Sunday, March 23, 2008

Week 12 of year 2008 on the double bass

16 Mar 2008, Sun: In the morning, I practised one of the studies from Bottesini's Method for Double Bass Part One. Afterwhich, I worked on selected passages from Berkeley's Introduction and Allegro.

19 Mar 2008, Wed: There was no orchestra rehearsal. Nevertheless, I set aside time to practise Berkeley's Introduction and Allegro. The rewarding part is that my playing of legato notes has improved. The sound production has also improved.

20 Mar 2008, Thu: I had double bass lesson in the early evening. I feel a slight sense of achievement when I could better manage sight-reading the works that my teacher selected at random from the sight-reading book. There was still a few mistakes, but I was getting a little more competent than I was last week.

There was some time being spent on vibrato. I was glad that my tutor has been rather insistently to correct me when my vibrato technique was not accurate, and when my thumb was placed at the inappropriate places.

Finally, much of the lesson worked on Berkeley's Introduction and Allegro. I realised that I have been making mistakes to the articulations of some of the passages. It looks like I have to do some minor relearning. Learning is still fun nevertheless.

21 Mar 2008, Fri: It was Good Friday, so I did not have to report for work. I started the practice by sight-reading a few studies. Afterwhich, I sight-read Walter's The Elephant's Gavotte. The issues to be worked on are: Rhythms, rhythms, and rhythms. In addition, I need to work on improving the articulation.

Choosing a good programme can be a challenge at times. If it helps to choose a work that I have affinity for, so that I can play it for a recital, then the question would be: How do I know if I have an affinity for a piece of music?

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