Hello.

Now we are going to meet a bassist on our symphonic safari adventure.

Lets go!

Hello.

Hello, I'm Violetta Vibrato, but you can call me Vi.

Hi, Vi.

Your name is George.

That's right.

Can you tell me a little about yourself, George?

Well, I am, as you said, a bassist.

I teach at Florida State University and I started playing the bass when I was ten and I'm from South Carolina.

Oh, wow, thank you.

That is notable.

South Carolina I haven't been to yet.

Now I know that you said you were actually in the fourth grade when you started playing.

Can you tell me, though, a little about the instrument?

And then I'd like to learn why it is that you picked that instrument, but I don't know very much about the bass.

Well, the bass is a member of the string family, which means that our sound is made very much like a violin, viola or cello.

So we pull the bow across the string and the string vibrates and really all of the air inside of the instrument vibrates.

So it's all made of wood, and we have these things on the side called F holes, and our sound comes out of those F holes and fills the room.

Wow, that plays really low.

Can you play that again and tell me how low it can go?

Well, the lowest note that we can play is called a C. Yes.

And it's quite low.

That is quite low, so is it only because it has strings that it's a part of the string family or is there another reason that makes it a part of this string family of instruments?

Primarily that it has strings, It's also if you saw side by side the violin, viola, cello and bass, you would see that they're all shaped very much the same way, they do, except this one's rather large, rather large.

So you were in the fourth grade when you became so dazzled by the bass.

What is it that captivated you?

Well, I was in grade school and a quintet from the local high school came to play for us.

And I was immediately captivated by the bass because it was so big and so low, and it just caught my eye and my ear.

I have to say I think it's the coolest that it is the biggest and the heaviest of all the instruments and with the lowest pitch.

That's a lot of -ests, I know.

What was the first piece of music that you learned to play on the bass?

Well, it's a long time ago, but I do remember discovering in my first year of playing that I could play melodies and specifically the song Lean On Me.

I know that song!

Which I can play without shifting up and down the bass.

So it went like this.

That was really good, and I felt like singing, but I don't think you want to hear me singing it must take a lot of practice to learn how to play that.

Do you practice a lot?

I try to practice every day or maybe six days a week, so I have one day off.

Where do you like to practice when you do?

well at home or in my office at Florida State; It's sort of an indoor pursuit.

I would love to be able to play outside, but wood instruments don't do well in the elements.

No, they do not.

Do you have like a favorite piece that you like to play like your favorite piece if somebody says, I want to hear a piece on the bass?

What would it be?

I would probably say the bass part from Beethoven's ninth Symphony.

I know that one, too.

Can you play it?

Because I don't know if everybody knows it like I do.

Well, we and the bass section get to play the main theme, which we call the Ode to Joy first in the orchestra.

That was beautiful.

So I don't know if everybody knows that, but despite how huge the double bass is, it's not actually the loudest in the orchestra.

It's because the pitch is rather low that it's not really high in volume.

Is that right?

Correct.

So what do you do in the orchestra to make up for the fact that it's so low?

Well, in general with the bass and really all the other strings, we just have to have more people on stage.

So you would never have as many trumpet players as you have bassists or cellists because the trumpet is just so loud.

It is so loud.

But we need to have eight or ten basses if we play a really big piece like Beethoven's ninth Symphony for everyone to hear what we're doing.

Do you have a favorite orchestral piece that you like to play so I can hear one?

Well, again, I would probably come back to Beethoven's ninth Symphony, but there's another neat part in it.

Let me hear it.

That was smashing.

Thank you.

Now I imagine that you get to travel a lot as a musician.

Where have you traveled and how far have you traveled and what's your most favorite place that you've ever traveled?

My goodness.

I think probably the longest trip I took was with the Boston Pops Orchestra, and we went all the way to South Korea .

Oh my word.

That is a long way.

And that was a really fun trip.

But I would say that probably the most fun I had traveling with the bass was to play in an orchestra at the Super Bowl.

Oh my word, you got to the Super Bowl.

And so I like to tell my friends that I played in the Super Bowl.

But then they get confused because I'm not a football player.

I'm not confused at all because I've heard music at the Super Bowl.

Yes.

Which one was it?

It was Super Bowl 36 in New Orleans.

Oh, that is so exciting.

You know what?

I think of you going to concerts or places like the Super Bowl.

I'm thinking, you must really like carrying around your bass friend.

Do you see what I did?

That bass friend sounds like best friends everywhere with you.

When you don't have your bass friend with you, do you miss your bass friend?

I do, but I will admit that carrying it around is a burden sometimes.

But I do miss it when I can't practice.

I have to tell you, one of the things that I've been learning about all the instruments is that you could make animal sounds with them.

Is there an animal sound that you can make with the bass that I would recognize?

Sort of.

There's a piece by a French composer named Saint-Sanës called the Carnival of the Animals, and the movement, called the elephant, features a solo for the bass.

Really can I hear it?

That really sounds like I could hear the elephant like moving like that with the trunk swinging the whole time, that was amazing.

OK, now this is very, very odd, but I like to learn a little bit more about the musicians that I meet.

These questions that I'm going to ask have nothing to do with music, really, but I get to learn a little bit more about you.

Are you game?

Absolutely.

OK, so they're called rapid fire questions.

So whatever comes to your mind, first just answer.

OK, OK. Coffee or tea?

Coffee, sunrise or sunset?

Sunset?

Yes.

Coke or Pepsi?

Coke.

Hmm.

Plane or train?

plane I like them both too.

Cheetos or Fritos?

Fritos, Fritos.

Oh, you've been so wonderful to talk to today George, thank you so much for joining me on my symphonic safari adventure.

Thank you so much.

It's been a lot of fun and thank you all so much.

Bye bye!