{"id":579,"date":"2007-12-09T13:45:34","date_gmt":"2007-12-09T21:45:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/12\/09\/instrument-or-house\/"},"modified":"2013-02-07T18:23:36","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T02:23:36","slug":"instrument-or-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2007\/12\/09\/instrument-or-house\/","title":{"rendered":"instrument or house?"},"content":{"rendered":"

An excellent article from the Toronto Sun<\/a> about the choice young string players must make early in their careers: top-flight instrument or house?<\/p>\n

When most 25-year-olds who have just landed their first full-time job start thinking big investment, they think house or condo.<\/p>\n

For Jeffrey Beecher, now in his second season as principal bass player for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the decision came down to house or bass.<\/p>\n

As of this fall, he is the proud \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and deeply indebted \u00e2\u20ac\u201c owner of a legendary musical instrument. It is, according to its fully documented history, the first double bass, made in 1690 by renowned luthier Vincenzo Ruggieri in Cremona, Italy.<\/p>\n

“It is the first double bass that was not a violone,” says the player of a split in the bowed-instrument family tree. Today, the double bass is the only one of the modern string instruments that is tuned in fourths rather than fifths.<\/p>\n

Its previous owner was the former principal bass of the Minnesota Orchestra, who, on retirement, decided to sell it. By sheer coincidence, Beecher had called his dealer in Holland within hours of the previous owner putting it on the market.<\/p>\n

The decision to buy was a foregone conclusion. “Through the kindness of a (TSO) board member, I had a guarantor for the loan,” relates Beecher. He won’t say how much he paid for it, other than comparing it to the price of a house. In Toronto, that’s a substantial sum.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An excellent article from the Toronto Sun about the choice young string players must make early in their careers: top-flight instrument or house?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[115,2],"tags":[3663,55,3666,62],"class_list":["post-579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-the-orchestra-world","tag-musicians","tag-orchestra","tag-oregon","tag-symphony"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-9l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":15314,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2019\/03\/25\/new-artslandia-profile-nina-decesare\/","url_meta":{"origin":579,"position":0},"title":"new artslandia profile: nina decesare, double bass","author":"Charles Noble","date":"March 25, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Double bassist\u00a0Nina DeCesare\u00a0is making history as the Oregon Symphony\u2019s first female bass player.\u00a0After beginning her path to a professional musician at age\u00a08\u00a0on a quarter-size bass, DeCesare went on to study with Paul Ellison at Rice University and with Fran\u00e7ois Rabbath in Paris. She represented Rice\u2019s Shepherd School of Music with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "double bass"","block_context":{"text":"double bass","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/instruments\/double-bass\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1706,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/01\/14\/this-weeks-concert\/","url_meta":{"origin":579,"position":1},"title":"this week’s concert","author":"Charles Noble","date":"January 14, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This week we're doing an immensely interesting classical series set that features four excellent pieces that I'll bet you've never heard before.\u00c2\u00a0 I certainly hadn't played any of them before, and that's becoming increasingly rare as I traverse my 13th season in the OSO. Here's the lineup: Classical Bass January\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"cives.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/b-maerzmusik1-400x548.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":85,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2006\/10\/25\/my-take-on-instrumentalist-stereotypes\/","url_meta":{"origin":579,"position":2},"title":"my take on instrumentalist stereotypes","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I was emailing back and forth with a cellist friend recently about some common traits which we each had observed in cellists (more on that later), and it made me think more about the semi-humorous post of yesterday about the different instruments and their players in the orchestra. So, without\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1878,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/02\/09\/future-double-bass-virtuosa\/","url_meta":{"origin":579,"position":3},"title":"future double bass virtuosa?","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a just adorable video of my OSO colleague Jason Schooler and his daughter Hope as they work together on the solo from Mahler's First Symphony:","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6914,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/09\/19\/the-real-first-day-part-two\/","url_meta":{"origin":579,"position":4},"title":"the real first day, part two","author":"Charles Noble","date":"September 19, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"The first full day of 'real' rehearsals is done, and it was a pretty good day. The bulk of the rehearsal time was spent on the Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2, which is a sprawling, romantic work which was the orchestra's calling card piece under former music director James DePriest. In\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "the orchestra world"","block_context":{"text":"the orchestra world","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/music\/the-orchestra-world\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5800,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2011\/02\/13\/from-the-mouths-of-bass-players\/","url_meta":{"origin":579,"position":5},"title":"from the mouths of bass players","author":"Charles Noble","date":"February 13, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Just read a great paragraph on why having all ages and levels of experience in an orchestra is so important, and why being ignorant of this is simply to be stupid: Like fibers of a rope, not a single one of which runs the entire length, the overlapping career spans\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "bloggers"","block_context":{"text":"bloggers","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/category\/bloggers\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}