hi it's Geoff Chalmers here from discoverdoublebass.com if you want to
learn more about the double bass if you new to it if you're an experienced
player whatever please go and check out our website because we've got a range of
lessons and courses to help you find your own voice and move along on your
journey as a double bass player now today I'm joined by one of our faculty
the fantastic Olivier Babaz so Olivier thanks for joining me
hi Geoff thanks well I was hoping that you could talk to us today about this
keyboard that you have with with you and really you've been using this as we've
been filming a course about improvisation and I love the sound of it
and I love the way that you're playing it at the same time as you're playing
the double bass so maybe you could talk to us about your approach to using the
keyboard when you're playing the double bass and how it informs your practice
time and your compositions and yeah maybe talk a little bit about that
okay well the keyboard is a kind of an extension of the Kalimba playing I've
been doing for many years the keyboard is just a more practical and simple
approach to it and I see that I use it because it's a great addition to the
bass I'm not talking really about playing piano in this at the same time
and playing bass but just adding being able to add a few notes here and there
to me I'd vision it like our our harmonics that we have I see that as a
harmony but I can have access to any note so of course I work on my piano
skills at home detached from the bass I really work on the piano because
it's the best approach to harmony to me I mean the widest but with the bass I I
have some very simple exercises which are just the bass being the left hand
and the piano being the right hand just playing simple intervals harmonic
intervals for instance if I want to get used to catching myself my major 7th
very quickly I will maybe go up by tone and play every major 7 so
I was in I can do that with maybe the ninth it's it would sound great as well
do you practice with drones because it feels like an extension of that yes
absolutely so it's a the drone thing is more this is more a keyboard focus thing
so when when I'm really thinking about what I'm I'm playing on the keyboard
here but the drone approach is the other way around which in this case I will just
let a note or a few notes ring and from there I will practice really my I will
really practice my pitch I don't have my bow here but it's
really taking time to hear the intervals and then back to
well it's really musical a really enjoyable thing to listen to it's been
one of the highlights of the week actually and I think on that note what we'll do is
we'll finish this video by cutting to a performance of you playing which we
filmed earlier and I came in this morning and Olivier was performing this
and I absolutely loved to hear it I thought maybe we could put it at the end
of this video sure so people can kind of hear where
you can take this in a more this is the extreme end when you've worked on it
loads but I think it's a lovely addition to your practice and perhaps a little
bit more fun than just playing with the drone yes absolutely yes excellent so
we'll cut to that video now I hope you enjoy his performance and thank you so
much for watching at home