You'll never seduce anyone with a double bass

The National Foundation for Youth Music is worried. Very worried indeed. A vital aspect of national life is being eroded, as fewer and fewer people follow a traditional trade. Soon, the trade will be in the hands of a few ageing practitioners, living in hovels in Wiltshire glades; even more tragically, they warned, it might soon be necessary to import foreigners to do the essential but unattractive job. In short, this is the problem. No one is learning the double bass.

The National Foundation for Youth Music is worried. Very worried indeed. A vital aspect of national life is being eroded, as fewer and fewer people follow a traditional trade. Soon, the trade will be in the hands of a few ageing practitioners, living in hovels in Wiltshire glades; even more tragically, they warned, it might soon be necessary to import foreigners to do the essential but unattractive job. In short, this is the problem. No one is learning the double bass.

Along with the trombone and the bassoon, the numbers of people learning it are falling; everyone seems to be turning to flightier instruments such as the flute and the clarinet. Where, oh where, you may ask, has the sense of duty and humble devotion of today's youth gone? Are the lower stretches of the orchestra to be filled, from now on, with Balkan refugees?

Kids, I have some advice for you. Don't listen. Stick to your guns. When Christina Coker of the National Foundation for Youth Music jumps out at you and starts saying that the double bass is quite a nice instrument, really, and offers lots of fun and satisfaction, reply with a snort and a dismissive wave. It may seem harsh, but I can tell you this; taking up the double bass is no kind of way to increase the sum of human happiness.

I played the double bass for years, and frankly, it is one of the most frustrating and soul-destroying occupations you could possibly imagine. You start, and are initially a bit discouraged by the totally horrible noises you are making. Nevertheless, you stick with it – Week Seven, half position, this week's exercise, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star". There is almost nothing as eviscerating to the human spirit as playing, or, worse, having to listen to, "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" played in half position on the double bass.

Grunt, grunt, grunt. Keep your bow level! Keep your elbow up! Put your tongue back in! Anyway, you persevere, knowing that, after all, every instrument sounds a bit rough when you start to learn. It is only after five years of steady practising, when you have reached the dizzy heights of Saint-Saëns' "The Elephant", and still your family run screaming from the room whenever you start to play, that the awful truth sinks in. That is what it sounds like.

There is almost no music to play, either, once you get past bleeding Saint-Saëns. There is a sonata by Hindemith, which sounds exactly like someone shredding cardboard, and some sub-Haydn concertos which you would not wish on your worst enemy. But even if there were any music you actually wanted to play, you couldn't get anyone to listen to it. Once, I spent about six months getting over the appalling challenge of playing the Bach D major cello suite on the thing, and when I unveiled it to my public, the verdict was unanimous. It sounded like someone dragging a wardrobe over a concrete floor.

You can forget any question of solo glory, then. But what about playing in an orchestra? Well, my experience is of long stretches of considerable boredom, punctuated by brief flashes of unforgettable terror. Hardly any composer can be bothered to think hard about the double bass, and the result is that most of your time is spent going plonk, two three four, plonk two three four, where the hell are we? And the rest of it is struggling with passages of sheer, unbridled horror.

It's years now since I played in an orchestra, but even now I wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, after a nightmare in which once more I'm 17 and, alone in a theatre, about to play the unspeakable solo in the last act of Verdi's Otello. And it is all like that – the terrifying striding passage in the middle of the first movement of Shostakovich Five, the nightmarish first bars of Heldenleben. They say that nine out of 10 bad experiences in life happen at the dentist. The 10th happens at the first desk of a double-bass section. The very worst one I can remember, which sounds perfectly innocuous, is the nervous breakdown waiting for you in the first six bars of the Marriage of Figaro overture. It always comes completely cold, at the beginning of a concert, is almost unplayable, and if you ever did manage to play it, nobody at all would notice.

God, I grew to hate the double-bass. You can't seduce anyone with it. I've scored many a time after a "soulful" account of some dopey Chopin prelude on the piano, but they'd be getting their coat before you were halfway through the Hindemith double bass sonata. Getting to a rehearsal on public transport with it makes you feel as if you are unwillingly starring in some truly terrible 1960s comedy. Worst of all, even after you've devoted years of your life to it, you pick it up and it still goes grunt, grunt, grunt.

As they say, it's incredibly difficult to play; if only it were impossible. Kids, listen to what I have to say. Stick to the stylophone. You know it makes sense.

p.hensher@independent.co.uk

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