Week 18 of year 2007 on the double bass

29 Apr 2007, Sun: I was in the mood to play Romantic music, so I started my practice session with Faure's Apres Un Reve (After a Dream) for string bass and piano.

Afterwhich, I spend some time working on Lennox Berkeley's Introduction and Allegro. It is by far the more challenging work to practise for my programme for DipABRSM. Its irregular time signatures has made it challenging for me to use the metronome consistently throughout my practices. Strangely, my tutor always seem to have the idea that this piece is very manageable for my standard of playing. More practice would be needed on this.

30 Apr 2007, Mon: Took leave to practise. In the morning, I worked on Pachelbel's Canon (tranposed to G major) scored for a double bass quartet, arranged by David Heye. Finally, my rendition of this work is beginning to take some shape.

After lunch, I worked on Lennox Berkeley's Introduction and Allegro and managed to practise the entire work. Hopefully I would soon be ready to play the entire work during one of my upcoming double bass lessons. DipABRSM exams is drawing near, and will be coming in about four months time. Wish me luck.

1 May 2007, Tue: A public holiday, Labour Day.

In the morning, I met up with XM for a sight-reading session. We spent the morning sight-reading most of the duets from From Amadeus to Jazz: Easy Duos for Two String Basses edited by Franz Pillinger. I would still need more work on sight-reading! I very much like the melody of Greensleeves but had to decide not to play it for the day because some of the accompaniment parts were too challenging to be sight-read.

Later in the day, when I was home, I spent time playing the first movement of Capuzzi's Concerto in D major. It is quite an interesting work to play.

In the later part of the night, I managed to urge myself to practise the Rondo movement of Keyper's Romance and Rondo. I still need more work to get the harmonics to sound sweet and clear.

3 May 2007, Thu: The double bass lesson day. For this lesson, I worked entirely on Lennox Berkeley's Introduction and Allegro, and I have managed to play through this entire work. One thing that I need to brush up on is my sense of rhythm. I want to feel the pulse in my blood.

My tutor, MJ, also reminded me on the placement of my thumb. Proper placement of the thumb contributes to better intonation. More practice and more practice for this work. MJ on the other hand, thinks that this work is more manageable than the other works that I will be performing for DipABRSM. I realised that he has reasons to say so.

5 May 2007, Sat: At about 8 a.m., I took time to play the Marcello's Sonata in G major and I played the CD containing the pre-recorded piano accompaniment for this sonata. More information on such pre-recorded piano accompaniment can be found here: http://www.virtualaccompanist.com/.

I felt it was much more fun and engaging to be play along with a piano accompaniment even though the accompaniment was pre-recorded. I managed to play the first and second movements of the sonata, and the first half of the third movement. Then I stopped as it was soon time to get ready to meet my friend, Mystic, for a tour of the National Stadium.

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Overall, I have managed to reach my target for this week as well. More practice and studies on the double bass would be needed to play more engaging music. Cheer for me please.