Was looking at Benjamin Patterson’s ‘Variations for Double Bass’ whilst conducting research for my dissertation where at some point I speak about Paper Piece. I didn’t think at my level of playing I could properly do the piece justice, but I was interested in his use of ‘plastic and wooden clothes pegs’ and wanted to experiment with these textures.

I was interested in seeing what the post it notes would do if I placed them underneath the strings, they had almost an old school distortion effect. I really liked the slinky. I wrapped the strings in the slinky and got some pretty intense tones, especially with the bow, like the hairclips on guitar, it gave me an extra access point to generate sounds from the instrument. The unique thing about the double bass is it’s an incredibly large resonator, I think due to the size it can amplify these rogue sounds in quite a impactful way. The next stage of this kind of performance is thinking about how I will use this in collaboration, I’m hoping to collaborate this year with my friend as we put out an album in lockdown a few years ago. The next stage is thinking about a live set up and what would work in the live setting. I have some piezo microphones on the way so I can explore how to best amplify the double bass. Preferably less noise than the recording I did with the Geofone. Hopefully I can find a low noise solution that isn’t going to feed back.

There are definitely ways I can improve this kind of performance but tonally I think I am reaching some interesting places with it. Practising regularly to improve my bow grip would be useful. The more I play the more control I will have over this dynamics and be able to shift between them in a more reactive way.