Double Bass Accidental harmonics?

[tegnoto89]

Hey guys,

So I'm a vocal major and intermediate-advanced electric bassist who very recently started double bass. I haven't started lessons yet and have just done my best to gather what I can regarding technique from forums and online videos. I just started rentals about a week ago.

I'm sure there have got to be millions of things wrong with my technique as of now. However, because I'm really familiar with strings tuned in 4ths, I've been doing a lot of experimenting, just going up and down scales and whatnot (my intonation is terrible and I'm sure my fingerings are wrong). I've noticed something that's kind of annoying me, and I was wondering if it might be something simple that you guys could suggest to fix it.

When I'm bowing, regardless of the string and whether or not I'm playing the string open, maybe one third of the time I start the sound, it comes out as a harmonic an octave above the pitch that should be sounding. Is this a common issue? What causes this?

 

[JtheJazzMan]

A combination of incorrect bow placement in relation to the bridge and fingerboard, incorrect bow pressure, incorrect bow angle (ie not at right angles), incorrect bow speed.......etc

All these will all affect whether you start a clean fundamental note or a harmonic.

Some strings do it more than others. Bright responsive strings have the flip side that you must be in good control of your motions otherwise they dont sound the way you want them to sound.

The common advice is to get a teacher. Its good advice too since a good teacher will spot all these problems in 5 seconds flat and youll be well onto fixing them quickly.

 

[fdeck]

Normally I would be deeply hesitant to blame an issue like this on my instrument, knowing that technique is a big part of it. But I experienced the "falsing" effect specifically when I switched to a new set of Spirocores. I appealed to the forum, and received a boatload of good advice, including:

1. New Spiro's can take a few weeks of playing to settle down.

2. Technique, baby, technique.

3. Some players love Spiro's for arco, some players hate them.

Among all of the things that I could work on to improve my playing, I decided that figuring out how to get a good bowed tone out of those Spiro's was not at the top of my list. So I replaced the G and D with Obligato's. I still had some falsing, but less often. Months later, the problem has pretty much vanished, so I have to conclude:

1. The strings made some difference initially.

2. Maybe my technique has improved in that time frame. Maybe the Obli's benefited from being played in for a while.

3. I don't believe in quantum randomness of bass tone, so there has to be a technique component if the problem seems random. Falsing seemed to be more frequent when I was playing more difficult passages. Hmmm...

4. A new cake of rosin won't bankrupt you. 'Tis the season for scratchy tone in general, and a soft winter rosin might get you over the hump.

I would advise paying the closest possible attention to technique, while considering a more arco-friendly string as a last resort. There is a severe downside to chasing tone with gear upgrades, namely that your technique gains nothing and your pocketbook loses everything.

 

[Andrew McGregor]

So, you've probably gathered the phenomenon is called 'falsing'. Basically it happens because you're being too tentative with the bow, and perhaps not being consistent with where you have it on the string.

Technique is the fix for that, and the way to develop the technique is to be mindful of exactly what you're doing and remember where you have the bow and how it feels when it works. Once you get some lessons that will help greatly, because that should get your bow hold sorted; you can't feel the string properly without a good bow hold. Think of the bow as part of your hand, that way you can think about the contact point where the bow touches the string more easily.

 

[robobass]

Something important is keeping the bow at a right angle to the string. It can be hard to know if you're really doing this unless you can find a large mirror to play in front of some of the time.