Double Bass Curved v.s. Collapsed Fingers

[damonsmith]

I don't think anyone has forgotten where we are. There is simply a whole lot of subjectivity to the issues involved. "What ethically gets passed along from teacher to student" is a prime example. I have a great colleague that I work with who is a wonderful bass pedagogue with 24 years professional orchestra experience. He plays beautifully with collapsed fingers in TP, and so do his students. Should he be censured because he doesn't toe the party line in the estimation of someone who finds this aspect of his teaching "unethical"? I happen to know who several of his teachers are/were, and the names don't get much higher up the ladder than these folks. Should they be censured for letting him develop his playing in the way he has?

The point of the pedagogy forum, as far as I know, is for teachers to share their beliefs and practices in a common space and let the reader take it all in and make up their own minds. And that's exactly what we are doing IMO. Nowhere does any rule read that teachers all need to agree or that the answer must always be a binary right/wrong/black/white.

Well, we know Rabbath teaches it. I think my point is important because it is talkbass and as always people are looking for shortcuts, validation for bad habits and excuses. Just like the massive difference between legit four-finger methods and bass guitar techniques what you describe above is not the same as a beginner not being able to arch their fingers and leaving at that.

Another point is that improvisors of any kind can't always look to those playing fixed music for the most stable technique - the classical players actually have more leeway in what fingering systems they can use because they can make decisions about it long before the fact.

 

[damonsmith]

I don't think Rabbath has any magic with the collapsed fingers, what I think is that anyone who goes whole-hog Rabbath tends to play great. If you do all that other stuff, including play scales in every position every day for two hours it isn't going to matter whether your fingers are curved or not.

So I still come down on the side of curved being the most ethical choice for a professional teacher answering the question with special exception for the Rabbath school.

I still believe Rabbath built his bad habit into an otherwise genius system - much like the way Ornette Coleman included his mis-understanding of transposing instruments into his Harmolodic theory.

 

[Les Fret]

as I mentioned in the 2nd post in this thread, playing with the pad, in addition to requiring a different sort of leverage, produces a different sort of sound. For pizz players, it's often called a "growl" when on the lower strings, but it's there on the higher strings as well; another way to look (listen) at it would be as a certain kind of bloom on the envelope of the note. I don't play cello, but it would make sense that this would be true for cellists as well.

Yes good point that I forgot to mention. One of the reason for collapsed fingers can be the different sound you get. For pizzicato collapsed fingers produce a more buzzing sound with a bit more sustain especially on the low notes just as you say. I don't hear much difference when playing arco though. I am curious how this translates to cello. If cello players choose for collapsed fingers more for the sake of vibrato or also for sound purposes (?). Interesting stuff. Hard to find good info on this.

Great observation. This is the kind of position that I see Joel Quarrington use in TP, playing from the side of the index finger from a position that I have come to describe as "free position", where the fingers do not stay spaced to the half step, but rather bunch together to allow the arm to concentrate its weight on the production of vibrato.

Also interesting! I can't see it very well on that video. Is this the same technique as sarangi players use? they touch the string at the left side of the string with the fingernail, so not pressing down the string to the fingerboard at all. Is this sort of the same? and is he touching the side of the string at the left side or right side of the string (from players view)?

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

From what I've seen of his playing, when he plays with the index finger in TP, he's pressing it down, but almost on the thumb side of the index finger. Whenever I tried to imitate this, my nail dug into the place where the finger met the string from the other side, and I had to use a different orientation. I have very thick, hard nails, which was useful when I was playing classical guitar because they were inflexible and produced a big sound; on the bass, sometimes they can cause issues when the force required to make a stop causes them to dig into the nail bed. When this happens, the survival instinct kicks in and I find a different way to make the stop that involves less pain.

 

[ctrlzjones]

much like the way Ornette Coleman included his mis-understanding of transposing instruments into his Harmolodic theory.

This sounds interesting; was he mixing up intervals without noticing, being blessed with funny results?
Do you care to elaborate or share a link?

 

[damonsmith]

This sounds interesting; was he mixing up intervals without noticing, being blessed with funny results?
Do you care to elaborate or share a link?

It is a whole other thread.

 

[Les Fret]

From what I've seen of his playing, when he plays with the index finger in TP, he's pressing it down, but almost on the thumb side of the index finger. Whenever I tried to imitate this, my nail dug into the place where the finger met the string from the other side, and I had to use a different orientation. I have very thick, hard nails, which was useful when I was playing classical guitar because they were inflexible and produced a big sound; on the bass, sometimes they can cause issues when the force required to make a stop causes them to dig into the nail bed. When this happens, the survival instinct kicks in and I find a different way to make the stop that involves less pain.

Thanks for explaining. Although I still don't understand exactly where you touch the string on and how you hold your fingers. Hope someone can explain a bit more. I guess a picture would say more than a description...

 

[damonsmith]

Great observation. This is the kind of position that I see Joel Quarrington use in TP, playing from the side of the index finger from a position that I have come to describe as "free position", where the fingers do not stay spaced to the half step, but rather bunch together to allow the arm to concentrate its weight on the production of vibrato. This makes the hand/arm angle backward toward the lower range of the bass, as in this video at around the 1 minute mark and elsewhere:


.

It looks to me like Petracchi chromatic and semi-chromatic positions slightly altered by vibrato - as opposed to dramatically altered diatonic positions.

This is also the final performance version of a fixed piece of music by a master soloist. I don't imagine he played it like that right out of the gate!

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Call it what you like. I see the fingers bunched together for the sake of vibrato and not even close to being in half step spacing. I have no problem with this at all and think that the technique perfectly suits the music being played, which is as it should be.

 

[damonsmith]

Call it what you like. I see the fingers bunched together for the sake of vibrato and not even close to being in half step spacing. I have no problem with this at all and think that the technique perfectly suits the music being played, which is as it should be.

Agreed on all points. I'm just adding that vibrato tends to be the last step to polishing a work like this.