Week 13 of year 2008 on the double bass

23 Mar 2008, Sun: On hindsight, I was not in the right frame of mind for a focused session of practice. I started with sight-read one piece of study. Afterwhich, some time was spent practising a selected passage from Berkeley's Introduction and Allegro followed by Walter's The Elephant Gavotte. Then I tried to play selected passages from Marcello's Sonata in G major from memory. I am aiming to play this sonata from memory the next time I play it for music exams.

25 Mar 2008, Tue: Despite feeling fairly tired from the day, I was inspired after attending the double bass masterclass by Dr Erhard to practise. I was aiming to achieve a full sound on the double bass.

My rendition of the third movement of Marcello's Sonata in G major needed more work especially that of achieving a generally more legato sound. In addition, the left-hand needed more consistency in its vibrato technique. The first movement of the sonata fared a little better.

26 Mar 2008, Wed: Today I had double bass lesson with Mr GM. It has always been enriching to attend his lesson. We worked on the first and second movement of Marcello's Sonata in G major. He articulated reasons why it would be more effective for me to repeat the first section of each of the movements. In addition, he shared about how I could obtain more musically interesting phrasing. His guidance helped made my rendition of the work more interesting to the ears. This, I am thankful. We also discussed a bit on sound production. I still needed more work on achieving a sound vibrato technique.

27 Mar 2008, Thu: During my double bass lesson with MJ, I realised that I have been playing several wrong notes for Berkeley's Introduction and Allegro. As such, quite a bit of time today was spent unlearning and relearning several of the passages.

29 Mar 2008, Sat: A fairly unproductive practice session, it seemed. I did not have much focus as would be needed. I worked on trying to attain a good change of bow direction. When focus was lacking, I turned to sight-reading and working on sound production. Noticing that concentration level had been way below optimal, I decided to stop the practice eventually.

Time flies. A quarter of the year has just passed by.