David Potts: The Double Bass Teacher Who Gave Everything to His Students
The Life and Legacy of David Potts, Double Bass Mentor
David Potts embodied a spirit of generosity that defined the global double bass community. An Australian musician who gave decades to teaching and performing orchestral bass, he built a reputation not on self-promotion but on quiet, consistent help. When someone needed guidance on technique or access to rare resources, David was the kind of person who simply said yes.
From Chemistry to the Orchestra
Potts began his career in an unlikely place: as an industrial chemist in Sydney. Music came later, a hobby that would transform into his life’s work. He studied double bass with Walter Sutcliffe, the Principal bassist of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and in 1967 won a scholarship to the ABC National Training Orchestra when it was first established. Three years later, he joined the Sydney Symphony Orchestra itself, where he would remain for 32 years.
While performing in the orchestra’s bass section, Potts began teaching privately. Over three decades, he refined his methods by studying with some of Europe’s leading bass pedagogues—Tom Martin, Duncan McTier, and Knut Guettler—bringing their approaches back to his students in Sydney.
Why the Double Bass Is So Difficult to Learn
The double bass is not a forgiving instrument. It demands physical strength, precise finger placement, and mastery of bowing techniques that take years to develop. The spaces between pitches are enormous, especially in the lower registers where even small errors become audible. Achieving reliable intonation requires obsessive practice of scales and arpeggios.
Good instruction matters enormously. A student working alone can spend years building bad habits that become nearly impossible to break. Teachers like David provided the framework: which exercises work, how to position the body, when to use thumb position, how to solve the specific problems that arise when learning orchestral excerpts.
Rare Methods and the Gift of Knowledge
Serious bass students often hunt for out-of-print methods—hard-to-find books and resources that contain approaches no longer widely taught. These can be valuable, sometimes difficult to locate, and often expensive when they appear on the used market. For a student to simply ask David, and have him mail his personal copy across the world without accepting payment, was an act of genuine mentorship.
This generosity reflects a worldview about knowledge in music: that methods and techniques are meant to be shared, refined, and passed forward. A player learns from their teacher, then teaches the next generation. The tradition stays alive through this cycle of giving.
The Double Bass Community He Helped Shape
After 32 years with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Potts left his orchestral position in 2002 to teach full-time from his home in Surry Hills. He continued contributing to online forums and communities where bass players gathered to solve problems, share recordings, and seek advice.
Bassists are a small, tight-knit group. Everyone knows the major teachers, the famous orchestral players, the conductors who understand the instrument well. David’s reputation grew through consistent, unglamorous work: answering questions, offering encouragement, sending scores and resources, treating every student—whether they would become a professional or play for the love of it—with the same serious attention.
What Gets Lost When Mentors Like David Pass
The loss of someone like David Potts is felt acutely in a community built on personal teaching. The methods he refined over a lifetime of study and performance, the specific solutions he developed for his students’ problems, the way he knew how to explain a concept so that it finally clicked—that knowledge doesn’t automatically transfer to the next generation unless someone carries it forward.
The rare books he owned, the scores he annotated, the recordings he collected—these were tools of his trade and his gift. His willingness to share them without hesitation was unusual and deeply valued.
For bass players navigating one of the most challenging instruments in the orchestra, teachers who combine technical mastery with genuine generosity are irreplaceable. David Potts was exactly that kind of teacher. The work of living bassists who learned from him, studied his methods, or received his help will carry his influence forward, even though the man himself is gone.