn't there. While I hazard the graceless overlapping of a mixed metaphor, the book is a playground for the imagination to run wild. Well, sort of wild. It's more like a play ground, it is a cultivated space. It isn't the wide open timeless arena of a rural childhood, or the borderless infinity in a wild animal's gaze. The book is a playground, not a play ground. I've seen children seem to long for the stable, guided, and controlled liberty of the playground. Remember the swings, the slide, the see-saw, and the merry-go-round? Do you remember the feeling of freedom without awareness of the highly curated protected zone? Monkey-bars instead of trees, slides instead of waterfalls, and turf or rubber instead of grass? That is what the author provides to me. The author created the playground-cum-canvas, the tools, the story, and the numbers on which to the paint the very colors they gave me. These inconspicuous elements are provocative. I heard the voices. These characters, the narrator, they are not intoned in my voice, yet nor are they the voices of others. Not simply an Ersatz but a simulacrum. I have transformed into a co-creator in that space. That is alluring. Perhaps, it is the fear of loss, the loss of that co-creator agency that kept me away for so long.

I didn't come here to gnaw the rag on my experience with audio books. It's Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She inspired me (I am also a late comer to her works). I am reading (listening to) "Americanah". I finished "Notes on Grief" two months ago, and I find myself smitten by her writing. I feel inspired to write. The needle point precision of her observations are in perfect balance of profound and casual, if such a thing is possible. 

Her writing has a way of beseeching me. It calls me to write something, as if I had something to say: something worth reading. So I type on my laptop in a rest-stop off the bland and monotonous interstate highway in Ohio. Sandusky, Ohio. Somewhere and nowhere, but not anywhere.

I am making the drive again, that drive. The drive that has become habit, routine. The round-trip drive from Michigan to New York. 1200 miles, practically a straight line from Toledo, Ohio to New Jersey. I've lost count of my r/t drives. Sometimes it's once a month. It's even been twice in 3 weeks at times. Hundreds of dollars in petrol and tolls; an uncountable cumulation of hours, no: days, no: weeks of my life in a car, all for sake of my career as a musician. My free-lance life, and my attachment to New York. Adichie left me so profoundly inspired that I took my laptop out to type this, here of all places. I won't take too much time, it is an 11-hour drive, after all. I battle the will to type and the noxious fumes of burning breakfast foods, stale coffee and putrid stench of a toilette placed inhumanly close to the food court. I am disgusted and determined. 

Basso Obbligato ossia continuing the continuum (Introduction)

Welcome to the Bassobbligato blog!

Greetings folx, I am called Giuseppe 👋 Of the many hats that I wear, I am a bass player and educator. Please, with grace and kindness, accept this post as welcome and brief introduction to me and this blog. Below are some of the nuts and bolts, necessaries and incidentals, that seem sort of... obligatory.

Basso Obbligato  
(BassObbligto)

This capricious elision has stuck with me for decades. I remember learning about the basso continuo as a high school student, nerd. No longer can I recall whether I saw it printed as one word, a single "o" as a bridge linking these terms, or if it really is the fruit of my own imagination. It hardly matters. I was immediately struck. Has that ever happened to you? Did you see or even maybe create something sort of cute and it just stuck with you? You couldn't unsee it?

As I started studying music in earnest, I came across words like ostinato, obbligato, thorough-bass, and their associative forms like the passacaglia, chaconne, and the lament. What a treasure trove of sounds! I love the way some words taste. You must know the mouthfeel of words you love saying, no? The words that tickle, and flow from your mind's ear out into the world. Words that have a feeling and feel personal to you. They are more than units of utilitarian communication. Those words are not mere vocabulary and function, but straddle the fine line of life-theater (simulacra and simulation) and full extemporized authentic free expression. The lexiconic treasure trove of concepts! Coming from a background in rock and jazz, these words and what these words represented, the forms and compositional practices, made immediate sense to me. The bass made sense to me. I wanted to drink it all in and gobble it all up. Here was the link between repetitive song forms and classical music! 

I am getting ahead of myself. Before I get completely carried away, here are some auto-biographical thoughts for your consideration: 

I have been a professional multi-genre freelance bassist for over 20 years.
I was born and raised in New York City, where I attended the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts.
I studied double bass at Purchase College, State University of New York, the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia, and several summers at the Conservatorio Antonio Vivaldi in Alessandria, Italy.

Guilty: I did earn a doctorate in music from the University of Georgia, Athens.

More about me later.

Why this blog? Why me? Why Now?

If you've made it this far, the answers to those questions and the questions themselves are irrelevant. Well, not irrelevant. No, but rather allow me to pose these very questions to you, dear reader.  They are relevant to me but about you! Why my blog? why are you here now? With all of the great resources like string virtuoso, tone base, contrabass conversations, double bass headquarters, discover double bass, and youtube, what drew you to this space?