Height of the DB

[myrick]

Endpin height of course is inseparable from your overall playing stance, which in turn depends on your body, your bass, and your playing style.

To echo others, above, there's no single right answer. The greatest players of our instrument advocate widely different stances, from the Rabbath cello-like position to Karr's very vertical, very high stance, and everything in between. (When I saw Karr play, it looked like he actually lets the bass lean forward, beyond the vertical, its weight pressing onto his bow! I think that's part of secret to controlling his intense, on-the-bridge tone.)

I saw the BBC SO not long ago, and the entire section played with pins all the way in, or out just one notch. All sitting on pretty high stools. Basses virtually on the floor. I guess they all have REAL long right arms. They didn't look contorted.

FWIW, I sit down to play classical music, pin fairly well out, bass lying back almost cello-like. I stand up to play jazz (different bass), also pretty long pin, but bass leaning back on my chest, not too vertical. In both cases I use an angled pin, sitting one is angled more to (my) left and only a bit back, standing one a bit to the left, and well back. But that's me.

If there are any fixed rules here, I would think 1) you want a position where little or no weight of the instrument is borne by your left thumb, or you can't move the left hand around easily. 2) If you play with a bow, your right arm should move easily in a good bowing plane for all strings, with right shoulder sitting comfortably, arm nearly straight but not locked. (And remember, the German bow will be carried a bit higher than the French, other things being equal.) And finally, 3) your left hand should be able to reach well into thumb positions without without un-natural shoulder contortions. (A certain bending is okay if it feels okay)

Clearly, with a given body and a given bass, you can only find this after some experimentation. It is also impossible that these three goals can all be met simultaneously without some element of compromise. The compromise for you should be decided with a view to the type of playing you want to do. If you can't find the right compromise after plenty of experimentation, consider that you've got the wrong bass for you. Comfort is vastly more important than size and shape, in the long run.

Other tricks: a full length mirror is really useful to explore these questions. My wife helps by touching parts of my back and shoulders when I'm experimenting with stance, to help me discover any muscles that are tensed improperly.

Hope this helps anyone

[joon]

Not exactly about bass height, but I'd like to ask how everyone balances their DB with repect to their body? What I mean is, is the body of the bass leaning against your body with the rib as contact point (the bass is facing east while player is facing north), or is it the back of the bass body (bass and player face same direction), or is it somewhere in the middle, where the corner edge is the contact point? (the last case seems a bit hard to balance though)

Or is it also a matter of preference? Note that this question is for PIZZ playing. On arco, my teacher recommends that I shift the bass at small angles depending on which string I am bowing.

I'm having a bit of trouble while practicing fingerings. First times I did them, the muscles between my thumb and index finger aches and burns only after a few passes in half position, a sign that I'm using too much effort to "grip" the fingerboard instead of using the muscles in my arm to press onto the fingerboard. Last night, I think I just figured out how to do it (note: I THINK), except that balancing the bass now becomes harder.

As a follow up, any tips on how to practice using the arm muscles instead of pure hand muscles in fingering exercises?

Thanks!

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Originally posted by joon
Not exactly about bass height, but I'd like to ask how everyone balances their DB with repect to their body? What I mean is, is the body of the bass leaning against your body with the rib as contact point (the bass is facing east while player is facing north), or is it the back of the bass body (bass and player face same direction), or is it somewhere in the middle, where the corner edge is the contact point? (the last case seems a bit hard to balance though)

I play seated on a stool, nearly cello style, in part because I've never been able to find a position that feels comfortable while standing.

[mchildree]

Something that recently helped me decide to adjust my endpin setting was a photo someone took of me while playing. I'd thought I had a good comfortable height on the bass, but when I looked at the photo, I was all hunched over and obviously reaching way more than I should with my right arm. I extended my endpin a couple of notches gradually over a couple of days and after the initial adjustment, I found my bass was not only more comfortable to play...I could hear it much better.

[David Kaczorowski]

Originally posted by joon
or is it somewhere in the middle, where the corner edge is the contact point? (the last case seems a bit hard to balance though)

This is exactly how you want to stand with it. If you are too far to the side (like your east-north analogy) your left hand will not be able to get sufficiently around the neck. Consequently you'll have to stop the strings with the flat, fleshy part of your finger so your tone will suck, you won't be able to project your sound, and technical facility will be impeded; you'll also eventually injure your hand and not be able to play from having to squeeze the strings and straining your tendons by having your wrist cocked. If you stand too far behind it, you won't be able to get your right hand around the bass far enough to actually be able to play it.

I have the back edge of the upper bout in my lower gut around my belly button.

[joon]

Hey David,

During my practice last night, I realized that your positioning (the "last case") is the most practical one to use, since doing the north-east thing puts my wrist in a really awkward position, and the case where bass and player faces the same direction isn't really an option since you can't really balance the bass like that with only half your body to support it (you'd have to support it a lot with your left arm).

