Double Bass Solo Accompaniments, reviews and comments page.

Book of 26 Piano accompaniments - A selection of pieces from DB Solo Books 1 & 2.

 Miscellaneous Reviews

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Accompaniments for Double Bass Solo:
“Beautifully done arrangements of top-choice, quality music.”
Customer Review (Amazon USA) 5 stars March, 2016

Accompaniments for Double Bass Solo:
“This book was everything it should be and more. It arrived in time and in good condition.”
Customer Review (Amazon UK) 5 stars May, 2010

“The spacing and layout of the scores is clear and easy to read. The dynamic markings are well placed and leave plenty of space for markings. Introductions of new left-hand techniques such as shifting into a new position, are indicated prior to each melody ... The short pieces introduce young students to numerous classic melodies and, when chosen with care, make a refreshing and much needed change of pace supplement to methods with less inspired selections.”
Magazine of the International Society of Bassists February 2004 (USA)

“It is a pleasure to receive some really useful double-bass publications this time. OUP have now published new expanded editions of Keith Hartley’s excellent Double Bass Solo books, the first volume of 50 melodies covering up to sixth position and the second comprising 60 pieces from the orchestral repertoire. These books are invaluable, being well presented, well graded, with good diagrams and clear scales in book 1. A volume of piano accompaniments for 26 of the pieces is also available.”
Music Teacher May 98

“Two excellent volumes here from Keith Hartley. The first volume here - Fifty melodies selected and adapted - takes the player through all positions up to the first octave and a little beyond in the form of a tutor. The second volume - A revised edition of sixty pieces from the orchestral repertoire - doesn’t go necessarily higher but there is an assumption that you know where the notes are by this stage and there is some “proper” music to play. All the pieces (Volume 1) are approached in a musical rather than a technical way, with correct dynamics and phrasings (attention to crescendo and diminuendo, legato and staccato,) with fingerings and bowings only where necessary. In short, it provides all the basics for a very secure technique without seeming to do so. Two sections are devoted to scales and their relevant arpeggios. The first comes after the music for half and first positions (without fingerings but with plenty of room to write them in) using all the keys and ending on D-flat. It includes melodic and harmonic minor scales, all written for one octave. The second section goes up, mainly in two octaves, to G. By putting these sections in central parts of the book rather than the rarely-visited back few pages, Hartley keeps you aware that most music consists of scales and arpeggios and they are ignored at your peril. Volume 2 is purely bass repertoire including all, I think, of Haydn symphonies with solos as well as Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Perfect Fool and Rossini’s String Sonata. And there’s really useful stuff from Verdi - not just the soli passage from Otello and solo from Rigoletto but that little pig from La Traviata. Interestingly enough, this is the only excerpt Hartley thinks needs fingering. There is a separate piano accompaniment for 26 of the tunes as well. Both Hartley and the music have been very well served by these Oxford University Press editions.”
Double Bassist Spring 98

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