So this is just one example of a baroque
bass.  It's my baroque bass rather than the
baroque bass because the baroque times which
most of us count as being from 1600 to
1750 was actually a very transitional
time for bass instruments and is the
time when the double bass was born in a
way and became part of ensembles on a
regular basis.  No pun intended sorry
about that!  The range of them might go to
about the depth a cello goes to these
days or just slightly lower so one
tuning goes to an A which is here.  The
lowest string on a cello is about here
and there are other examples of tunings
from other parts of Europe that went a
whole octave lower than the cello. So
from here from the cello it went down to B,
A or a G might be the lowest note or an F
or an E or a D which is where my
instrument stops but there are other
records of instruments going down to a C
below that, a whole octave lower than a
cello.  What we do know is that, say for
example in France the bass, the double
bass wasn't known until 1700 and
there's records of Montéclair who is a
bass player with the French Paris Opera
bringing a double bass over from Italy
and using it for the first time in Paris
Opera.  Where it was used, for storms,
demons, magicians and choruses. Depending
on what country, what city you were in,
you had different bass instruments. They
might have three strings, four strings,
five strings, six strings some of them.
Some of them are described as being
human size but then how big were humans
in those days? Some of them were
smaller. Now this bass I feel very lucky
to have, it is an Italian instrument and
it is an old Italian instrument.  At one
point it was thought to be made in 1600.
That's been revised by repairers since
and the latest information I have is
that it could have being made in the end
of the 1600s.  So very late 17th century
instrument and you can see from the
look of it that there are lots of
repairs to the body, it's had lots of
cracks along the way but on a double
bass we manage to survive with those.
Somehow the sound is ok whereas on a
smaller instrument like a violin that
might be disaster. I mean I don't know if you
can pick out the detail but here, you can
even see a sort of arrow shape, you can
see how a bit of wood has been inserted.
I don't know violins could cope with
that but double basses somehow do.
One, this is smaller, I don't know many of
my modern based colleagues that would
consider this a big enough instrument
for a modern orchestra.  As orchestras
and other ensembles have developed, you
know, just think of pop bands. The main
emphasis on development has been greater
projection, greater volume, being able to
reach more people at once in bigger
venues and being able to impress people.
There's something really
impressive about the feeling of sound as
well as the sound of sound and you
really get that with a double bass. Quite
often when we take them into schools
especially with children who might have
hearing impairment, we ask them to put
their hands on the bass, you really feel
the vibrations.  You often feel them
through the floor.
So although the pitch of a double bass
is quite low and might be outside some
people's natural comfortable hearing
range in terms of pitch, you can feel it.
It adds a feeling and a depth and a
colour to an ensemble.  So, it is smaller.
The other difference is the fingerboard
is shorter.  So there is no solo
repertoire for baroque double bass or
certainly none that I have found, it is
not a solo instrument.  We rarely have to
play anything that goes higher than this
part of the instrument so we don't need
a long fingerboard for playing high
harmonics and whizzing around, we just
don't need it.
Instead of the nice shiny metal, what you
can probably see is that they look quite a
dull brown color and you might see how
they're twisted, so they do actually look
like string and that's because that's
how they're made, it is made of sheep gut
that is twisted and twisted and
stretched and washed of course to make the
strings. That's what they would have had
in the baroque times, that's what they
would have played on and so that's what
we do as well to recreate the sound that
we might have heard in the baroque world.
There's a wonderful description of how
gut strings are made on the Gamut
website.  Daniel Larson who makes strings
has gone into quite a lot of detail so
don't read it over your lunch because it
could make you feel a bit ill but he's
also included a lovely chart of how many
guts go into a string and he has said
that it could be that up to 32 sheep
were needed to make this string. Another
string maker Nick Baldock who works in
Germany has said a whole hillside of
sheep goes into making the bottom string,
one as thick as this. So obviously you
need more sheep, you need more space, you
need more wood to make double basses so
perhaps there weren't so many around and
they're not as easy to experiment with
as maybe smaller instruments are.
The advantage of the gut strings or the
difference with gut strings is that
they've got a warm and softer quality to
them and there's more width to the sound,
if that makes any sense, rather than
a narrow sort of projection of sound
there's
a band of sound. What I find with some of
the students that I teach, when they're
making the first move on to baroque bass
is that their first reaction is one of
horror because what you get under the
ear, you get quite a bit of rasp from the
string. You don't get an even smooth tone
that you get from well-made modern
strings but that doesn't carry too many
feet. So when you're in the audience you
don't get that rasp, you just get this
lovely warm sound world
All cellists I know and all violinist that I know
will have some sort of overhand hold
on their instrument but in the bass
world and in modern orchestras too
you'll see some using the French
over-the-top method and you'll see some
using the German with a deeper frog, this
bits the frog here, with a deeper frog
and their hand at the side and each
will argue that theirs is best but
that's that's for another time.
So what you see on this bow is that
compared to a modern bow the tip is
narrower and therefore lighter, there's
less wood so this is the heavier end and
this is the lighter end and that means
that it's easier to play stronger at
this end and quieter at this end. I'm
exaggerating for effect of course but
that is an inequality that in our style
of playing baroque music we will use to
exploit.  So rather than trying to
override it all the time we use that
inequality to our advantage and as a
form of expression.  The other thing
on a modern bow you'll see is a metal
band holding the hair flat and that
helps keep the hair taut and it helps
you give more of an attack at the start
of your note.  We don't have that so
attack has to be made with the fingers
and with the arms instead
One of the first pieces where there's
actually a line written for the Violone
as opposed to general bass it's
written for the contrabass is in a piece,
an opera by Marais and it is for a storm.
So where you would have the cellos
playing this
What you get is the contrabass adding
and okay by today's Hollywood standards
that's not much of a storm but to the
ears of the people of that time, that
would have made a big difference.
It brings gravitas to choruses and
what you find in some choruses especially
in Handel and maybe some later Bach, I'll
play a bit from the B minor mass, is that
the contrabass or the violone is added
when the bass singers sing, so not with
the tenors, we leave that to the cellos
of violas, but when the bass comes in
then they join so you might have this
with the tenors
If you add the double bass to that you
immediately get this extra depth and sound.
The beginning of the Matthew Passion for
example is one of my favourite
basslines, I'm a simple soul and I
really love pedal notes on a double bass.
So the beginning of the Matthew Passion
is a great example of the gravitas that
you get of adding 16 foot to a pedal.
And as
I say on its own it doesn't sound like
anything much but when you combine that
with the organ and the cellos and the
bassoons, that adds a real richness, maybe
it's like the umami of continuo.
