From the Neck to Thumb position

In this new section you will find some technical exercises relating to a main aspect of a doublebass: "The passage from the neck towards the Thumb position". I hope they might be interesting for someone.

FROM THE NECK TO THE THUMB POSITION

If you are going to study the Thumb Position little by little.

... click on the photos to enlarge. You can freely copy them!!

Also fingerings are mine and they usually follow the Petracchi's conception

There are a lot of brief exercises, I know. But I think it's a great way to develope this very difficult passage

Let's go on

THE "question" about DRAGONETTI's Concerto in A major

Well, sorry for my no correct English, but I will try to explain that the famous Concerto in A major by Dragonetti, was written by Edoard Nanny and edited from Sankey. It's not only my opinion but also important musicologies have noted something wrong.

First of all FIONA PALMER who has written a wonderful book about Dragonetti in the English period, strangely doesn't talk of a A major concerto like the one we study more. In the page above (dr. Palmer doesn't kill me for copyright!!!), in fact, we can see the A major original Concerto no. 3 (Ed.Malaric, a little bit far from the one that we can find in the British Museum ... much more different).

Well, maestro Ubaldo Fioravanti has recorded the other "fragments" of concerts written by Dragonetti, but the one written by Nanny/Dragonetti is invisible. In the British Museum it seems there's no trace of this Concerto. 

Ok, now we analize another point of you. I have seen the Dragonetti's Gasparo da Salò 1590. Dragonetti wasn't  a "giant", so when he wrote compositions for double bass or in duet with other instruments, he always used the same technique. Let's see the 12 waltz, the other complete musics. We can say: this Dragonetti 's signature. I.e.. It was very difficult that he wrote a lot of harmonic notes (compare the second time in the two concerts ... ) probably because the same had some problem to reach them easily.

At the contrary if we give a look at Nanny's works they are very similar with the one attribuited to Dragonetti. It's "lapalissiano" (like to tell: it's impossible that Dragonetti could write in Nanny's way).

So, the motives could be very different. Perhaps Sankey needed a Concerto to put asap on the market. I don't know! Surely, none would have bought a Nanny Concerto in A major. Perhaps under the name of Dragonetti it was much better. A lot of things we have found but others live in a mistery.

Today in International Competition we read"Concerto in A major" by Nanny/Dragonetti !! It's absurd!!

Probably to say: pay attention is not the one by Malaric,but the one by Nanny (first time is very difficult, 2nd not so beautiful, 3rd very difficult and here we know the hand of maestro Domenico Dragonetti, in the original one).

By the way, if we compare Malaric's revision

of the original one with the Stefano Sciascia's

performance ... well ... there are differences.

Asap, an interview with maestro Stefano Sciascia.

dr.Vito Liuzzi  

BOTTESINI and THUMB POSITION: two Schools in comparison

SUMMARY

Well, with my no correct English, I will try to explain something about the ancient technique for the Thum Position.

First of all, I think that Giovanni Bottesini has been the first to use also the "little finger" (he call it number "4") in thumb position or harmoniques.

But the most interesting is this one:

"When Bottesini used to go in Thumb Position

he pressed on the fingerboard the thumb but the other fingers must press a lot but without

touching the fingerboard. This was the way of his playing. How can it be possible? I don't know, but I think that the action of his three gut strings should be quite high. It's no possible to play in his way with the 1st string at mm. 5 from fingerboard.

But there's another thing.

Bottesini was convinced that his way of playing in the thumb position was the better at that time, because all the notes play very clear and powerful.

But why did he specified it?

Because he knew that there were another School of Thought for which the better way to play in the thumb position was to press all the fingers on the fingerboard whith great force. But Bottesini tell us he didn't like it because of the quality sounds.

So two Schools in comparison. And Dragonetti what sort of technique used?

It's an aspect very important, because I think

the "ancient" concertos or sonatas ... at that time were played much slower respect to the one we do nowadays!! So if my thesis can be exact (I don't know), Dragonetti, Sperger, Vanhal, Dittersdorf, bottesini and so on must be play much slower. Why? A question of philology!! But the Double Bass seems to be the instrument among the bows for which the

concept of philology doesn' t exist.

Everyone tell us his trascription is the original one and the best, other Editions are totally different and so on. Why? The answer is simple. All must work.

Ops ... sorry! There was another "school": in thumb position they used to push the string towards their left. In Cantabile it was good, but in fast passages??

Vito Liuzzi

ITALO CAIMMI

Scale e Studi (Scales and Studies)