Posted by Rick Denney on May 17, 2002 at 00:08:05:
In Reply to: like a string bass.... posted by dennis on May 16, 2002 at 08:35:23:
Lots of folks emulate string bass pizzicatos with a staccato articulation and duration. Personally, it doesn't sound like any string bass I've ever heard. Listen to a fine string bass player. What I hear is a sound that has no space between the notes, but a definite attack and decay. The tuba makes a wall of sound, which is a different effect, but we don't eumulate the plucked string by playing short. I play in connected bell tones, but without the usual crispness of a bell attack, almost articulating with air alone if I'm playing something fast like a four-beat bass line.
But sounding like a string is almost impossible. Kenneth Sloan and I were discussing this over Bass Ale the other night, looking at mathematical formulations in his complement of textbooks on the subject. If you look at the physics, string sound and brass sound are profoundly different.
Rick "who thinks if the director wants a string-bass arco sound he should recruit a string bass player" Denney