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Double Bass Bowing problem

S

Sharkabilly

Sep 26, 2007
54
0
#1
I'm primarily a jazz player, however I use a bow when I practice.

I recently started warming up with my two octave scales and I keep squealing when I get to the higher pitches. Where do I need to apply more/less pressure to stop this. I use a french bow, I have a teacher but he's on tour and haven't been able to ask him about it.

Any help would be great.
 
#3
Francois Rabbath says that you should put your bow in the same position relative to your left hand position. So if you're playing in half-position, your bow should be close to the fingerboard. If you're playing the middle G on the G string, your bow should around the mid-point between the bridge and the end of the fingerboard. Move your bow position accordingly as you go up or down the fingerboard.

My old teacher says to use very light pressure when playing. Each string requires a different bow pressure and bow speed, with the G string needing the lightest bow pressure and fastest speed. In my experience, in thumb position, you need light but equal bow pressure and faster speeds - you can't use too little pressure, otherwise the bow will start to squeak towards the tip.

Above all, be confident when you play and hear the notes beforehand.
 
#5
Bow placement is so important! Great comments you've gotten already, so I can't add much, except that you also check that you are not sliding your bow up and down -but staying in the same place on the string with flat hair. Sometimes when you slide the bow up and down the string you'll get an odd howling sound (though a very useful effect in new music!) that might be part of what you are hearing.

great quote-

D Chan:
"Above all, be confident when you play and hear the notes beforehand."
 
#6
I find the Rabbath method for French bow to be the way, the truth, and the light. The biggest hurdle is relaxing the body/mind and letting the method do it's work. So I guess that involves a lot of that confidence you mention, not to mention trust and faith that right practice makes progress.


dchan said:
Francois Rabbath says that you should put your bow in the same position relative to your left hand position. So if you're playing in half-position, your bow should be close to the fingerboard. If you're playing the middle G on the G string, your bow should around the mid-point between the bridge and the end of the fingerboard. Move your bow position accordingly as you go up or down the fingerboard.

My old teacher says to use very light pressure when playing. Each string requires a different bow pressure and bow speed, with the G string needing the lightest bow pressure and fastest speed. In my experience, in thumb position, you need light but equal bow pressure and faster speeds - you can't use too little pressure, otherwise the bow will start to squeak towards the tip.

Above all, be confident when you play and hear the notes beforehand.
Click to expand...


Great post.
 
#8
Sounds like you may need to relax your hand and arm, for starters. For me, its not about pressure; its about relaxed weight, bow placement, arm/hand position, and bow speed. Welcome to the club :). Most of us are working on these issues, in one way or another.

You might try warming up with some open strings, playing really, really, long, long tones. Use a metronome. Push your limits of how slowly you can move the bow and get a solid sound. Strive for even volume and tone from frog to tip. Then, go the other way, practicing fast articulations, thirty-second notes, etc, pushing how fast you can make a good, even sound. Try to expand (or at least feel the boundaries of) these limits a little each day, or at least, most days. The sound should become the same, no matter where we are on the bow, or whether or not its up bow or down bow.

Then do various bowing patterns (hooked, quarter eighth eighth, reverse-hooked, etc.) to get your body used to generating a good sound (i.e. even and clear) without worrying about pitch. Then, when the sound is happening, add the left hand.

You also might include, in your warm up, some string crossing exercises on open strings, all combinations, up and down bow.

+1 on what everyone else said about bow placement varying with left hand location as well as bow speed.

Sounds like you are trying to do too much at once. So break it down, separate the hands, and work on your right arm/hand.

Mr. Rabbath is one of many roads to Rome, IMHO. Folks have been playing the bass with French bow beautifully, with grace, clarity, power, and fluidity, for a long time. I mean no disrespect to anyone, ever. Only to say that many players have developed a good arco sound on the bass without paying for his specific products. There are no magic bullets that I have seen, or heard of, except patience, relentless self-examination, practice, breaking down our movements, and relaxed awareness of what we are doing. For me, the temptation to try to "fix" one's playing by buying an expensive, trendy, and name brand DVD may be great, but it is not the only way to do things. I still have to do all the other stuff, too.

Lots of good, effective bowing study books, or sections of books, out there. Barry Green, Rufus Reid, Fred Zimmerman, Ed Robinson, Warren Benfield, Eduouard Nanny, and many more. Practice in front of a mirror. Beware of tension. Rufus Reid's "The Evolving Bassist" has a nice open string warm up section as an early exercise, if you don't want to make up your own patterns, for example. Another example is Jeff Bradetich's DVD on bass technique, for $20-30, or something like that. He shows French grip, arm movement, and goes through some open string exercises, before adding the left hand.

You also might find another teacher to pinch hit, or supplement, while your primary instructor is on the road. Somebody who makes their living playing the bass with the French bow; e.g. a pro orchestral player with a great sound.

Hope that some of this helps. My two cents.
 
#9
LM Bass said:
Bow placement is so important! Great comments you've gotten already, so I can't add much, except that you also check that you are not sliding your bow up and down -but staying in the same place on the string with flat hair. Sometimes when you slide the bow up and down the string you'll get an odd howling sound (though a very useful effect in new music!) that might be part of what you are hearing.

great quote-

D Chan:
"Above all, be confident when you play and hear the notes beforehand."
Click to expand...

If you can't slide the bow up and down while playing, what's the smoothest way to get the bow closer to the bridge when you get to the higher octaves?
 

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