double bass

The double bass has four strings, formerly three, tuned (top or centre). The first of these is the one in general use. The range can be artificially extended either by tuning down the bottom string or by the addition of a fifth string. In the latter case the instrument is normally tuned as shown in the bottom illustration. If the C string is tuned down to B, this will continue the tuning in fourths.

Largest and lowest-sounding instrument of the violin family. It is 1.85 m/6 ft high and is played resting on the ground with the performer either standing or sitting on a high stool. Its sloping shoulders and flatter back link it to the viol family, where it is descended from the bass viol or violone. Until 1950, after which it was increasingly replaced by the electric bass, it also provided bass support (plucked) in popular music, although it is still the main bass instrument used in jazz. Performers include Domenico Dragonetti, composer of eight concertos, the Russian-born US conductor Serge Koussevitsky (1874-1951), and the jazz player and composer Charles Mingus. The double bass features as a solo in ‘The Elephants’ from Charles Camille Saint-Saëns's Carnival of the Animals (1897).

The double bass has a range of just over three octaves and is tuned in fourths: E1, A1, D2, and G2.