Double Bass What do YOU think is our hardest orchestral excerpt?

Leif Dering

Leif Dering

Supporting Member
Apr 4, 2019
219
301
4,976
North Bay, CA
#1
Just curious what the hivemind thinks... I'm working on a list for an audition and one of the excerpts is the Bach Badinerie. I think it's the most difficult excerpt I've ever prepared, I looked at it a bit a couple years ago but even with the massive improvements I've made since then it's been really challenging to get it clean, at the tempo I want, and embodying the baroque style and character how I want, and phrasing how I want... no other excerpt has been this challenging for me, not even Mozart 35 or Heldenleben.
 
#3
LeifTheBeef said:
Just curious what the hivemind thinks... I'm working on a list for an audition and one of the excerpts is the Bach Badinerie. I think it's the most difficult excerpt I've ever prepared, I looked at it a bit a couple years ago but even with the massive improvements I've made since then it's been really challenging to get it clean, at the tempo I want, and embodying the baroque style and character how I want, and phrasing how I want... no other excerpt has been this challenging for me, not even Mozart 35 or Heldenleben.
Click to expand...
Maybe you have answered your own question...the hardest audtion piece is the one that stretches your personal playing ability the most.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Leo Smith, AGCurry and Leif Dering
#7
My perpetual nemeses are Beethoven 3 mvt 3 and Mozart 40 mvt 4, so I guess those are my answers.

Honorable mentions go to excerpts with a lot of crossing two or three strings (e.g. both pages of the Beethoven 9 Turkish March) because they require so much time spent on making the first note on the new string sound like all the notes before it, especially when the notes before the double/triple string crossing are off the string: the last note on the old string has to release to the new string and first note on the new string has to start from the string to facilitate the string crossing, but the ending of the last note before the string crossing and the beginning of the first note after the string crossing have to sound like there is no string crossing despite the different mechanics involved to make said string crossing.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: gnypp45, elberon, AndersLasson and 1 other person
#8
the_Ryan said:
My perpetual nemeses are Beethoven 3 mvt 3 and Mozart 40 mvt 4, so I guess those are my answers.

Honorable mentions go to excerpts with a lot of crossing two or three strings (e.g. both pages of the Beethoven 9 Turkish March) because they require so much time spent on making the first note on the new string sound like all the notes before it, especially when the notes before the double/triple string crossing are off the string: the last note on the old string has to release to the new string and first note on the new string has to start from the string to facilitate the string crossing, but the ending of the last note before the string crossing and the beginning of the first note after the string crossing have to sound like there is no string crossing despite the different mechanics involved to make said string crossing.
Click to expand...
with no strings attached...
 
  • Like
Reactions: AndersLasson
#9
LeifTheBeef said:
Just curious what the hivemind thinks... I'm working on a list for an audition and one of the excerpts is the Bach Badinerie. I think it's the most difficult excerpt I've ever prepared, I looked at it a bit a couple years ago but even with the massive improvements I've made since then it's been really challenging to get it clean, at the tempo I want, and embodying the baroque style and character how I want, and phrasing how I want... no other excerpt has been this challenging for me, not even Mozart 35 or Heldenleben.
Click to expand...
Badinerie is painful. As much as I try different tactics (play it slow, play it at tempo but adding one note at a time) it’s still so hard. Watching Jeremy McCoy do it helped with some fingering and bowing choices. And it’s much better than it was a year ago. I find with Bach, it’s always the sweetest part that is the hardest. Which makes it all the more discouraging when I fumble it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AndersLasson
#11
Alexis Duntov said:
Badinerie is painful. As much as I try different tactics (play it slow, play it at tempo but adding one note at a time) it’s still so hard. Watching Jeremy McCoy do it helped with some fingering and bowing choices. And it’s much better than it was a year ago. I find with Bach, it’s always the sweetest part that is the hardest. Which makes it all the more discouraging when I fumble it.
Click to expand...
Update: it’s gotten considerably better in the last week after I auditioned it badly (but still got into the community orchestra). I found upping the tempo by 2-3 bpm at a time worked well. Going from 70-80 bpm was not that hard. But from 80 to 85 it fell apart in the usual places. So I increased it 1 bpm at a time and that helped. My target is 100.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back