Change has been made

I have now officially taken the road less travelled and joined the "Dark Side".

On Saturday October 21st, I made the switch to have my double bass tuned in 5ths. I went over to my instructor's place and in 10min, he threw on the new "Pirastro Obligato 5ths". As soon as the new strings were thrown on, it seemed like I had a brand new bass. The best way I can describe it is that it was as if my bass could finally breathe properly. The open strings seemed to ring more and the tone seemed less stifled and bottled up. Shortly after re-stringing the bass, my instructor broke down my technique and re-structured it from scratch. He basically said that in order to play in 5ths, you must have sound technique and that meant starting from the ground up. From what seemed like the most simple exercises, I felt very inadequate trying to fight through all that was given to me. It was as though I was going through music physiotherapy; my brain could picture what needed to be done, but my hands were uncooperative.

After an hour-and-a-half, I left my instructor's place with a great new sound in my bass and a renewed passion in relearning what I had already learned.