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Upright Bass in Wind Ensemble?

Posted by STBD on 9/18/2025, 7:44 am

I have a Bass player in my Jazz Band that I have recruited to play upright bass in my Wind Ensemble. He has also played in the varsity orchestra at my school. Really good musician.

I have played with groups with an upright bass plenty of times, but I really am not sure how to utilize this student in our wind ensemble. My sense is to give him tuba parts and then tell him where to play and where not to play. I can see places in literature, especially transcriptions, where it would be advantageous to add a string bass part. However, I do not know how to utilize a bass in something like a modern Markowski piece.

Any suggestions from someone who has experience with this? I also would like to know about things like tuning tendencies and whether or not to use a bow.

I took this student in order to give him an opportunity to play with a band and also to stretch myself a little as a teacher. I also think it will be good for my band students to experience a little bit of the string world.

Any insights would be much appreciated!

Re: Upright Bass in Wind Ensemble?

Posted by Me on 9/18/2025, 3:06 pm, in reply to "Upright Bass in Wind Ensemble?"

If you're playing anything above grade 2 literature, and that's not UIL 2, but grade 2, there will be a bass part 99% of the time.

Re: Upright Bass in Wind Ensemble?

Posted by Mr. Dude on 9/22/2025, 5:07 pm, in reply to "Re: Upright Bass in Wind Ensemble?"

So, a lot of times, I used a bassoon or contra bass clarinet part for my string bass kid. She was a 3-year all stater. I didn't have bassoons. It worked well for us.

Re: Upright Bass in Wind Ensemble?

Posted by Little Fish on 9/26/2025, 1:08 pm, in reply to "Re: Upright Bass in Wind Ensemble?"

Agree with bassoon parts. I love my string bass in my groups, and I make almost no changes to bassoon parts.

Re: Upright Bass in Wind Ensemble?

Posted by FormerBD on 9/18/2025, 12:14 pm, in reply to "Upright Bass in Wind Ensemble?"

It's great to have an upright string bass in an ensemble and can add to the timbre and colors of the ensemble in the right places. You can always try to program music that has a bona fide string bass part. Alfred Reed has some good string bass parts.

Generally, they should always be bowing, perhaps unless there's some super short staccato sections where pizz would be more appropriate. There's really no 'tuning tendencies' concerns like there is with brass/woodwinds. I'd place them near the tubas / low WWs. I'd encourage them to 'dig in' in order to pull out a lot of sound in the band setting (if appropriate for the music).

Remember that string bass is a transposing instrument: the music is written up an octave from how it sounds, so tuba music would need to be transposed up an octave for it to come out/sound as written. Depending on the music you are playing, you could also give the student a bari sax part - just have them ignore the clef and add the equivalent of 3 flats (i.e. a key signature with 2 sharps turns into 1 flat; a key signature with 1 sharp would turn into 2 flats; a key signature with 0 sharps would turn into 0 flats; etc).

Good luck!

Re: Upright Bass in Wind Ensemble?

Posted by Also on 9/18/2025, 3:14 pm, in reply to "Re: Upright Bass in Wind Ensemble?"

Also, depending on the level of literature (and when it was written), it may already have a "bass" part.

Re: Upright Bass in Wind Ensemble?

Posted by Been there, done that on 9/18/2025, 1:35 pm, in reply to "Re: Upright Bass in Wind Ensemble?"

I did this in my 6A NV ensemble for years. I programmed pieces that had actual bass parts (level 4 and 5 pieces frequently include bass parts). I would also typically create a bass part for the march that was largely based (heh-heh) on the tuba part. No one ever objected.

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