Saturday, May 26, 2007

Week 21 of year 2007 on the double bass

20 May 2007, Sun: In the early afternoon, I spent some time practising on the double bass at home. The main objective of the practice was to get my fingers familiar with playing the various double bass ensemble works that I would be playing later that afternoon.

In the afternoon, I was at the university's campus rehearsing more than two hours with QH and XM. The Sentimental Bossa is taking shape. The Ragtime sounded more jazzy. Cool!

21 May 2007, Mon: In hope to work on Berkeley's Introduction and Allegro on my double bass lesson this week, I spent about 20 minutes practising selected passages from Berkeley's Introduction and Allegro.

Afterwhich, I practised a selected passage from Sentimental Bossa so as to get the intonation better. Playing the double bass has helped wear away the drained feeling that had bugged me since the late afternoon.

23 May 2007, Wed: Double bass lesson was held in the afternoon. My tutor told me about a bow worth buying, and I bought it. For the lesson, I worked on Marcello's Sonata in G major to make it an interesting music piece of work for the ears. Afterwhich, I worked on Berkeley's Introduction and Allegro.

In the evening, after XM's lesson with our orchestra's double bass tutor, GM, we had double bass sectionals. We spent a good more than two hours working on Solomon's Sentimental Bossa, W.A. Mozart's Allegro, L. Mozart's Polonaise, Bach's Minuett, Tchaikovsky's Neopolitanian Dance (from Swan Lake) and Berlin's Ragtime. Thanks to tutor GM, I finally understood the musical joke behind W.A. Mozart's Allegro. It was such an interesting revelation. I think W.A. Mozart is such a musical genius.

26 May 2007, Sat: I spent slightly more than 15 minutes practising the first and second movements of Marcello's Sonata in G major.

After the short practice, I listened to a CD recording of Bottesini's Passione Amorosa performed by Gary Karr and Ermanno Ferrari on the double bass. It was lovely.

**
I wish I could practise for longer periods of time, but that was what I can manage with a demanding work week. Anyway, this week is yet another week where I reach my target of practising at least 4 days per week, at least 15 minutes each of the days.

2 comments:

pinkie said...

My teacher Robin said that I should practise 30 mins each day.. hmm... sometimes I dun.. maybe 15 mins each day is good enuf... :)

oceanskies79 said...

Pinkie: 15 minutes is short and achievable. And since the target is just 15 min per day (for 4 days a week), it didn't seem like a pain to get started.

The truth is, usually once I get started on practising, it gets too enjoyable or stimulating to just play 15 minutes. Most of the time, unless I am very tired, I tend to end up practising more than 30 minutes. sometimes, I practise more than an hour...

This applies for me, not sure if it works for others.