Upon rereading my update #2 (why I play) it seems like a bit of a downer. Here's a more uplifting answer:
This week in Lubbock Symphony, we're playing Beethoven's fifth symphony.* Unlike the Tchaikovsky passage mentioned below, the Beethoven is a top-ten double bass excerpt, and I've worked on it for years. I know it inside and out--I can almost play the entire third movement from memory.
Few things rival the feeling you get when you nail that passage. Which I fully intend to do this weekend.
Another good reason for playing (there were some moments in the Nutcracker like this): the sense of anticipation that you get during the long dominant pedal that segues from the third movement to the triumphant C-major (not D-sharp quasi-minor) of the last movement. The trombones come in, everything's down-bow... life is good.
*Strange that this is perhaps the single most popular, well-known piece of classical music and it gets performed comparatively rarely, at least among regional orchestras with whom I've played. In my ten-year freelance career, this is only the second time I've played it. Believe it or not, it's a surprisingly difficult piece from an ensemble standpoint--try getting eight cellos and six double basses to play a c-minor arpeggio in tune with each other...
This week in Lubbock Symphony, we're playing Beethoven's fifth symphony.* Unlike the Tchaikovsky passage mentioned below, the Beethoven is a top-ten double bass excerpt, and I've worked on it for years. I know it inside and out--I can almost play the entire third movement from memory.
Few things rival the feeling you get when you nail that passage. Which I fully intend to do this weekend.
Another good reason for playing (there were some moments in the Nutcracker like this): the sense of anticipation that you get during the long dominant pedal that segues from the third movement to the triumphant C-major (not D-sharp quasi-minor) of the last movement. The trombones come in, everything's down-bow... life is good.
*Strange that this is perhaps the single most popular, well-known piece of classical music and it gets performed comparatively rarely, at least among regional orchestras with whom I've played. In my ten-year freelance career, this is only the second time I've played it. Believe it or not, it's a surprisingly difficult piece from an ensemble standpoint--try getting eight cellos and six double basses to play a c-minor arpeggio in tune with each other...