16 th note articulation - Bowing arm

[kaybass1952]

I was wondering if anyone had some tips for executing 16th note passages .
I have been working on an etude and have been praticticing it slowly, but I was wondering about how I should be working my right arm. I usually think of drawing the bow (German) from the shoulder (and back) but i'm guessing that 16ths require more movement from the wrist . I find that my wrist feels more locked (Not good).
Any thoughts on this bowing arm movement ? I have a recording of this piece and the 16th note passages sound more detached and short.
BTW I will discuss this with my teacher ,but lessons don't resume till the new year
Thanx

[Cory Palmer]

It depends on exactly what kind of stroke you are going for and how fast the passage is. If it is a lighter, very articulate type of sound than most of the motion should be coming from your fingers, wrist, and elbow. Heavier strokes require the fingers, wrist, and elbow to be firm otherwise the notes won't sound very well.

This is the kind of thing that is hard to describe in this forum. Without being with you and seeing exactly what you are doing it's hard to be very specific.

[sibass89]

I feel unless the entire arm moves as a unit you don't get a clear sound. Extra motion adds extra noise and it can also add tension.

IMO, the entire arm should move as a whole from the big muscle groups (back). I think you are on the right track but you now also need to add the pulling and pushing with your fingers. If you think about a figure eight when you use the bow this usually helps.

When you are playing think of pulling the string on the down bow from the left side of the string (this has the frog of bow very slightly higher in the air than the up bow). Then for the up bow you think of pushing the string from the right side of the string, which keeps the frog of the bow slightly lower.

What this creates is a piston like movement in your fingers similar to that of the pistons a train. This is very important. You don't want to add any downward pressure to dampen the top. This will help your sound and the articulation but the key is still to have the whole arm move as a whole and swing freely. Once you start isolating the parts, then other parts of the arm become tense and that comes through in your sound.

Best of luck, and if anything isn't clear, let me know, this is very difficult to explain online.

-Nick

Edit: I can write pages and pages on this, as it is a very very complex subject, but this is it in a nutshell without any detail of major explanation.

[bassman1489]

man, you totally study with Laszlo...

I agree with everything Nick said, because we have the same teacher.

[sibass89]

Yea I am, but everything he says makes sense because it works. I don't know if he has a bass in NY but when he does his demonstrations in your first lesson, he puts a piece of paper on the top of his bass. He first emulates the way you play and you see the paper doesn't vibrate at all, and then he plays the way he does and you watch the paper go crazy because the vibrations he puts on the instrument are just so right that the entire instrument is going nuts.

[jdapodaca]

Originally Posted by sibass89

Yea I am, but everything he says makes sense because it works. I don't know if he has a bass in NY but when he does his demonstrations in your first lesson, he puts a piece of paper on the top of his bass. He first emulates the way you play and you see the paper doesn't vibrate at all, and then he plays the way he does and you watch the paper go crazy because the vibrations he puts on the instrument are just so right that the entire instrument is going nuts.

that's really interesting.

i want to try that.

where/how does he put the piece of paper on the instrument?

what kind of paper?

how exactly does the paper "go nuts"?

[sibass89]

He takes a regular piece of paper and holds it on the tops of the instrument, right in the middle, with his finger tips. Then he plays, and the vibrations from the top vibrate the paper so much that it's hard for him to hold the paper down. This is really something to see in person. He did it first holding it on my bass and the paper hardly rattled, but on his, he could hardly hold the piece of paper down.

[bassman1489]

he did it on the school bass that he uses, and it was crazy. my tone has improved a ridiculous amount since i first started studying with him in september.

[bassbass]

I cant really comment because i am a french stick player but if its a coordination thing then start with each stick every slowly and work the metronome up in speed, it takes a bit of time each day but the finished product is very controlled. Also if you are looking for spiccato then start on the string and as you get faster begin to become more off the string.

Paul

[TomGale]

You might want to try the bow strokes up to tempo on only the first note. Sometimes it hard to tell whether the movement of the left hand is causing some of the problem. Elimante that by using only the right until you are happy with the bowing result. Only then add the left up to tempo.
Tom Gale
ASODB.com

[damonsmith]

Originally Posted by kaybass1952

I was wondering if anyone had some tips for executing 16th note passages .
I have been working on an etude and have been praticticing it slowly, but I was wondering about how I should be working my right arm. I usually think of drawing the bow (German) from the shoulder (and back) but i'm guessing that 16ths require more movement from the wrist . I find that my wrist feels more locked (Not good).
Any thoughts on this bowing arm movement ? I have a recording of this piece and the 16th note passages sound more detached and short.
BTW I will discuss this with my teacher ,but lessons don't resume till the new year
Thanx

Practice only moving the wrist/hand, connect with the string very near the frog.
For very fast lines the weight of my arm provides the tone and my wirst provides the movement, start slow and work up speed.
I was shown this by Bert Turetzky, Barre Phillips and John Lindberg. I believe it comes from Fred Zimmerman.

[Cory Palmer]

Originally Posted by damonsmith

Practice only moving the wrist/hand, connect with the string very near the frog.
For very fast lines the weight of my arm provides the tone and my wirst provides the movement, start slow and work up speed.
I was shown this by Bert Turetzky, Barre Phillips and John Lindberg. I believe it comes from Fred Zimmerman.

This is why I think this is extremely difficult to discuss on here. I agree with you but I think this kind of thing could be extremely confusing to try out without somebody there helping you make slight adjustments as you are playing.

For the past year I have been trying to get out of the habit of moving my wrist so much during fast passages. A lot of wrist and fingers is good for fast lighter stuff like Mozart and even Beethoven to a degree. If you try to use much wrist in Strauss or loud Beethoven passages you will lose a lot of energy.

Probably the best thing you can do is work the tempo up slowly with adding these ideas gradually. The feel of using the wrist and fingers to get the articulation versus articulation from the arm can feel and sound very different. The biggest key is to stay relaxed. When you start feeling mucles tense up that shouldn't be tensing up stop and shake it out for a second.

[bejoyous]

Here's a good method for improving fast runs. Often the bluriness of the notes is a result of the left and right hands not be EXACTLY coordinated plus other things like string crossing and shifts.

So, this is what I do to tighten these things up. Let's take the racing F Major scale passage of The Bartered Bride Overture as an example.

1) Turn each individual note and turn it into a triplet. Instead of FEFG FEDE, play FFFEEEFFFGGG FFFEEEDDDEEE and so on. The bow is still articulating the string at the same speed so it's a good way to hear and work on that aspect of playing. The musical line itself is moving slower so you can work on phrasing, accents and so on.

But the biggest improvement will be your left hand. The time from the last F to the first E, and so on, is very fast but as the beat tempo is slower, your brain has time to think about the shift in finger.

2) Instead of playing the passage as running 16th/8th, change the notes to a series of dotted 8ths and 16ths. Instead of FEFG FEDE play F EF GF ED EF... and FE FG FE DE.

This way, the fast changes in the fingers has a little break between each articulation.

3) Go back to the original notation. You'll find the passage is much cleaner.

Of course, do the above starting the metronome on slow and work up the tempo.