The biggest danger is obsessing so much over fine details that the notation confuses the player. For instance, though the following two lines might be approached differently by the player out of respect for the composer’s directions, the general effect will be the same in a concert situation. It’s a mark of experience to score pizzicato simply and economically, rather than with overfinessed variations of length and character. And if you don’t want that, then mark “secco” or staccato articulation for a short, abrupt note. Instead of hanging ties or “l.v.” markings (or both), simply mark “sos.” for sostenuto at the beginning of a passage if you want an especially sustained note – though you’ll tend to get sustain from both the player and the hall anyway. The main takeaway here is to give your bass player the clearest and simplest notation possible, and eliminate fussy scoring. What’s more, bassists will have a natural tendency to make any note sustain as long as possible, particularly at slower speeds.
But why is that? For the answer, it’s worth referencing Tip 59: Bass Drum Resonance from the original 100 Orchestration Tips, in which I point out that “the concert hall is part of the resonating body of the bass drum.” The same principle is at work with double bass (and lower cello) pizzicato: highly punctuated sounds in a concert hall excite sustain more than smooth sounds, due to the attack. The general response was two seemingly contradictory poles: the first, that a double bassist would definitely interpret each sign differently the second, that despite all that, it wouldn’t make too much of a difference. The following example was recently posted asking double bass players how and if they would play the notations differently. Of special focus are the precise nuances of duration. Recently, I’ve seen a great deal of concern being focused on the scoring of pizzicato in double bass parts by composers in the Orchestration Online community. 85 from 100 MORE Orchestration Tips, to be released in 2018)
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