Leaps to the high register

[markshima]

Hi Everyone,

Does anyone have any tips on how to jump to the high register and land in tune? I can stay in tune pretty well if I climb my way up to the higher end of the thumb position, but have trouble making leaps from the low end to the high end.

Obviously, practice and patience will help the most, but does anyone have any concrete hints or suggestions to practice along the way?

Thanks,
Mark

[Kam]

Repetition is big. Get the sound of the interval you're trying to play into your ear well enough that you can sing it, sing along with your playing and go slow enough so you can correct where needed.

Also, my teacher gave me a fairly simple exercise of sliding up octaves doing an A Major scale for example completely on the G string. So..top line A -> slide up the octave and back down, top space B -> Slide up the octave and back down. I actually used that to improve my vibrato in thumb position, but it might help you as well.

I think the sliding should start out audibly and then as you improve, keep your finger on the string but don't make the chromatic slide audible. I hope that makes sense. Another way to say it would be don't "pick up" your left hand from the string and plop it back down when you get where you want to be.

[Mike Crumpton]

Rufus Reid in Evolving Upward has an exercise playing octaves down each string. This worked for me. I try to imagine where all the other same notes are and find them from time to time to add variety. I do at least octave leaps down each string most days. I find I surprise myself at how I can instinctively reach notes now. When I started I did not imagine this would work as well as it did. It helps with the lower notes too - I found that following doing this, if a got in a complete brain siezing panic my hands would just take me out of it. The confidence this built for me is priceless. But everyone is different.

Rieds book is now out of print but put together with part one to be a single volume - The Evolving Bass Player so I'm told - I havent seen this edition. However on the e string it e to e, and back, f to f and back, f# to f# and back etc all the way up to e again and the same for the other strings. Ried starts on the g string - I'm just perverse and start the other way round, not that I think it matters. He places great emphasis on the form of hte left hand by the way.

[markshima]

Thanks for the tips guys.

[Rob Sleeper]

What my teacher says and I find it very helpful is try to find a land mark. The g harmonic and then the d in thumb position. Just picture where the note is from those harmonics.