One hour playing

Thank goodness that I was not too mentally nor physically tired after I reached home this evening. While I am still anxious over the earlier-than-expected music exams date, the anxiety has become better more manageable. These factors proved rather conducive to get me to start practising on the double bass.

I decided to be kind on myself and not to start with the killer repertoires. I started with F. Simandl's studies from New Method for the Double Bass. I have first played some of these studies 8 - 9 years ago. It was a pleasant experience to revisit some of these studies to find myself playing them more confidently than I had years ago. I remembered having struggled over a few of these studies some years ago. Maybe this is the sign of some progress? That helped cheer me on.

I decided not to play the Marcello's Sonata this evening. My mind was not concentrating as intensely as it needed to be play the several sections of 'plentiful sixteenth notes'.

Playing excerpts from the Beethoven's Fifth Symphony was rather encouraging. If you are familiar with the beginning of this symphony's third movement, you would realise that there are very challenging passages for the cellos and the double bass sections. Not just one passage, but several ones. This evening, I saw a bit of improvement in my rendition of the passage.

I think I shall settle on the excerpts from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. I would prefer to play an excerpt from a Beethoven's symphony than to play contemporary music. Verdi's Otello which was one of the options from the exams syllabus did not seem to be easy for me to relate to. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is supposedly much more difficult among the various options, but it somehow felt easy to relate to. Maybe that is because I have played the full symphony about a few years ago?

That was about it. No playing of the contemporary music this evening. I think I shall start working on it once I ask the double bass tutor for guidance on how to play those harmonics and difficult passages that are found on the contemporary work that I intend to play for the exams.