There's a practising freak living in my block, and that could be me!
It was a long work day today. I only reached home sometime after 10 p.m. After reaching home and taking my shower, I started practising on the double bass from 10.55 p.m. I started with a simple C major scale, then the rest of the time was spent practising the melody for Pachelbel's Canon in D major, scored for a double bass quartet, arranged by David Heyes
Folks, if you hear a rumbling bass sound at the night, it could be me practising, and I could be your neighbour. Isn't the world so very small?
I decided to be a considerate neighbour and had put on a practice mute on my double bass tonight. The practice mute helps to dampen the sound of the double bass. It also reduced the amount of vibrations from the double bass so that the double bass does not resonate as much as it usually would.
While I don't particularly like the sound of a muted double bass (it sounds like a double bass having a bad case of flu and blocked nose), having a practice mute helped me to be a considerate neighbour. Hopefully, by putting a practice mute, my neighbours would be willing to bear with my playing even after midnight. If they could bear with the playing, I figured that I will have no trouble practising even during the wee hours in the future.
Anyway, I was too tired from the work day to play beyond midnight today. I stopped practising at 11.20 p.m., but yeah, I have managed to practise at least 15 minutes without much effort. Pachelbel's Canon in D major has some beautiful melody lines, and I hope to master it one day.
Aside from being a practising freak, I may soon earn the reputation of the "humming queen", but I shalln't care. I just want to test out what would be suitable ways to articulate and express some of the tunes ringing in my head.
Maybe I have too much within me to express, I kept humming out aloud the tune from Faure's Sicilienne when I was at my work cubicle today. I kept humming the tune even on my way to lunch and to dinner, and back from lunch and dinner.
If I was not humming Faure's Sicilienne, I could be humming Rachmaninoff's Vocalise for today. If you would like to hear how Vocalise sounds, you may click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRqgkR1_eLQ for a rendition of it, not by me, but by jcobalis. I think he has played marvellously well on the double bass. I won't mind if he were to be one of the practising freaks living in my block.
Meantime, wishing you a pleasant night, and may the practising freaks (if any) living nearby you play you some beautiful music to soothe you to a good sleep.
I am now feeling sleepy and bottled-up.
6 comments:
Hi SA: It's not just you. There were days when I would sing out a tune or a section from a work that I am working on, simply to get the rhythms right.
Fun, isn't it?
hehe. hi humming queen! :P
You have good neighbours huh. Either that or they are deaf or the long-suffering types,hehehe.... your practising at late hours don't affect them?
Mistipurple: *smirk*
Estcoastlife: Not really. I only started practising late hours since this year. I use a practise mute (see my latest post on how to use it) to dampen the sound of my instrument.
I used to be a Humming-King, so much so that people would turn and look at me (discreetly) when I was sitting next to them on buses. One day I decided to be more conscious about it and well, it just stopped gradually. Anyway, that was a long long time ago. I suspect I did it bec. I had these self-composed tunes in my head but no knowledge of how to play any instruments. Nowadays, if I have a tune in my head, I record it to my PDA and try to play and record it back home.
Ivan: Hi "Humming King". Most of the time, I hum because I wanted to test out what would be the best ways to express and articulate the works that I have been practising on.
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