After only the 3rd night of practice, I've noticed I can press on the fingerboard with much ease, and using my pinky on the E and A strings while pizzing doesn't buzz as much as it did when I first started. I still get tired after a while, though.

In which muscles of my arm/shoulder/back should I feel the "tension" or tiredness (after long practice) in order to know I'm pressing on the fingerboard right?

Thanks!

[David Kaczorowski]

Originally posted by joon
In which muscles of my arm/shoulder/back should I feel the "tension" or tiredness (after long practice) in order to know I'm pressing on the fingerboard right?

To me it feels like I'm using my upper arm, shoulder and upper back. I don't know that any of these parts should really get fatigued though. There are so many muscles there all generating the energy to do what amounts to relatively little work for all that energy.

I do remember though the experience when I was first starting out of waking up lots of different muscles I didn't even know I had *all over my upper body, arm, and hand.

When you feel the energy coming from all the way back in your shoulder you'll know you're doing it right.

[myrick]

David is exactly right.

Think about a cracking whip. A certain force and small motion applied at the stout, stiff handle, when transmitted down through the flexible length of the whip to the fine tip, produces a very powerful, vigourous snap at the end. Similarly with the bass, both right hand and left hand, you need to make tiny, directed pulses or surges of force in the big muscles of your legs, back and shoulders, and let these propagate down though the body and arms. This way you can get plenty of energy at the business end, where hand meets bass, without overstressing the immediate muscles which control the hand and fingers directly.

This sounds a lot harder and more mystical than it really is; though to be sure, it takes a lot of practice to get good at it. A couple of key points are: avoid tension in all muscles. This DOES NOT mean the muscles are 100% relaxed - if they were you'd collapse to the floor. It simply means there is a minimum of energy applied in each muscle along the chain, to guide and focus the impulse. It also means that opposing muscle groups are generally not stressed at the same time. Music is wave motions. If certain muscles are getting tired easily, you're not there yet. (Especially, Joon, with your G at 4.5 mm. I'd raise it all a bit, but that's me.)

It also doesn't mean that the back and legs are twitching and dancing around. In fact, the forces needed are very small - not much bigger than the subtle back and leg forces you'd normally use just keeping balance whilst standing upright. The bigger the muscle and the further from the final business end, the less the movement.

But every motion and force, however subtle, should be be coordinated and linked naturally and smoothly to the end result at the string (or bow). This is why stance is sooooo critical, though to be sure, there's more than one solution to stance. It also means you need to be pretty loose throughout the chain. (Imagine the whip if a section in the middle of the length of the soft leather were replaced with a stiff stick. Most of the energy from the impulse at the handle would still get to the tip, but it would be hard to control.)

This also does not mean that every tiny movement in the hands is purely a passive reflection of a root movement in the legs and back. By no means. The hands and arms are, of course, responsible for a great deal on their own. But to really get fluid, effortless controlled forces at the bass, a lot of the power must emmanate from further back in the chain.

This is impossible to "just do" the first try. But many players never get it, and hit technical limits early in their development because they're forever trying to do everything entirely with movements initiated from the hands and arms. But you can get much further much quicker if, from the start, you make a habit of frequently taking a moment to notice ALL the muscles in your body and keeping everything as loose and dynamic as possible.

Think about how a great golfer uses legs and torso to swing the club, not simply arms. Think about how a baseball pitcher throws the ball with the legs and arms. With the bass, the desired end movements in the fingers are much smaller than in these examples, but the concept of a smooth flow of power, from the bigger to the smaller, is identical.

another useful tip: learn all you can about anatomy of bones and muscles. Here's just one example - contrary to what most people believe, your upper arm is not "attached" to your torso at the shoulder the way your upper legs at at the hip. The upper arm attaches to the scapula, which if fact "floats" over the back, attached at various points only by muscle and tendon. This means that from the fingers to the back, there are the three finger joints, the wrist (actually a group of mini joints) the elbow, the upper arm to the scapula, and the scapula to the back, which can move every which-way. every one of these points of flexibility must be involved in a controlled, unstressed manner in any good left hand or right hand gesture on the double bass. Learn how to notice where your scapula is, what muscles move it which way, and how to control it, and how not to abuse or over-stress the many muscles controlling it.

sorry, once I get on this subject, I can spew for a while. anyway, hope this helps.

Of course, at the end of the day, you'll need to learn all of this, internalise it, then forget it all again, and just play. Best luck.

[joon]

I've been practicing every night for more than a week now, and I have yet to "get" that pull from the shoulder and upper arm muscles. When I'm doing half position patterns (that's where I am so far) I seem to be feeling a tension on the back of my shoulders, and sometimes on my biceps and triceps. But myrick mentioned that there should be to avoid tension, so I'm not really sure if I'm doing it right.

