December 28 2023
On December 28 2023, Her Excellency, the Right Honourable Mary Simon, Governor General of Canada, announced my appointment as a member to the Order of Canada. I could not be more proud or happy for this recognition.
To learn more about the Order of Canada and its significance to Canada, please visit: Order of Canada | The Governor General of Canada
This is a quick guide as to how to use the exercises efficiently and not obsessively or without getting bogged down.
The important part of doing a technical routine is getting one that you can do almost every day and not get bored or repetitious and maybe you even enjoy doing. I think it is very possible to devise a personal routine that takes an hour a day and everyone will be different to suit individual tastes. I don’t expect everyone to love all the exercises and if you don’t want to do a particular one, then don’t! They all come around again in some form.
A lot of time and effort went into all the text in these books, please read it? I am working on getting a French version, sorry not yet!
In Book 1 the first 7 exercises are all about getting your wrists mobile and reminding your body where and how your body hangs on the bass. Simply put, while hanging with both arms; in the left you have "the move", and in the right you have the horizontal wrist and finger action which should be happening with every bow stroke and in every exercise. Depending on how much time you have to practice you can do all of an exercise or just a bit and then move on. I want to show you where I think your priorities should lie.
Exercise 1, Find the Weight; the bottom line is stop and start the bottom string without pressing or putting on excessive amounts of rosin. Focus on the low strings. 2 minutes
Exercise 2, String Crossings; use wrist only to change strings very near bridge and just do slurred 8ths. Focus on the bottom two strings if time is limited. 2 minutes
Exercise 3, The Move; hang the arm, don’t move elbow, play on the right part of the pad and get smooth action. Leave out variations. 2 minutes
Exercise 4, Hanging; do two scales up and down but only to an octave and a half and with intense vibrato. Fast way, just two scales is, 1up, 2 down, 3 up and 4 for the last part of the neck. 4 minutes
Exercise 5, The Move; do a scale like I suggest in the box. Keep a steady pitch, no elbow, with vibrato throughout. Play Variation F. 3 minutes
Exercise 6, Long Shifts; play 4-1 on top string for an octave and a half, keep in the right part of the pads, never miss a shift and connect your ears to your hand. 4 minutes
Exercise 7, Slow Shift and Pivot; do a few in thumb position and a few in the neck position, keep the good parts of the pads and play 100% legato, no shift sounds. 3 minutes So far 20 minutes….
Exercise 8, Long Tones; this is really just for advanced players that really have all the mechanics very well learnt. It is possible that a technical routine could start here eventually. I also use long tones just to help people discover the feeling of how the left arm can hang from the neck and to keep the angles of the fingers perfect in every position. Then it is very, very slow! I used to try and play 30 second bows and more!
At this point choose whatever you like; one day choose rhythmical studies and select from;
Exercise 9, “el Perro”, Exercise 10, Limbering, Exercise 11, Knucklebusters, 5 minutes
Another day do some double stops,
Exercise 12, Thirds and Fifths, or Exercise 13, Petracchi Double Stops, 5 minutes
Now do some scale work for the bow and focus on the right wrist action. For a lot of players I would suggest Exercise 17 which can easily be continuous and abbreviated. If played as is, it takes about 20-25 minutes. Jump around and do it in 10 minutes or less. On days you don’t feel like doing that, mix that up with Exercise 20, Scale Progressions or Exercise 14, Bow Distribution. we are up to 50 minutes right now…..
Take Book 2 and work in one key at a time. On one day do Intervals 3rds-5ths, 6ths-8ths the next, Chords the next, Arpeggios the next and the Acceleration scale pattern the next. Focus on scales C or D. Move in a three day cycle and give yourself a day off. 10 minutes and more if you can spare it.
Et voila! A one hour routine that covered everything and moved fast! Don’t get bogged down trying to go fast…just try and do one thing as well as you can. If you have more time you can expand this routine out accordingly. If you are obsessive, then by all means do a three hour routine or more, and try and play 30 second long tones!
I am saddened to hear of the passing of violinist Victor Martin. I owe him a lot; he was my first Maestro with the Chamber Players of Toronto when I was just 18 years old and he arranged for me to go study with his friend Franco Petracchi. Victor and I played the Bottesini Grand Duo for at least fifty performances with the Chamber Players. He left Toronto to go back to Madrid and become Concertmaster of the Spanish National Orchestra in the late 1970's.
In this video he is playing with his cousin Jose Luis Garcia the former leader of the English Chamber Orchestra who passed away a few years ago; I'll never forget the excitement they caused when they played the Navarra with the CPT; that was the best thing I had ever heard! Jose Luis also became a big influence for me and we played fairly often together in the 1980's not only with the Grand Duo but on one really notable occasion (for me at least) the Beethoven "Archduke Trio" with the wonderful pianist, Robert Silverman. I'm very thankful that I got a last chance to see Victor in Madrid a couple of years ago when the LSO spent a whole weekend there.
I am really happy to be launching this new website which I hope will inform particular music lovers of my various activities, and will also prove to be a great help to those players who wish to tune their basses in fifths or are devotees of the Canadian School of the Double Bass! Besides my recordings and teaching materials which are available in my store already, I will soon add PDF's of solo material written in concert pitch, orchestral parts with bowings and fingerings, as well as videos and properly edited versions of my own transcriptions. I can release much of this material free of charge, but please don't expect it to be very neat!
If you have any particular requests of issues you would like me to address, or pieces of music, just let me know please. I am always happy to advise on how I would approach any given musical passage.
I must thank Travis Harrison of the Winnipeg Symphony without whose help this project and many others would never have seen the light of day! Thank you Travis and best wishes as you begin your season as guest principal bass of the Canadian Opera Company.