it's Geoff Chalmers here from discoverdoublebass.com if you want to
learn the double bass if you're new to the instrument maybe you're a bit more
of an advanced player we have courses and lessons to help you on your journey
and there's a range of different genres and styles including orchestral
technique and we're joined by our wonderful orchestra teacher the great
Joseph Conyers so welcome Joe it's fantastic to have you here thanks for
having me well we're hanging out and we're answering a few questions from the
audience and Ray very kindly sent me several questions actually and we were
looking through them and discussing which ones to answer and one of them
stood out because it's such as such a bold kind of question so the question is
how to play the unplayable you know but it's such an important discussion
because we also were having a conversation recently about the storm
scene in Beethoven 6 and so yeah maybe you could speak on this a little bit and
see if we can get you know get to the heart of what he's asking sure so I work
with a lot of young people I conduct a Youth Orchestra and it's I don't like to
encourage this necessarily except for sometimes we're put in positions where
we have to do this and it was actually advice that someone from the Philadelphia Orchestra
gave me probably every reference something completely different
yeah but I use it in this in this case particularly when working with many
young people and they're working on hard music how to get through things and
sometimes Geoff you just have to fake it till you make it is that it is that the answer
so sometimes we can get so preoccupied with oh I've got played this many notes
in this bar and I'm never going to get going to get them all cleanly or
get them all executed before the next bar begins well here's the deal this is
I guess maybe Orchestra tips number one yeah when you land the game just stay
with the time whatever happens I always tell my students this it could be the
world's hardest passage but time keeps moving on so whatever happens in that
time while you're playing that passes are trying to it's between you and God
and then when the downbeat of the next bar hit comes you play that downbeat as
if nothing ever happened and that's one way ensembles stay together I think
one of the reasons it becomes difficult we get so fixated on trying to play
everything that it takes us from the time we get lost we lose the orchestra
and it gets it becomes very difficult now I'm not saying this to say that you
should fake everything that you play of course you want to spend time in the
practice room learning working working up the notes to speed make sure that
you're getting them in tune but sometimes you have to strategize we're
down to the wire strategize on how you'll get out of it just so you'll
always stay in time and keep the ensemble together now that said I do
want to add that there are places like Beethoven's Sixth Symphony the I mean
you can't even tell the way he wrote the part he gave the the basses these four
notes these 16 notes and then the tells have quintuplets over that it's not
supposed to sound pretty so basically you see the bass section doing is this
but you see even when I'm doing that I'm hitting the F the most important that's
probably the most important thing is you hear yeah I mean everything else is whatever
Beethoven Beethoven's goodness says between you and God at that point no one
else can even tell what's going on but you still you're trying to get land on the downbeat
that's trying to a whole yeah hold the time that's correct yeah these things
you know that in that instance to my ear it sounds more like a gesture you know
the perhaps than a you know set of specific pitches that do to be played
because Geoff that's exactly what it is it's a musical gesture it's a thunderstorm
yeah thunderstorms don't sound like it's supposed to be chaos I'm glad that my chaotic time that I spent in
orchestra when I was at college was actually the right thing I just
remember feeling like I was in a storm when I yeah yeah anyway Joseph thank you so
much for answering that Ray thanks for your questions have really appreciate
you sending them across we hope that everybody has learned something from
this and if you want to learn more from Joe please go and check out these lessons
and courses over at discoverdoublebass.com