The orchestrator needs to understand how difficult it is to make the double bass speak well, and to what lengths players go to get the ideal sound. There are a number of different considerations, but I’ll touch on the three most important here. The first is what choice of bow. The most common bow that…
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The double bass body is an acoustic compromise, smaller than optimum for its range. This also affects the tone. The Wikipedia double bass article contains a charming bit of misinformation: “Despite the size of the instrument, it is not as loud as many other instruments due to its low range.” Actually, BECAUSE of the (smaller…
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(Tip no. 99 from “100 Orchestration Tips,” Part 5: Strings) A resonant low note on the basses can reinforce the upper partials of a major harmonic, with good and bad results. This is especially true if the bass is playing an open string a little too loudly. What will happen most often is that the…
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The C-extension on the double bass’s lowest string is not needed most of the time, even uncharacteristic to the instrument in a way. It’s a common tendency for beginning orchestrators to fall in love with the basement-scraping abilities of the double bass, and score much of their early efforts with that instrument playing almost exclusively…
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The double bass has a phenomenal range due to the length of its strings, but there are some limitations. The strongest register, of course, is the first octave and a 5th – the instrument was essentially built specifically to access those notes. The next octave is not so strong – the effort involved in playing…
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Double basses can carry the bass part alone, but the tone of their part will be different from cellos alone, or doubling with cellos. One of the great boons of orchestration since Beethoven is the liberation of the double basses from doubling the cellos exclusively. Basses can easily hold down the bottom end while the…
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(Tip no. 70 from “100 Orchestration Tips,” Part 4: Harp) (and if you tl:dr this tip, it’s on your own head) (*ahem*) The harp is NOT a piano! Do not assume what works on a piano will work on harp – much of the time, it won’t! This is the biggest error I see in…
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(Tip no. 67 from “100 Orchestration Tips,” Part 4: Harp) The range of the hands is not unlimited: the right hand cannot reach far below C in the bass staff, nor is it practical for the left hand to play complex lines around the very highest strings (due to visibility issues). This is also something…
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(Tip no. 65 from “100 Orchestration Tips,” Part 4: Harp) Some harps do not possess a high Gb string, and both bottom strings of Cb and Db may need to be tuned by hand. The double-action of the modern harp has limitations, as each pedal will essentially create tension on 6-7 strings of varying lengths…
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(Tip no. 66 from “100 Orchestration Tips,” Part 4: Harp) The most resonant sound from the harp occurs when the tuning is set to flat keys. This is because of the double-action harp tuning mechanism. The most relaxed, longest tuning of each string is when the harp tuning pedal is in the up or flat…
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