Yet another pizz technique thread

[Alvaro Martín Gómez A.]

Originally Posted by Kneehimiah

First, the idea is to get power out of your instrument. This doesn't mean that the bass is to be beaten into submission or something. It suggests that from this position at the bottom of the fingerboard that a lot of personality can be developed, either soft or loud. Your questions aren't dumb. With the "inside" of your thumb against the side of the fingerboard, and with your right hand down at the bottom of the fingerboard (this is where the measurement came from, the tip of your thumb being even with the end of the fingerboard) pull the string, closing the "C". Now, if you pull the G string, let the D string stop the motion. Let the A string stop the motion of pulling the D string. The E string is tricky as you can imagine. There's nothing to stop the motion. This one you must measure. Leave the "curve" of the "C" close to or touching the strings. With a metronome, practice whole notes, then halfs (I don't think that halves apply to jazz), quarters, etc., as far as you can go.

OK, OK. I'm working on this (feel very enthusiastic about it). I've risen my bass and I'm hooking my thumb against the very edge of the FB and I notice something: When plucking the strings being the thumb like that, I have "no wood" under my index and middle fingertips. They're "on the air". Should it be like that? If not, I have two options: 1- change my hand's angle so my fingertips have contact with the end of the fingerboard and 2- Raise my hand a litle bit. The thumb won't be exactly over the FB edge, just a little higher, but my index and middle fingertips will have some wood below them.

After working on all of this, I've thought of a "method" to get the "right" height for my bass: Standing straight and with my instrument in playing position, "sway" my right arm so the thumb can grab the fingerboard edge without changing my position. The thing is, if that's right, I must raise my instrument even more and the pivot doesn't have more room for raising it, so I should modify it. It's OK if it's possible to work with option 2 above, though. A big concern about this change right now is how will that affect my intonation. After almost eleven years since the first time I picked a DB in my life, it seems pretty difficult to accomodate to that new fingerboard layout (and my master will kill me, BTW).

[anonymous0726]

I wouldn't be pulling with my fingers offa the end of the fingerboard myself. 'Let your ears rule' is the best bet. I'll be anywhere from the middle of the length of fingerboard between the string-octave and the end of the fingerboard, depending on what I'm doing. You'll also find that, no matter where on the string you're playing with your right hand, you have tons of different sounds that you can get by how hard you pull, how you pull the string (straight through, up, down, arcing with the travel of the string, etc), how much finger v. finger tip, etc. For the meatiest sound with definition, I can draw a diagonal line from the right side of my finger tip to the left side of my second knuckle on the first finger that shows where the string is in my hand when I pull. My forearm is approaching 60-90 degrees against the string.

[Kneehimiah]

Originally Posted by Ray Parker

But, you're not standing straight -- which is the problem.

When you are playing or just holding the bass, your body position should be the same. That is what I seek with myself and students. How high the bass is on the pin, how far it is leaning toward you, how high the nut is in relation to your eye-line, etc, is all dependant on a zillion factors, including the size and shape of the bass, the size and shape of you, how long your arms are in relation to your body, etc, etc, etc.

In short, I start with the bow. You should be able to comfortable reach a full down bow on the G string while holding an open fifth on the low F (E and A strings) without contorting at all. Now, if you're short and chubby like me, this may not be completely possible, but this is where I start and work out from there.
For the fingers, this changes from player to player. I tend to put my first finger on top of my second finger and do the heavy lifting this way, especially for really loud playing. At medium to softer volumes, I'll use first and/or second finger or the hook described above. Then, for faster and solo type pizz, I bring my thumb up against the E string (or A!) like you would when playing Slab and then use a combination of hand muscles along with the arm and shoulder muscles. This last bit is kind of like nitro and drag racing. You can do it for a while but you'll get tired (burn out) pretty quickly. Other common uses of the fingers are first and second finger (and sometimes one, two and three) together, side by side, and just first finger playing. A lot of this has to do with the way that you're built and the sound that you want.

I'd have to say that I concur with pretty much anything you say, as you obviously know what you're talking about. I stand 6'5" tall, and can slow dance with a whale (LOL). Often when playing in thumb position the thought to play a line comes faster than the body moves, but the arms can reach pretty much anything.

Ramon
www.ramonpooser.com (the guestbook is up)

[anonymous0726]

Damn! I wish I had some of your reach!

[Kneehimiah]

Originally Posted by Ray Parker

Damn! I wish I had some of your reach!

I played a birthday party for a friend years ago in NYC and Eddie Gomez showed up. With the way he plays and his flawless technique, I would have thought him to be as tall as me. He was 5'3", 5'4". And plays all that bass. WOW! Again I say, keep your ideas coming, Ray. You seem to know what you're talking about.

[Alvaro Martín Gómez A.]

Hi again.

I'm reliving this thread because I want to share my first experience playing a gig with the "normal" jazz pizzicato technique. After working on that all these weeks, last night I decided to put the valuable advice I received here in a gig situation to see what happened. It was a wedding party in which we had to play mostly traditional dancing music, Salsa and what people call here "brilliant" or "stylized" music for dinner time ("Love Is A Many Splendored Thing", for instance), so I took my electric upright along with my bass guitar.

I think the overall result was good. I could notice the big difference in attack and a punchier tone quality that helped to get the band together specially on energetic songs. Problems? The first and obvious one was the temptation of playing the old way. Fast string skipping from A to G is still very difficult to me. Also some minor muting issues. Switching to the bass guitar after playing a piece with the upright this way felt really weird!

Originally Posted by Kneehimiah

Now, if you pull the G string, let the D string stop the motion. Let the A string stop the motion of pulling the D string. The E string is tricky as you can imagine. There's nothing to stop the motion.

Contrary to this, I felt the E string really easy to play. The most difficult string to play for me was the G string, maybe because the wider hand opening (wider "C" shape) which I definitely wasn't used to (and not yet), but anyway, every time I felt uncomfortable I concentrated on the adjacent string as a grip point (the biggest missing point to me in this technique -thanks, Ramon!- ) and that greatly helped.

I still have to practice a lot to feel at home with this style of playing, but this is my first step and I feel very happy for that. I just want to say thanks to all of the friendly TalkBassers who helped me to get into the right track. A long road still to come, but I can walk it. I'd love to have a video for you to give me further corrections (I'm sure they're needed), but unfortunately nobody had a camera.

Maybe I'm not practicing the way I used to because of so many occupations, but TalkBass has proven to be one of the best sources of knowledge to me nowadays. Thank you everybody again!

[aerojourdude]

I remember my first lesson on upright. My teacher told me when doing pizz (I only learned jazz DB) you will know you are playing right when the callus on your right hand first finger forms on the side of your finger. Then you know you are grabbing the full meat of the string.
I agree with the "C" theory presented earlier.

A question for the classical players here about pizz myself:
I've been attending several orch. concerts here in London recently. I've noticed the DBs doing their pizz around the height of the elbow of the neck. Why so high? It doesn't seem there's much gained, and keeping your hand near where you bow gives you more control over sound and quicker to switch to bowing again. maybe I'm just not seeing/hearing it.

[jallenbass]

Originally Posted by aerojourdude

A question for the classical players here about pizz myself:
I've been attending several orch. concerts here in London recently. I've noticed the DBs doing their pizz around the height of the elbow of the neck. Why so high? It doesn't seem there's much gained, and keeping your hand near where you bow gives you more control over sound and quicker to switch to bowing again. maybe I'm just not seeing/hearing it.

The middle of the string is a more appropriate color for most classical music.

[aerojourdude]

Surprisingly simple. Thanks for that. Will pass it on to my classical music prof as well.