Not so long ago among musical instruments the double bass was classed as an ‘endangered species’. Here in Scotland bass players have a great camaraderie -they all seem to know one another and are generally on first name terms. Members of this friendly coterie are invariably given to helping one another out – the borrowing and lending of instruments, stools, and bows is par for the course.
We have a spare room in our home which can variously function as a playroom, a dining room, or a spare bedroom. Latterly, we’ve used it as a practice room for music. Although it’s not a big space we can just about squeeze in a group of amateur musicians and their stands, provided they leave their cases outside. However, the floor space is severely curtailed if extra double basses come to stay.
In the summer months the city of Edinburgh is awash with music festivals – both classical and jazz. Musicians participating in a series of concerts will often tag a Scottish holiday to the end of their work commitments. Since they are already in Scotland, why not take advantage of that to go hill-walking in the Highlands, visit distilleries, or even island-hop in the Hebrides? Their only problem is: What shall I do with my double bass? Light bulb moment: Of course, I’m sure I can leave it with Andrew Robb!
So perchance, when I answer the doorbell, there is a polite chap on the doorstep, toting a large instrument in its padded case. I vaguely recognise him as someone my son has stayed with in London when he travelled down for a gig one time but had nowhere to stay for the night. The polite chap says: I’m really sorry to trouble you but Andy suggested I might leave my bass with you while I travel up north with my girlfriend. I should be back next week. Of course I invariably acquiesce- it would be churlish not to, and I’m aware of needing to return the favour. Besides, it’s good to know that Andrew has such nice friends.
If you look at the image featured for this blog, you’ll see what our practice room looked like after I had answered the doorbell to several more of Andy’s nice friends!
Jazz bassists stand to play pizzicato, and in continental Europe classical double bass players also play standing up, often draped over their instruments. British players, however are usually seated on stools. The stool has its own problematic issues . For a start it needs to be taken to the music venue along with the instrument – massively inconvenient on public transport. Secondly, players can’t merely perch anywhere – the stool need to be of suitable height for their frame. A petite female player will need a smaller stool than a tall, burly man. Many players also nurse personal preferences – comfort padding, back-rest, easily foldable, etc., especially in their later years.
When our son Andrew started learning aged seven, his stool had to ‘grow’ with him. My husband James had an ingenious solution: every year he would buy the same cheap tall bar stool from IKEA , bring it home and chop its legs down to Andrew’s height. Over the years this ploy saved us money, but resulted in our kitchen becoming the repository for time expired stools for which we had to find new homes. Decades on, we continue to come across friends greeting us with a cheery, “Hey, we still have Andrew’s old 4ft stool in our garage!”
Sometime after we were married we lived for a year in Grenoble, France. James who is a keen amateur bassist joined the local symphony orchestra. I attended one of their informal afternoon concerts where the bass section was comprised of five Frenchmen who played standing, with James at the end of the line-up seated on his musician’s stool. During the performance the lady beside me pointed to him whispering, “I think it’s commendable that disabled people are being taught these big instruments”!
So, you have a train to catch. You’re carrying your double bass in its semi-soft case and your musician’s stool, plus a backpack containing a music stand and personal belongings. As you’re not able to fit through the turnstiles you look for some official person to let you through the wide barrier. Your train is arriving on the platform. It’s a long one with many carriages, scheduled to wait for just 3 minutes at this station.
Since double basses obstruct passenger access in carriages, they must be stowed in the designated luggage or guard’s van, but these vans are usually locked, so someone must be found in a hurry to unlock it. You run along the crowded platform as best as you can with your ponderous load, scanning both ends for a station official. It’s difficult to guess at which end of the train the brake van might be coupled. Whistles blow, carriage doors begin to slam shut. Oh dear, where in the world is the man……..?
Phew! You just make it, just in the nick of time!
Now you need to secure the precious instrument to a pole, positioning it in such a way that it won’t fall over onto the rack of bikes or the stowed freight boxes the when the train sways around sharp corners. You wedge your bass stool firmly under the barred window. Finally! You’re now ready to find your pre-booked seat and for the remainder of the journey. That’s when it dawns on you that this waggon is not linked to the main body of the train and can’t be accessed from it. So you sit, resignedly, on the cold floor, waiting for the train’s next stop. That will be the cue to leap out, sprint along the station platform to reach your designated seat in the economy carriage much further down the train.
Please don’t keep asking: “Ever thought of taking up the flute?”
We are a family of double bass players. My husband, son, and my son-in-law all play it, so as a non-player myself, I have gleaned a fund of quirky observations about it from the sidelines.
Large and unwieldy, basses spend much of their down-time lying on one side, or propped up in a corner against a wall. To a small child this biggest instrument of the string family parked in the middle of a living room offers endless possibilities for explorative play. They love to propel it along the floor, twang its strings, or try to mount it as if it were a horse… One kid got the prize for imaginative endeavour by posting a miniature toy car through an ‘f’ hole.
The problem was its extraction. Initial time-consuming attempts, such as poking the slots with knitting needles, inserting magnets, coat hangers, or kebab skewers…all proved futile. At long last, three sturdy men manoeuvred the bass aloft, face down, and instructed to shake it gently in a synchronized manner from side to side, like sifting flour, while a brave soul with nimble fingers crouched on the floor beneath then directing operations. Eventually, after much puffing and panting, and not a few expletives, the offending toy was gingerly coaxed out.
Moral: Establish early ground rules!
It is important to emphasise at the outset that it is the role of the Home Office, not of churches, to assess and vet these claims. I arrived in this country myself as a refugee from Iran, following the events of the Revolution of 1979 during which the small Anglican Community experienced much persecution and my brother was murdered. I know that behind every statistic is a human story and I have a sense of the real trauma that many asylum seekers have experienced. Christians are called to follow the example of Jesus who throughout the Bible focuses his love and care on the most vulnerable and marginalised people in society. Churches do this by helping disadvantaged people of all backgrounds – including asylum seekers – to eat, to sleep, to worship, to find shelter and to be connected to the services which can support them.
As a Christian leader I make no apology for our involvement in supporting people who are often deeply vulnerable and traumatised. But churches have no power to circumvent the Government’s duty to vet and approve applications. It is the calling of clergy to baptise and bring people to God. When a candidate who is an asylum seeker is prepared for baptism, the guidance given to clergy includes the need for discernment: “to be ‘wise as serpents and innocent as doves’. Clergy must be confident that those seeking baptism fully understand what it signifies.” Religious ministers from all denominations will occasionally, after careful assessment, provide statements of support to individuals seeking asylum, but it is wrong to think of this as some sort of magic ticket. The notion that a person may be fast-tracked through the asylum system, aided and abetted by the Church is simply inaccurate. Home Office guidance says “ultimately, evidence even from a senior church member is not determinative”. Responsibility to assess the risk to an individual of persecution on the grounds of faith is that of the Home Office.
Christian leaders have worked with officials to improve understanding of faith-based persecution and Christian identity, and we will continue to do so. We have also offered to work with the Government on ensuring returns policies are developed so that they are safe and more likely to be effective in the long-term. We share the former Home Secretary’s concern about the need to “break criminality”, but those who have claimed a link between the abuse of our asylum system and the action of bishops in Parliament are simply wrong. The plight of refugees the world over is a shared responsibility and one we must shoulder together – locally, nationally, globally. We must do so not by demonising those who arrive on our shores, but by recognising our shared humanity and, as Christians would put it, seeing in others the face of Christ.
Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani is the Bishop of Chelmsford