Letting go of inhibitions

Today is double bass lesson day. It felt good that I managed to play the entire first movement of Dragonetti's Solo in e minor for today's lesson. My rhythm could still be further improved. To help me feel the pulse, my tutor had resorted with tapping the pulse with his two hands.

I was feeling pleased that my tutor enlightened me with the fingerings to one particular section of the first movement. I have had a hard time playing that section using my own fingerings. The fingerings that he gave made the section so much easier to play.

My attempt on sight reading was horrendous. I was sight-reading in tenor clef and was struggling. I'm more at ease reading in bass clef. It looks like I have to continue to work on reading tenor clef and alto clef.

Today's lesson also got me to work on the Rondo movement of Keyper's Romance and Rondo. The tempo of this movement is fairly fast (Allegro). Although I have practised this movement several times, I could still sense an inhibition in me. In attempt to get each and every note right, I sense that I was holding the tempo back. How would things be like if I were to learn to let go of the inhibitions and just trust my fingers to play the notes musically?

Maybe in music, there isn't such thing as being perfect? When one lets go of being perfect, one may be more spontaneous and more able to trust the process. Perhaps that may make the music sound more real, rather than too controlled?

For today's lesson, I was using another double bass from the music school. It was much easier to play the harmonics on the double bass that I was using today, so I felt delighted to hear the harmonics ringing away. My tutor suggested I only use a specific part of each of my finger to play the harmonics. This suggestion came helpful. The harmonics that I played sounded better today. I still have to learn to play the harmonics using short bow-strokes.

Meantime, I hope that I could have the time to work out at least half of the second movement of Dragonetti's Solo in e minor before my double bass lesson next week. Wish me all the best.