When I'm trying to play a walking bass line, though, my arms seem to forget about the pull from the muscles of the upper arm and shoulder, and hard as I try, I can't seem to find it.

Also, when I force myself to play continuously for a few minutes, my left hand just burns (as in pain)! I have to rest for another few minutes before I could resume.

I know it takes a long time to master, but I'd like to have even the slightest idea on how the "pull" really feels. Anyway, I'm taking myrick's advice and feel and notice the muscles everytime I practice and play.

Thanks to myrick and Dave!

[myrick]

Route out and eliminate un-needed tension, always and everywhere possible.

Posture and stance are crucial in this effort. I have a book somewhere which quotes a famous master cellist (I've forgotten who for the moment - Feurmann?) as saying that his entire career of technical development could be boiled down to a lifetime quest to eliminate tension. He said that only when he reached his eighties was he just starting to feel he had conquered tension.

As far as achieving hand gestures that are the tail end of continuous movements that emanate from the big muscles in legs and torso, this concept is probably more relavant to left hand shifts and right hand bow movements, somewhat less relavant to left hand fingering in a fixed position or to pizzing with right hand. Less relavant, but not completely irrelavant. Relax and it will come slowly.

Meanwhile, for tiredness and tension your left hand, try this. Stop a string somewhere in a low position with a very low level of pressure, not enough to prevent buzzing when giving the string a pizzed stroke. Then pizz away on the same note, while very gradually increasing the pressure on left hand. Let it buzz, buzz, buzz. At some threshold level of pressure the buzzing will stop, and you will produce a clear tone. Try to back up, lessening the pressure a tiny bit, until you find exactly where the minimum is need to make a clean sound. Notice that level, and try to learn to play as close to it as possible at all times. Practice this with all fingers, all strings, and at different volume levels of pizz stroke, as it will differ. Playing at or near this level should become second nature.


Also, try to find a way to finger the left hand with less "grip", by which I mean finger pressure being opposed by the thumb. (Remember, different players have different solutions to stance.) If your stance has the bass neck more to the horizontal, thumb-driven "grip" can be reduced by letting the weight of the arm hang from the neck of the bass to some extent. On the other hand, if you are holding your bass more verticle, try to let the bass lean into the fingers of your left hand a bit. Experiment.

Also, try moving your wrist and arm around to different positions, and notice how some work better in terms of relaxing thumb grip. You should find that a smooth, relaxed arc, from fingertips through wrist to elbow, gets the most energy to stopping the strings with the least tension in the hand. You should begin to notice a trade-off. The more you can let the weight of your left arm "hang" on the neck by the fingertips, or the more you can let the weight of the bass lean into your left fingertips, the less you'll need to squeeze against the thumb.

As you learn to finger further up the board, your thumb will need to come around to the side of the fingerboard anyway, and there is no element of "grip" left. But even in the lower positions, you can learn to reduce your reliance on thumb alone for fingertip pressure. This will help reduce hand and arm tension, and help you to shift faster and smoother, as well as do smoother, faster string crossings.

hope this helps

[David Kaczorowski]

I prefer to play standing, but for this you need a stool:

Play seated and try keeping your thumb completely off the neck. That will give you the idea.

[joon]

David, I think get the general "feeling". Besides trying it on my bass, I did it against the vertical frame of a door, where I put resistance through my foot. I felt the muscles involved at the back shoulder! However, it's quite difficult to apply while playing, and I have yet to learn it. sometimes I think I'm doing it, but I'm trying to make sure that my back shoulder muscles are really helping with the pull, instead of just tensing them out with no functional accomplishment.

[quote author=myrick]
As far as achieving hand gestures that are the tail end of continuous movements that emanate from the big muscles in legs and torso,
[/quote]

Relaxation is my top priority right now, so that I could be more sensitive to the muscle movements involved while playing.

Practice this with all fingers, all strings, and at different volume levels of pizz stroke, as it will differ. Playing at or near this level should become second nature.

Will do. I realized at one point during practice that I might be pressing onto the strings too hard, so I'm beginning to monitor the pressure I apply to the strings, and as much as possible apply only enough to not make the string buzz. This is actually connected to the above about being relaxed while playing.

Also, try to find a way to finger the left hand with less "grip",

I dunno about other players, but everytime I press on the strings (therefore tensioning the finger muscles, even just a bit), the muscles around the base of my thumb also tenses involuntarily, even if my thumb isn't touching the back of the neck. Maybe this can be remedied by "teaching" my hand muscles to be as independent as possible.


BTW, I think I'm more comfortable playing with the bass almost vertical. The "resistance" comprises of the force I apply from my stomach where the bass rests against the fingers pressing onto the strings.

Well, that was a lot of good advice, and I'm seeing things a lot better because of this. Thank you very much!