The thing to remember about a double bass is that it is big. We had one in residence one summer, for a fortnight. Its case lay in a vagabond way over the armchair in the front room, while the body stretched like a somnolent teenager occupying the whole of the settee. Every time I entered the room I half expected to find a selection of empty beer cans on the floor beside it. Watching television became impossible; I could hear it snorting its disapproval at my choice of entertainment.
I am reminded of this fact (that a double bass is big) every time I resume work on the instrument. Work began 18 months ago, and I am slightly vain about its progress. The body is now complete, and it is safely resting on high (of course, the best place to store a double bass body is on a high shelf requiring one to stand on a high stool to get it up there) awaiting the union with neck and fingerboard. The scroll and pegbox are very nearly complete. The fingerboard, nearly a metre of it, is in place, and the task of Tuesday was to ready the neck for joining to the body.
Did I say a that a double bass is big? So, proportionately is the neck and fingerboard. I can look over at other makers on other benches doing the corresponding job for a violin, or even a cello. It seems but the work of an hour to flatten the bits of the neck root that need flattening. No need to finish the neck; that can all be done after neck and body are one. Things are different with a double bass.
I look at my lump. There are three hours of gouging to remove excess wood before final flattening with a plane can even begin. But the time is not the issue here, it is how to hold so large a beast. Gouging is a whole body experience, legs arms braced, the gouge itself merely held by the hands, but driven through the wood with body and soul propelling it. The minimal vices that suffice for the smaller instruments are not really up to securing this lump immobile while I attack it. Even the bench need be firmly anchored to the spot.
I should not complain of the neck and fingerboard being unwieldy. For a start, it was worse. The neck arrived in the shape of a young railway sleeper. Lifting it was done only after careful thought, and after a place to put it down again could be guaranteed. Secondly, it will be worse. Once neck and body are united..
Hence the need to proceed to the final finishing of neck and scroll before that union takes place. Even so, the task is fraught with awkwardnesses. One stage of the finishing process is best done for the smaller instruments (yes, even for cellos) by slinging the body of the instrument over your shoulder, holding the scroll in one hand while wielding the knife with the other. Er, I think, in this case, not.
And so a happy hour or five is passed, finding ways of supporting/restraining carving the neck as it increasingly resembles that which should be attached to the top of a double bass body.
Does this, you may ask, have anything at all to do with running the LAMM in June of this year? No. Not really. I just thought you'd like to know about it. It does, perhaps explain why long training runs don't happen on Tuesdays during term time.
Or maybe it does. The LAMM is itself no small matter, not something that can be tossed over the shoulder of a runner's year, details to be worked on at a later date. On announcing at the workshop that my intention was to make a double bass I was given plenty of (unsolicited) advice, mostly variations on the theme of "don't", most particularly and emphatically from some who have themselves previously made double basses. They have watched surreptitiously as I slogged through the desert wastes of gouging and scraping front and back, and thicknessing these. The pleasure of completing these tasks receives a dash of spice through proving the doomsayers wrong. So eyebrows rise when I reveal my intention to run the LAMM. I know there are watchers..
More parallels appear. I made five cellos, if you like, by way of apprentice pieces. I have run five marathons, if you will credit the Run for Phil unofficial run as a marathon (it was every bit as long and rather more muddy). And I find the same calm of purpose in approaching the task. Yep, it is a big one. There's a lot to be done. But I have learned, from those five cellos, those five marathons, the rewarding discipline of doing the training, one run at a time head down, secure of purpose.
Enjoy the run folks.
Today's training: 2.5 miles with the beast - a rangy golden retriever on loan for a few months. Just ticking over, out of respect for a poorly foot.
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