The Contrabass Lowest Register and Its Limitations

Modern film (music) loves low frequencies. With the advent of certain standards and capabilities to reproduce these frequencies in the cinema you hardly have an action movie where the subwoofers are not used excessively. One could even say that we live in an "age of bass" which can of course also be observed in main stream music and clubs. There are several physiological reasons for that which we will talk about in another article but for today, I want to focus a bit on the implications this development has on orchestral music.

While of course, we get a lot of sub bass synths and low percussion in current film music, this approach has also spread towards the orchestra. Composers who come from a production background tend to use a lot of the lowest range of many instruments like super low Trombones, Tubas and Contrabasses.

I talked about this already in a previous article but want to focus specifically on the Contrabass today as there are few things to mention here as well from the technical side.

But let's start a bit earlier.

The late romantic period of the 19th century saw an increased desire by composers to explore the range of expressiveness in the orchestra. The orchestra grew in size and different instruments (particularly side instruments in the Woodwind section) and more unusual playing techniques were used in order to fulfill the vision of the composers.

One of the pivotal works of this period was Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. The Overture of the first part "Rhinegold" basically is a 4 minute long Eb major chord which in itself was already quite revolutionary.

Back in these times, Contrabasses had 4 strings with the lowest being tuned to the lowest E on the Grand Piano. The dimensions of the Contrabass were already a bit compromised for that register as the body and size would have needed to be a bit bigger in order to acoustically fully support that range but in order to still allow the players to handle the instrument (which is roughly 2 meters (6'5'') in size). Acoustically the most resonant range on these instruments starts roughly a third higher.

As you can see in the video linked above, Wagner split the Contrabass section and requested one half to tune their lowest string down to Eb (as per the German indication on the bottom of the first page). With him requesting this and this work being relatively often performed, other composers joined in on that "tune down" idea and requested notes below that standard tuning E from the double basses. Also, generally retuning string instruments is very problematic as it barely holds the new tuning for long and needs to constantly be adjusted again until the "instrument settles in" on the new tuning.

So there was a demand to find ways to create these notes more easily. Instrument manufacturers solved it through two different ways: 

1. Extending the length of the lowest string

2. Introducing a lower fifth string

The extension looks something like this:

Depending on what lowest pitch the player needs, they can open the levers accordingly down to the lowest B. The advantage of this procedure is that it can be relatively easy installed on regular 4 string basses.

On the other hand, adding a fifth string obviously needs a considerable remodelling of the contrabass so that it usually is not "added" but rather the bass is built like that from the beginning.

There is almost a 50/50 split among bass players about which of the two is the better solution. The fifth string is usually thicker and heavier than the extended E-string and speaks slower, the extension is more cumbersome to play. On the other hand, the 5 string bass has the strings closer to each other which makes it sometimes trickier to play. But you will most likely get a different opinion with every bass player that you ask.

For us as composers/orchestrators, the only relevant information is that with either of the two the range gets extended to the low C or even B. 

However, since the addition of that extended range, the instrument themselves have not changed. Their dimensions are still the same and acoustically favor the same range as before. So in a way, these lowest notes are acoustically compromised. The low tension and weight of these strings make the sound quite "flabby" and unfocussed and not carrying a lot. In most orchestral circumstances, the octave above is the better choice. Only in cases where you for instance reach a note lower than E through a descending line it might make sense to not jump up the octave. Also, if you need that really low, "black" sound of the lowest register, it might be worth using, however usually it is more effective in softer settings than trying it to become the fundament of a fortissimo chord.

But in general, these notes don't speak too well (especially in faster music) and don't sound too great. So the presumed extra low end you might be expecting will not be delivered by them.

Nowadays, there are still quite a few "old" 4 string basses in circulation, and also 4 string basses are still manufactured. Especially upright Jazz bass players will usually play on 4 string basses and also in some orchestras, there are some players playing with regular 4 string basses. However, you can expect from every professional (film) orchestra to have a bass section that can cover the lowest register below E. 

But as I said, it rarely is a good idea to use it except for a few rather rare cases that justify its use.