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Double Bass
 The evolution of the double bass reveals a history of several hundred years of changes in design and fashion in the dimensions of the instrument and consequently its stringing and tuning. The picture is complicated by the use during any one period of different forms of bass in different countries.The earliest known illustration of a double bass type of instrument dates from 1516 but in 1493 Prospero wrote of 'viols as big as myself.' Planyavsky (1970) pointed out that it is more important to look for an early double bass tuning rather than for any particular instrument by shape or name. A deep (double- or contra-) bass voice is first found among the viols. There existed simultaneously two methods of tuning - one using 4ths alone, the other using a combination of 3rds and 4ths ('3rd-4th' tuning).Some fine basses, many of which were probably converted from their original form in to three- or later four-string instruments, date from the late 16th century and early 17th. A notable three-string bass, originally built as such, is that by Gasparo da Salò, owned by Dragonetti and now in the museum of St. Mark's, Venice. A beautiful six-string violone of much lighter construction by Da Salò's apprentice Giovanni Paolo Maggini is in the Horniman Museum, London. This is of violin shape, with a flat back, and makes interesting comparison with the viol shaped violone by Ventura Linarol (Padua, 1585) in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.During the early 17th century the five-string bass was most commonly used in Austria and Germany. The earliest known playing instructions are for an instrument tuned F'-A'-D-F#-B. Much more common, however, is the tuning F'-A'-D-F#-A for a violone or contrabass with thick strings and frets tied at every semitone round the fingerboard. Michel Corrette's 1773 Méthode throws much light on the bass techniques and tunings in use during the 18th and early 19th centuries when the bass was enjoying some popularity as a solo instrument. Many of the virtuoso pieces from the Viennese school of that period and later abound with passages of double stopping and, in view of the tunings required, were thought by early 20th-century authorities not to have been written for the bass at all. Later research revealed that the instrument has in the past been tuned in some 40 or 50 different ways; although the repertory is quite practical with the tunings the composers envisaged (e.g. one of the '3rd-4th' tunings), much is unplayale on the modern conventionally tuned instruments. There are in fact numerous solo concertos from this period.In Italy an early tuning (cited by Planyavsky, 1970) is Adriano Banchieri's of 1609 for his 'Violone in contrabasso', D'-G'-C-E-A-d. Later the number of strings was reduced, and three-string instruments were preferred. Even during the early 18th century a three-string bass tuned A'-D-G or G'-D-G was normal. It had no frets and with the growth of the symphony orchestra it was logical that his more powerful instrument should supersede earlier models. Not until the 1920s was the additional E' string expected of most professional players. Until then any passages going below A' were transposed up an octave, resulting in the temporary disappearance of the 16' line.
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