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Double Bass - I don't really get it

#263
I generally join the chorus of the DB side that you can't learn the instrument without real lessons. I do think this has maybe slightly changed with the advent of youtube and the like but it's still a very very good idea to get a few lessons to get yourself started. I know a few guys who have ended up with pinched nerves or messed up hands because they played DB with terrible technique.
 
#264
If you don't like the upright bass, no problem. But I got one about 6 years ago and I love it, fellow musicians love, audiences love it.
I'll never have enough time to become a monster Upright jazz player, and it's a pain to move around, but that tone... it's a blast!
 
#265
David Jayne said:
I agree generally, speaking as a failed double bassist. But it's not about strength. There are plenty of skinny women who absolutely wail on upright. It's ALL about technique. I didn't know that when I attempted it. Didn't get lessons. Didn't study properly. Hurt myself a bit. Got smarter about it but had long since given up. I'll get another one.
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Did you ever shake hands with any of them? I can assure you that if they played unamplified acoustic upright bass, and "wailed" on it, they had hand and forearm strength.

If you want to try to make the case that skinny women aren't capable of having hand / forearm strength, you're on your own.
 
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#266
Remus_Redbone said:
Did you ever shake hands with any of them? I can assure you that if they played unamplified acoustic upright bass, and "wailed" on it, they had hand and forearm strength.

If you want to try to make the case that skinny women aren't capable of having hand / forearm strength, you're on your own.
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I agree. However, I don't think you need prodigious strength. If you looked at my hands and arms, you'd guess that there's just not a lot of muscle there, and there isn't. I struggle with easy weightlifting exercises. But I can play upright for hours, and have played un-amplified gigs. When I double on electric, I have to be conscious of not breaking the little thing in two -- seriously I think that electric should be played with a lighter touch, and it requires an adjustment to go back and forth between the two.

The typical upright bass training involves learning the efficient application of strength, under the assumption that gains in musculature will happen at their own pace. When playing upright -- at home or on stage -- I'm conscious of maintaining correct classical posture and technique, 100% of the time.
 
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#267
fdeck said:
I agree. However, I don't think you need prodigious strength. If you looked at my hands and arms, you'd guess that there's just not a lot of muscle there, and there isn't. I struggle with easy weightlifting exercises. But I can play upright for hours, and have played un-amplified gigs. When I double on electric, I have to be conscious of not breaking the little thing in two -- seriously I think that electric should be played with a lighter touch, and it requires an adjustment to go back and forth between the two.

The typical upright bass training involves learning the efficient application of strength, under the assumption that gains in musculature will happen at their own pace. When playing upright -- at home or on stage -- I'm conscious of maintaining correct classical posture and technique, 100% of the time.
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The strength discussion came from my reply to the OP ( Double Bass - I don't really get it ) in which I mentioned strength required to play upright as compared to strength required to play electric bass. I didn't infer that the strength requirements to play upright was comparable to the strength of strong man contest winners. When another TB'er explained that it wasn't strength so much as technique, I was more or less in agreement, but when he used the example of seeing "skinny women" play upright well to support his argument, I had to point out that it isn't impossible for skinny women to have strength.

Having played electric bass since 1980, and having played both electric & upright for the last 15 or so years, I still contend that playing upright requires more hand and forearm strength than required to play electric bass, but not the kind of strength required to bend horseshoes by hand. It's more of an endurance / stamina type strength that builds up over time while playing upright. That strength (or lack thereof) becomes very apparent if you lay off upright for several weeks, then try to play a 3-4 hour gig.
 
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#269
One Drop said:
I grew up in the era when DB was still very much a part of the music you heard daily, and when Jazz was still a popular art form.

I was always attracted to the richness and thump of the instrument, and the vocal expressive qualities always fascinated and attracted me.

When I got deeply into Jazz in my teens I was lucky enough to se and hear many of the world's best bassists in small clubs and halls, and often the sound was excellent. The visceral thump and the all-enveloping feeling of hearing a DB well played and in an acoustic setting or well amplified is truly stunning and cannot be reproduced with another instrument.

In an orchestral setting the effect of a whole section playing is also something to be experienced.

To be honest, for all the talk of DB and EB being different instruments, and in spite of me being an EB player who has only fooled around with DBs on a few occasions, deep down I consider the EB a much less impressive and expressive instrument than its bigger older brother, which is the king of all bass instruments IMO.

In the end you probably just haven't heard enough of well recorded or amplified DB to really 'hear' it yet- like people who never played or singled out EB when listening and concentrated on it, they probably all sound much of a muchness.
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I first 'got it' with DB not long after I got my first Fender in '68. It was Miroslav Vitous on an old Herbie Mann album"Stone Flute". I remember thinking it kind of sounded like Jack Casady but even more of a organic expressive tone to it. Since then I always preferred a woody sort of spectrum on my electric basses. Jim
 
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#271
blowinblue said:
Now that is music! In spite of being primarily a Blues-rock guy, I love this. For the record, I 'get' the double bass. I just can't play one. :sorry: But at 64 years of age there's still plenty of time to learn. ;)

M. M.
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They are even better live. We saw them at the Savannah Music Festival a year or two ago. Even had a chance to meet them after the concert. They were as terrific in person as they were on stage.
 
#272
I didn't go for the half price rental this time, maybe next--so I have time to make some space for it--and also I may be too busy over the next month to really take advantage of it.
I'll reconsider next time around.
(They do it more than once a year)
 
#273
blowinblue said:
Now that is music! In spite of being primarily a Blues-rock guy, I love this. For the record, I 'get' the double bass. I just can't play one. :sorry: But at 64 years of age there's still plenty of time to learn. ;)
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Me too. I'll just say an upright wouldn't be my choice to play Led Zeppelin, but there is no "mutual exclusiveness" in this video.
I saw Edgar Meyer live at Sewanee University with a Mandolinist and was duly impressed.

 
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#275
Here's one of my "double bass"es:
BantamDouble.JPG

here's the other:
BigGuy1.JPG

:D

Anyone want to guess which one's heavier? ;)
 
#277
when i was in high school doing all the jazz band stuff i was very fond of the fretless and my first day in band my teacher asked if i wanted to play double bass. fast forward a few month later i was skipping class quite frequently to play the double bass in the rehearsal rooms (i was the only one allowed to play it and i had the locker combo ;) ). There is a magic to these instruments that cannot be captured or replicated with electric. I love fret less electrics but there is a time and place for the DB. I believe it was a 51 K&G something along those lines magnificent instrument. Offered to buy it off my teacher and he wouldnt sell it lol.
 

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