Giovanni Bottesini

Complete Method for Double Bass

Giovanni Bottesini (1821–1889) was an Italian composer, conductor, and music teacher. He was arguably also the most eminent double-bass player of his time, and his virtuosity on the instrument had earned him the title “the Paganini of the Double Bass.” Bottesini toured the world extensively, and among his many accomplishments, was chosen by Verdi to conduct the world premiere of Aida in 1871. For a thorough biography, see Thomas Martin’s article “In Search of Bottesini,” originally published in International Society of Bassists in three parts between 1983 and 1984.

Circa 1865, Bottesini published his instructional book Metodo Completo Per Contrabbasso, later translated into English as Complete Method for Double Bass. The book contained exercises, instructional text, illustrations, and some music theory; its various editions have become a staple of the double-bass curriculum. Bottesini championed the three-string double bass — an earlier version of the instrument, missing today’s E string, which was standard at the time in many parts of the world. Consequently, the lowest note in his original Method is low A (except for a few exercises, originally meant for solfège).

This PDF edition of Bottesini’s Method is based on the 1869 French translation issued by Léon Escudier, as found on the International Music Score Library Project website. It contains only the exercises, without the original text and illustrations, and currently does not include the second part of the book, titled “the double bass considered as a solo instrument.” Due to the advances in double-bass technique since Bottesini’s time, and given today’s near-universality of four-string instruments, the original fingering, position, and bowing markings were omitted.

If you found mistakes in the material on this page, or wish to suggest improvements, please write to bottesini.method@gmail.com.

The music score was engraved in the wonderful open-source software LilyPond, using the equally wonderful Frescobaldi editor.

This edition and its source files are distributed under the CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license. This roughly means that you can freely use, copy, redistribute, or modify them, but you may not use them for commercial purposes; if you modify or combine them with other work, you must attribute this source and share the derived work under the same license.

To download the book (in PDF format):

Audio Files

MP3 audio files of all the exercises, automatically generated from the score, can be downloaded from here, and MIDI files from here. Prepare not to be stunned.

The Entire Book Transposed

To let today’s bassists use the low notes on their instrument’s E string, and for general practicing purposes, below is the entire book transposed to all other eleven keys.

Source Files

The LilyPond source files of the score can be downloaded from here.