Intonation for Young Double Bass players

[damonsmith]

Originally Posted by Norwegianwood

While it´s true that some people have very little talent what so ever, everyone can surely improve their hearing abilities as well as muscle memory. Someone is indeed born with an amazing ear, but that is not the case with most of us.

+1. It can be learned and taught except in the most extreme cases of tone deafness.
The ear is very important but still only part of the story.
Anyone who thinks their golden ear is going to make them a great bass player is going to get just as rude awakening as some one who relies only on positions.
A great ear can inspire laziness just as often as great playing.
A great ear is also no match for practice and determination.
Everyone has something to work on.

[bass-me-up]

what do you guys think about playing to midi-files?

what i mean is taking advantage of new technologies and the internet instead of only using a boring drones from a metronom. there are a lot of midi-files (play-a-longs etc.) available on the internet for different kinds of music. I myself started to make my own midi-files of the simandl exercises (got the old book out of the shelf after all these years) and strated practicing to them.

any thought on that?

that might help your student also.

cheers

[Maaaven]

I am no expert, by a mile, but this is something I have done
that I believe was some help. Learning positions up and
down the G string, I pluck the open D in between moves,
creating my own "drone" if that is how the term is being
used. Hearing intervals is always easier than absolute pitch.
I think learning to trust your ability to hear absolute pitch is
a process that can be pushed along, but it requires work.

I also had some trouble when a set of strings played a
different pitch arco and pizz. I would tune pizz and then
struggle arco, hearing the ~20 cent error and mentally
not being able to compensate. Muscle memory fighting
the ear is how I would describe it. Now I tune both ways
just to make sure this does not happen.

[pnchad]

I read an interview with Ray Brown once where he was asked about playing & practicing. He said he still struggles at times with intonation. It was about 6 or 7 years before he died so he was then in his late 60s at least.

It's really about your ear. Especially on DB if you rely on muscle memory, you're in trouble. If your ears are decent you can play an out-of-tune bass all the way through a tune - the great advantage of no frets.

Trust your ears! Just make sure you can hear yourself.

BTW, I have heard that slow long arco notes against open strings is also good.

[Alex Scott]

Very difficult to teach, you can ask my teachers!

I like Damon's post #19.

I think there is some misunderstanding as to how this works. You really should use every available resource. Ears, muscles, etc.

I have worked on everything through the years, and these are some things I learned:

1. Don't get too concerned with the theory behind the intonation, such as Just Intonation, Equal Temperment, etc. Playing in tune by yourself and playing in tune with an Ensemble are different skills. You just want to have something that works, and this may become more personal over time. Stay flexible and active in your listening.

2. Muscle Memory is very powerful and can help you, but it can also hurt you if you habitually put your finger in the wrong spot. Same with practicing slowly, you want to do it right or not at all.

3. It is easy to not press the note down in a way that truly stops the string. This causes a lot of issues.

4. You have to be able to hold the bass in a comfortable way so that you can get around easily. Switching strings needs to stay in tune.

5. My experience is that I either overshoot or undershoot shifts to certain areas, and going up is not always the same as going down. Paying attention to these tendencies helps clear them up.

6. Sometimes Intonation is not the biggest problem, and clears itself up a little when you fix another problem (time, position, bow speed)

7. Having a good idea of what the notes should sound like is very important, but your ability in this regard is probably better than you think.

8. A lot of times it sounds right because you are consistently wrong, videotape and record to find out what is really going on.

[Rob Hunter]

Originally Posted by bass-me-up

I myself started to make my own midi-files of the simandl exercises ... and strated practicing to them.

I did this with notation software and I found it quite helpful for intonation.

[Kylebass]

Sound production has a lot to do with intonation. If you can't make a good sound you can't hear what note you're playing. A lot of the time my poor intonation comes from not using my bow properly.