Double Bass Lesson Number One

So this evening I had my first double bass lesson. Now I know I don’t actually have a double bass but I have been playing the bass guitar since I was a teenager and, to be frank, I’ve had a hankering for one for a while (a double bass that is, not a teenager). So, on the basis of try before you buy, I thought I’d take a lesson to find out if I’d get along with the aforementioned instrument. And you know what – I now have three parts of my anatomy aching as a result: my left shoulder (due to my arm being placed at an angle of seventy degrees for an hour), the little finger of my left hand (due to it being stretched to assume the correct fingering position) and the small of my back (because I had to stand up very straight indeed as the double bass rested onto my fat belly). However, I did get to practise Paul Chambers’ riff to ‘All Blues’ and a very simple blues scale too. I can, of course, blow this kind of thing out of my arsehole on the electric bass but it was all about learning the technique and, equally importantly, the mind-set of the jazz double bassist. Next step is – of course – to buy one of these beasties so that lessons proper can commence. After that, of course, will come the beret and the open-toed sandals.