Ring/Middle fingers in Simandl

[deadfish]

I am fairly new to playing upright bass, and play primarily bluegrass. I have been working through Simandl and am trying to learn solid technique. My question pertains to the middle and ring fingers when all four fingers are down. How important is it that these fingers stay close to each other? Every picture I have seen of "proper" technique shows something like:

I---------M-R-------P

But my ring doesn't like to stay close to my middle without training...it likes to assume a position closer to:

I---------M-----R---P

Obviously it doesn't affect intonation, since the ring finger is only playing a support role. Is it important to learn to keep my ring and middle fingers together, or am I worrying about nothing?

[damonsmith]

It does seem to help, Joelle Leandre put a rubber band around my middle and ring at a lesson once.
you can also use a spool of thread between the index and middle.
While there are new opinons about it, the Simandl technique of holding your position only invloves a streach between your index and middle fingers, the rest of the hand should be relatively relaxed.

[sibass89]

It's not the biggest deal. The idea behind having your middle and ring fingers together is that the webbings between your first and second finger and your third and fourth finger are the largest. By keeping your middle and ring finger together, you open up those webbings. As long as you are keeping your 1st finger open and then you're other three fingers relatively close you will be okay.

[jfv]

If you have proper technique, meaning curled fingers
so you are playing on the tips, and you have all 4
fingers down on the string, I dont thing the distance
between 2 and 3 matters, although you must have
odd hands, I find that ring naturally stays closer to
middle than pinky

Cheers,

[jfv]

PS: Best thing for these kind of issues is to get a
teacher, that real person in the room looking at
what you're are doing is indispensible for getting
it right.