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The double bass is a musical instrument, the largest and lowest-tuned member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the violin, viola, and cello. It resembles the other members of the family, but is much larger and has slight differences in shape. Other names for the instrument (especially when used in folk, bluegrass, and jazz music) include string bass, acoustic bass, bass violin, doghouse bass, dog-house, bull fiddle, contrabass, and upright bass. A person who plays this instrument is called a double-bassist or contrabassist.
The double bass compared to the rest of the violin family is not an instrument that has gained a physical standardisation (even today).
In general there are two major approaches to the design of the outline shape of the double bass, these being generally Violin or Viol (and very rarely the guitar). The back of the instrument can vary from being a carved rounded back similar to the violin or a flat and angled back (with variations inbetween).
The double bass, unlike the rest of the violin family, still reflects influence and can be considered partly derived from the viol family of instruments. In particular the Violone , a bass viol.
Elements of this viol influence are tuning in fourths to avoid a too long finger stretch, whereas the violin, viola and cello are tuned in fifths. Other differences with the violin, viola and cello are the (sometimes) sloped shoulders of the instrument, the often angled back (both to allow easier access to the instrument, particularly in the upper range) and the near-universal use of machine heads for tuning.
This lack of standardisation means that one double bass can sound and look very different from another. To see some of the variations and construction aproaches discussed above see the following web sites.
Stefan Johann krattenmacher Instrument builder
The player stands or sits and holds the instrument upright, slightly tilted toward him or her. When standing, the top of the instrument (the head) is approximately at the same height as the players head. At the base of the double bass is a 'spike' or 'foot' which rests on the floor. As with other string instruments the double bass is played with a bow (arco) or by plucking the strings (pizzicato).
Modern instruments are usually tuned E-A-D-G, with the upper G being an octave and a fourth below middle C (approx 98 Hz), and the E almost 3 octaves below middle C (the bottom E on a modern piano, approx 41 Hz). A variety of tunings and numbers of strings were used on a variety of confusingly-named instruments through the sixteenth to the early twentieth centuries, when the four-stringed tuning above became almost universal. Since the range of the double bass lies largely below the standard bass clef, it is notated an octave higher (hence sounding an octave lower than written). This transposition applies even when reading the tenor clef and treble clef, which are used for the instrument's upper range.
The double bass is used extensively in western classical musicThis article is about the broad genre of classical music in the Western musical tradition. For the period of music in the 18th century see Classical music era, for articles on classical music of non-Western cultures, see: List of classical music tradition as a standard member of the string section of symphony orchestras and smaller string ensembleThe word ensemble can refer to a musical ensemble a statistical ensemble a quantum ensemble a DAB ensemble a fluid mechanical ensemble.s. However, it has perhaps achieved more prominence in jazz, bluesBlues is a vocal and instrumental musical form which evolved from African American spirituals, shouts, work songs and chants and has its earliest stylistic roots in West Africa. Blues has been a major influence on later American and Western popular music,, and early rock and rollRock and roll also called rock is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony backing), electric guitars and a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. As a cultural phenomenon, where it is usually played with amplification and almost exclusively played with a form of pizzicato where the sides of the fingers are used in preference to the tips of the fingers.
In traditional jazz and swing, it is sometimes played in the slap style, a more vigorous version of pizzicato where the string is plucked so hard it then bounces off the finger board, making a distinctive sound. (Notable slap style bass players have included Bill Johnson, Wellman Braud, Pops Foster, and Milt Hinton .)
Slam Stewart , a jazz bassist in the 1940s, took solos in which he bowed the bass and sang along in octave harmony. Charles Mingus is another notable jazz bassist, regarded as one of the foremost virtuosi of the instrument in the genre.Dance-band bass players had used conventional microphones as pickups for years without altering their playing styles. Some recent variations of the double bass have been fitted with electromagnetic pickups like an electric guitar's and are designed exclusively for use with electric amplification. These instruments, generally known as electric upright bass es (mostly called [EUB]) often have a minimal or skeleton body, to reduce size and weight. The first electric upright basses have been built around 1935 (by Rickenbacker). However, it took quite some years to develop high quality transducers to amplify the sound. Nowadays electric upright basses have become quite popular. One of the most famous EUB players is Sting. He used to play a Dutch brand, a Van Zalinge.