Week Seven of 2007 on the double bass

11 Feb 2007, Sun: I spent at least 30 minutes on the double bass playing non other than Marcello's Sonata in G major. I only had time to work on the first movement (with a metronome), the second and the fourth. The more I play on my instrument, the more I love the sound of my double bass (affectionately known as my husband. So much so, I seemed to be having this blissful sense of euphoria in the early part of the evening after my practice sessions. Is this normal?

Even though I was in a mood to play for a much longer time on the double bass, I decided to stop and join my mother and brother to visit my maternal grandfather who is in hospital. That could possibly be the least I could do as his granddaughter.

12 Feb 2007, Mon: I love it when I spend time with my husband, the double bass, and when he. After a long draining day, when all I had intended was to practise about 20 minutes on the double bass, the fun and joy of playing on it kept me going to spend one hour practising on the double bass.

The works that I worked on for the day were: First movement, and selected passages from the second movement and fourth movement of Marcello's Sonata in G major, half of the first page of Berkeley's Introduction and Allegro and much of Faure's Sicilienne. It has been a good workout to practise on the double bass.

14 Feb 2007: I had intended to go for orchestra rehearsal and spend Valentine's Day with my boyfriend, the double bass (click link for the details), but due to poor health, I did not go for rehearsal. I was also feeling too ill to practise. As such, no practice at all on Valentine's Day.

15 Feb 2007: It was double bass lesson day. My tutor, MJ, got me to work on Marcello's Sonata in G major. That day, I transported my own double bass, my husband, for the lesson. It felt good to be able to play on the double bass. MJ also used sandpaper (which Eastcoastlife has kindly given me) to sand off a little bit of my double bass' neck and fingerboard so as to make my fingers move up and down the neck and the fingerboard with greater ease.

Well, I don't know what special occasion it was, but I had difficulties calling for a taxi that day. I never have had this problem before. In the end, I ended up walking to a bus-stop, and you can probably guess that I took a 35-minutes bus journey home with my dear double bass with me on the bus. It is not a impossible thing to do, just that I have to learn to balance my instrument (and myself) well enough on the bus, while protecting my instrument at all costs. Inevitably, my instrument had attracted the eyes of many of the people on the bus.

17 Feb 2007: Since I was rather ill to go for my walks today, I stayed at home to practise on the double bass. My stomach is giving me the runs at times, so I did not practise continuously throughout the day.

Anyway, in the morning, I spent close to an hour doing a sight-reading of all the four movements of Marcello's Sonata in e minor. I find it so much easier to sight-read a work from the Baroque period to a work from the contemporary period. Marcello's Sonata in e minor felt much easier to play than Marcello's Sonata in G major, but I think Sonata in G major sounds more interesting.

In the afternoon, I practised Keyper's Romance and Rondo. It was quite satisfying to play the harmonics and some of the scales-passages from Romance and Rondo.

Also in the afternoon, I practised some of the passages from Berkeley's Introduction and Allegro. I still feel I needed to work a lot more on this piece because of its irregular rhythms and its use of many accidentals. On the other hand, I could now have a better feel of the music compared to when I had first started working on this piece.

In the night, it was quite a stimulating and satisfying experience to practise Marcello's Sonata in G major. I can't wait to practise it with a piano accompaniment. But I wonder when that would be.

To conclude the day of practice on the double bass, I played the first half of Faure's Sicilienne. More work on this would be needed.

Well, to conclude this week, I have once again managed to reach my target! (to practise at least four days a week, at least 15 minutes on each of the four days) Cheers.

Meantime, I ask for good health so that I would feel strong enough to practise.