TempoSenzaTempo: August 2026

It's scary how some musicians
seem naturally created to play their instrument.
Their hands and physique have just the right form
to grapple with the many difficulties
of producing a musical sound.

But occasionally an instrument of great size

requires extra help
as no human is big enough
to meet its monstrous requirements.

Today I present one of the largest of musical instruments
the double bass
and its very rare gigantic cousin
the Octobass.

The name of this well-dressed gentleman standing with his double bass is unknown but his postcard has the marks of one printed in the United Kingdom so I think he is likely posed outside the stage door of some British theatre. I think his formal long black coat and bowtie date him to sometime between 1905 to 1915. His heavy dark eyes, long mustache, and large hands give him a rather menacing appearance only partly alleviated by the corsage in his lapel.

His instrument is a double bass, also called an upright bass, acoustic bass, bull or bass fiddle, contrabass, or usually just a bass. In an orchestra it is the largest and lowest-pitched of string instruments, played with a bow or plucked with the right hand.

Double Bass C Extension
Source: The Internets

A standard full-size double bass is about 6 feet 3 inch (190 cm) not counting the end pin. but most players use a slightly smaller 3/4 size bass that is ½ inch less than 6 feet. The four strings of a bass are tuned to E1, A1, D2, and G2. However many players modify their instrument by adding an extension on the lower string which takes it down to C1, an octave below the lowest note on the cello. This allows a bass to easily double a cello part only pitched an octave lower.

In this closeup of a bass extension the top nut of the lower string is placed about 10-12 inches above its normal position just below the head.
It is made of wood with its own narrow finger board and has an auxiliary key mechanism for the player's left fingers which press down pads corresponding to the positions of the extra bass notes.

The sound of a double bass serves as the foundation of an orchestra string section. Its power is stronger than the other string instruments—violins, violas, cellos—so fewer players are needed to balance a section's dynamic range. A double bass is also regularly used in concert wind bands to add more sonic texture to woodwind and brass colors. To transport a bass, players may carry it on their back or attach a small wheel to the end pin. However that still does not make it a practical instrument for playing in a marching band.

Bass viola da gamba,
by Pieter Rombouts, 1726
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Source: Wikimedia

In the earlier Renaissance or Baroque eras a bass viol de gamba or violone, similar to the double bass but with more strings and usually a fretted fingerboard, managed the bass voice
in musical ensembles.

But beginning in the Classical era performers, composers, and instrument makers began searching for better string sounds. Like the violin, the viola, and the violoncello (cello), the double bass offered improvements that fulfilled a need for bigger bass. This inspired more composers of the Romantic era to write music for larger ensembles which, of course, required a larger performing space.

In the early 19th century music instrument makers were developing grandiose ideas of bigger, louder, higher, and lower instruments. In Berlin the Prussian instrument maker Johann Gottfried Moritz ((1777–1840) invented a brass instrument with valves that he called a chromatic bass tuba. It was granted a patent in 1835. The Belgian inventor, Adolphe Sax (1814–1894) had a successful career in Paris creating entirely new categories of wind instruments like the saxhorn and the saxophone, each available in different sizes to cover a complete range of voices from soprano to bass.

In the 1800s string instrument makers were mainly refining the standards of string instruments crafted during the late 17th and early 18th centuries by Italian makers like Antonio Stradivari. But one of them got caught up in the excitement for MORE BASS. His name was Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (1798–1875) a French luthier working in Paris. In 1850 he built an instrument that measured 11 ft 5 in (3.48 m) in length, nearly twice the size of a double bass. It had only three strings but its enormous size required a special stand for the player to reach them and a key mechanism to change the pitches.

Vuillaume called it an Octobasse.

In this illustration captioned Fig. 117 — Octobasse de Vuillaume
a forlorn player stands on a platform and saws away at an instrument so huge it dwarfs the man who is half its height. It is shaped like a member of the violin family but it looks absurdly oversized since there is a violinist and a cellist in the picture to provide a a sense of scale. A closer look shows how the player steps on foot pedals and controls levers with his left hand as he runs a bow over the three strings.

As indicated in purple ink stramped on the back, this picture postcard was sold by Paul Frankenstein, Atelier for Photography and Photogravure at Mollardgasse 69 in Wien, Austria There is also a message written in English but no date.

Dearest Dorthea. Daddy really saw

this funny big violin in a library

                           in Vienna.
                           How are you — my cutey? Are you a
                           good girl — and do you ever
                           practise the piano?
                           Love — hugs — squeezes — kisses
                                            Daddy & Mama

The address for Paul Frankenstein, (I'm not making this up!) is a business location for the son of noted Viennese photographer Michael Frankenstein. This particular address seems to have begun in 1909 and continued until 1918. It is just 1½ miles from the Kunsthistorisches Museum where one of the three Octobassi that Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume built is still extant. Only one other octobass by Vuillaume is preserved at the the Musée de la Musique in Paris. A third reproduction of his original Octobass is displayed at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona.

Vuillaume initially tuned his octobass to be an octave below a cello, but the string length allows it to be tuned even lower to the pitches C0, G0, D1. This is two octaves below the cello range, and one octave below the modern double bass with low C extension. Its C0 string vibrates at a frequency of about 16.35 Hz, which is even lower than a tuba or contrabassoon and below the hearing of most people. It's equivalent to a 32-foot pipe on an organ. It makes a fluttering sound that is more felt than heard. Imagine a Harley-Davidson motorcycle on low idle. Of course now that C pitch can be replicated by a synthesizer in different wave forms but it not a pitch that has much practical musical use. Of course in its time, that low pitch from a handcrafted wooden instrument would have seemed wonderous to anyone who heard it in a performance.

I think it fair to say that the Octobass never became a popular instrument and didn't make Vuillaume wealthy from its patent. Size matters when you have to carry your instrument on a bus. The only known work which specifically calls for an octobass is French composer Charles Gounod's Messe solennelle de Sainte-Cécile of 1855. And then it is only played in two movements, the "Benedictus" and the "Agnus Dei". A few modern instrument makers have taken the challenge to build their own version of an octobass and one of these new instruments is owned by the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the only orchestra that uses the instrument. Wikipedia provides us with a photo of it.

Eric Chappell of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra
playing the orchestra's octobass.
Source: Wikimedia

I can't provide a better explanation of the Octobass
than this YouTube video from
the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, Arizona
where Colin Pearson, a curator at the museum
demonstrates the Octobasse in its collection.

And this next video may be my favorite rendition
of a piper's tune familiar to everyone.
The double-bassist is Jonathan Camps
with Nicola Moneta on Octobass.
They performed this duet on 10 February 2018
at the Festival Mardi "Graves" in Saint Jean de Védas, France.