Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, Mvt 3: Tutorial for NMEA 2025 bass audition repertoire ("Etudes" Set 3)

Jeremy Baguyos, UNO Professor of Music, presents a tutorial on the bass audition repertoire (Symphony No. 5, Mvt. III, trio, by Beethoven) for the 2025 *("Etudes" Set 3) Nebraska Music Education Association All-state Orchestra. For a copy of Professor Baguyos's fingerings & bowings for the audition repertoire, download pdf at https://drive.google.com/file/d/14dlx...

to contact Mr. Baguyos, email him at jbaguyos@unomaha.edu

If Beethoven's 5th Symphony, 3rd movement, trio is new to you, heed the following advice,

1) practice using very short bows
2) these short bows are driven by the fingers, so try to minimize arm movement (for now), and try to get as much bow length and sound as possible, using only the right hand fingers. Fingers move faster than the arm. 3) The stroke style and clarity of the stroke comes from the natural resiliency of the bow stick that will rebound and let the string resonate with each draw of the bow. This gives you the "stroke" and clarity, more than physically muscling up on the excerpt.
4) at the same time, the weight of the right arm, if allowed to sink into the string, will give you the weight that is necessary for the volume
5) it seems antithetical, but it's the combination of the arm weight sinking into the string+allowing the bow to be resilient and bounce (by holding the bow with the proper "cradle" hold)+drawing the bow quickly back-and-forth with the fingers, that allows someone to play the excerpt "fast" and clear, with sufficient volume.
6) eventually, you will re-introduce the arm into the stroke, but the arm movement is mostly from the elbow down through the fingers.


Note [6/19/2021] : The NMEA parts, which I have included, does have a slight mistake for the Beethoven excerpt. The tempo should read dotted half= 70–78 (NOT dotted quarter= 70–78). I decided not to make a fuss and not change it in the original audition part, because the mistake is obvious and easy to fix by the player. I did not notify NMEA, because NMEA has better things to do than be music minutiae errata police. However, I only mention it here because there is always someone that makes a fuss about things like this, often in the 11th hour, and will force a last-minute change that might only serve to confuse. Just play it at the tempo of dotted half= 70–78, no matter what the sheet music may say or will say.

2025 marks the second iteration of the Set 3 "Etudes." The "etudes" are not really etudes in the traditional sense, but rather, they are excerpts from the standard orchestral audition literature for professional orchestras. They are still called "etudes" because NMEA used to use traditional etudes, but decided that it was more useful to ask students to prepare professional orchestra audition excerpts instead. The current Set 3 was first released in 2021, and with the four-year rotation that was established, the same "etudes" and hence the same videos are presented again in 2025. So, please ignore any mention of 2021 in the videos and pdfs. 2021 and 2025 are the same.