Hello I am double bassist and composer
Edgar Meyer and I'm being told that I'm
going to answer some questions about the double bass.
Okay I'll look at the first one.
"What is a double bass used for?" Well I
guess most commonly it's used for
playing the lowest note or the lowest
voice in an ensemble. In the orchestra it
often doubles the cellos and gives depth
to the bass line and in jazz it is the
heartbeat or the pulse of the music and
then in some popular music they might
put electric bass on and it's just, 
double bass is just for a visual.
"Who is the best double bass player?" Probably the one who's influenced me the most is a
man named Ray Brown and he set a
standard that I aspire to. He found a way
to use the instrument within jazz that
was, that suited the music and suited the
instrument but you know he brought a
tremendous intellect and dignity if you
will to it and he found a way while
playing the bass line to enter into the
conversation of the other instruments in
a way where he was in no way lesser,
just lower.
"How is a double bass
different to a cello?"
Well, the cello is a little smaller I
think it's about half the size of a
double bass and it's probably more
acoustically ideal. It has a wider range
of color, like the low string is quite
deep and the top string is quite
penetrating and the bass has a slight
mustiness up and down as just the nature
of the beast a little bit.
I think one of the things that's quite
interesting about the double bass though
as compared to a cello is the double
bass is involved in a lot of cool music
that the cello is not involved in,
you know most notably jazz. I mean the bass
has been an important part of probably a
lot of the most interesting jazz that's
been that's been recorded, so it gives
just a sense of place and and something
to start from, something to be inspired by.
"What are the lowest and highest notes
the double bass can play?" Right now the
way I have this bass set up and tuned my
lowest note is a C
and that's the C that's a little bit,
it's still on the piano. Piano has three
notes lower than that, but it's and then
you know string instruments don't have a
highest note. You can just keep
going as high as you want.
Here's a little bit of an idea.
So, and you could keep going past that, I
mean there's no end you know.
I'll make the point.
There's no end to that. The
same on violin. You know it gets so high
before you're even to the end of the
fingerboard you know the point is why
would you even go any higher? And that's,
that's going too far. I don't advise
it, it's not nice to a listener, but
there's no limit in theory to how high
a string instrument can go.
"Why play the double bass?"
I think you know just
first and foremost would be that you
like the sound of it.
If you like the sound of it that would be the best starting place and then past that the
double bass has a natural involvement in
a wide range of music and if you add the
bass guitar which is a really strong
cousin of the double bass you can play
most types of music. I mean there's
there's some substantial music outside of
Western civilization you know, outside of
the Western music that doesn't use the
bass but most Western music has some
kind of a bass instrument and you know
if you're doing double bass and maybe
bass guitar you can play with anybody.
you can play in any band, you can play
in the orchestra, you can play in a jazz
ensemble, you can—you'll have friends.
"How do you play the double bass?"
The two most common ways to play it are to pluck it
and to bow it.
How does a double bass fit in a car?"
It takes a little bit of creativity sometimes
It's very easy if it's a large
SUV or a station wagon, but I've never
found a car I could not get it into.
Actually one of the hardest ones is
certain vans are configured in ways that
make it difficult, but a lot of the time
you can put it across the seats, a lot of
the time you can put it in the front
passenger seat, tilt it a little bit if
it's a small car and lean that seat back
quite a bit so it's taking up some
backseat too, but that often works.
But like I say with a little bit of
creativity I've been able to get it in
kind of almost everything.
