All About That Bass

       In an attempt to gain inspiration for a third blog post this week, I searched for “Let it Go” string covers on YouTube, hoping to compare different groups and how they varied stylistically. Instead, what I found was a brilliant cover performed by a quartet composed only of bassists, called the Contrabass Quartet. I've only ever heard a group of bassist play one time before at a musical summer camp I attended a few years ago, and even then, I thought all the bass players had just been lumped together because they don't play in a traditional quartet. I had no idea that bass ensembles actually existed, but I was pleasantly surprised by their sound.

       Throughout all my years playing in orchestra, I've rarely played in a group with more than one bassist, so I'm not very used to hearing them. On the off chance that I did hear the bass in all those years, quarter notes were being played and I was using it as a metronome. In my mind, the bass had always been an instrument that kept time. I saw it as a big, thumping, heart that sat in the back of the room; thumping, thumping, thumping, right along to the beat of the music.

       What I never realized, until recently, was that the bass is a truly beautiful and unique instrument capable of producing all sorts of sounds and rhythms. The cover that I watched was of the song “Let it Go” from the Disney movie “Frozen”. This song, as I'm sure you've heard, includes some higher notes, which I never thought a bassist would capable of playing, but I was totally wrong. The players were able to shift so high that they were practically bending over their instruments, and on top of that, they played it perfectly in tune! The higher you shift, the harder it is to get accurate pitch and a good sound, and I was amazed at how well the bassists were able to execute such difficult notes so beautifully. Aside from amazing me with their pitch, they also blended together really well as a group. If you listened to the video with your eyes closed, it was almost as if there were a violin, viola, and cello playing instead of four bassists. Just listening to how diverse the parts were among the same instrument, really blew my mind. I don't think I've ever really heard more than one bass play at a time, and it blew my mind to hear what the instrument can really do.

       Based on my previous experience with the bass, I miss judged it. I never knew it could carry a melody, or play in the same octaves as a viola, or even function as anything besides a metronome! But the bass is very versatile and dynamic instrument that can do just about anything. It may be big and heavy and awkward to carry, but the bass really is a beautiful instrument that contributes so much more to an ensemble than I had ever thought previously.