Ben’s Blog

I haven’t posted much bass stuff of late, mostly because I’ve been working on gamba and upright this summer. But, I’m always relating things I’m working on back to electric bass eventually.

Here’s a practice snippet of the Allegro from gamba Sonata No. 2 in D Major. I’m playing along with the definitive recording by J0rdi S@vall and T0n K00pman (A=415).

Throughout this piece one thing that really helps is to think about extensions within a position, spanning 5 or 6 frets within a position. For instance, in the first few bars I’m playing a position that spans 5 frets. And, in the 3rd measure, I’m barring the 14th fret with my first finger, that really helps too. Later when I hit that high A, I’m just stretching for it, but really remaining in position. Going for stretches and extensions within a position, rather than thinking about shifting too much.

Not a very good take, but take a listen anyway, and below there’s a start of a quick transcription to show my approach to the fingerings.

If you’re looking for an edition, I would highly recommend the Dover ISBN 0-486-25641-3, which includes the cello suites. www.doverpublications.com.

bentorrey :: Jul.26.2008 :: Musical Thoughts, Repertoire :: 2 Comments »

One hot summer day between my junior and senior year in high school (1989), I was mowing the lawn and my friend Pete pulled up in his Jeep. “We’re going to see the Who at Sullivan Stadium! Jump in,” he says. “But Pete, we don’t have tickets, forget it man, I’m not going,” I said. “Jump in!” he said. I couldn’t take no for an answer; I had been around Pete enough to know that sometimes you had to follow him on these types of journeys. “All right, let me finish up the lawn and tell my Mom,” I said.

Anyway, so we drive to the show, park like 2 miles away, walk over there, and just as we’re getting to the stadium, we can hear them starting with Pinball Wizard. Just as we’re starting to wonder how we’ll ever get in, a stretch limo pulls up to us. A windows slides down and a guy says, “Hey, you guys need some tickets?” “Are you kidding?” we exclaim. “How much do you want for them?” we ask. “Nah, kid, take ‘em. Enjoy the show”. And, that we did. Unbelievable.

Looking back on that really cool happening, two things come to mind.

First, I love the idea of living life like Pete did in that example. Sort of a general belief that the universe will make whatever you want to do available for you. What if I lived (just) a bit more like that? Took a few more chances, believed in great outcomes happening. Had some faith that it would all work out. What would I try if I believed like that?

Second, I miss my friend Pete. Pete and I played in a band together at that time. We played a lot of fun Who stuff, some Steely Dan and Donald Fagan stuff, a lot of his original songs too. I remember him insisting that I sing backup vocals with that famous persistence. “You’re singing backup vocals!” You just couldn’t say no to Pete. “OK, I’ll try.” After high school we sort of drifted apart though. He had moved out to Colorado for music school somewhere and become a music teacher from what I heard. I’ll have to look him up and get back in touch. I’m sure he’s got a lot of great stories of his faith being rewarded, and I’d like to thank him again for teaching me such a great lesson years ago.

bentorrey :: Jul.25.2008 :: Stocking the Pond, Filling the Well :: No Comments »

OK, so here’s my latest crazy idea. What I’d like to do is setup a 6-week online course to discuss playing a Bach Cello Suite on electric bass. Sort of a peer-to-peer discussion, with me sort of leading the discussions. We’d spend a week on each movement of a suite (starting with # 1), “meeting” 1 night a week via video chat. We could record the video chat sessions and post them to a Moodle site where we could post practice takes and ideas for fingerings and etc.

I think that would be cool and very do-able, now is there anyone who would like to do that with me? Current thought is to do it 6 Monday nights in a row, probably at 9PM EST.

I should probably also mention the basics of my approach to playing Bach Cello on bass, which includes a high C string and playing the music in the range written. I’ve got scratch tracks of suites 1-5 online if you haven’t checked that out.

bentorrey :: Jul.09.2008 :: Repertoire :: 3 Comments »

I had such an awesome time up at the Early Music & Country Dance Week last week in NH. An entire week of great coaching from awesome staff, great fellow student musicians, beautiful nature scenery, incredibly beautiful music. It was fantastic, I could have stayed another month!

I brought my bass gamba and focused on that for the week. I feel like I’m gaining some ground in “reversing” my bowing and getting comfortable with the bowing, which for me has been the hardest part of the gamba ramp up. (if you don’t know what I mean, in gamba bowing the up bow is the emphasis stroke that you start most phrases with, not the down bow, but you call it a “push” bow, “pull” is toward you.)

The staff and fellow students were also really encouraging about the electric bass stuff I do, and I played the Bach Cello Suite 1 Prelude at Friday’s night’s fun night concert on my EAB. Not the best version I’ve done, but it was fun to play and people dug it.

I can’t wait for next year, and hope I’m really comfortable on gamba by then!

bentorrey :: Jul.03.2008 :: Gamba, Musical Thoughts :: No Comments »