I don't know where else to post this but since you're speaking of Rabbath and I just got the CD-Rom, can this technique be used without the use of a bent end-pin? Also, forgive any questions that you might think are beneath any of you. I've been playing electric for 24 years and just started with upright 9 months ago and I want to learn Rabbath's method. Also, another thing that came immediately to mind is if the neck of the instrument is in the crook of your neck, how can the lower notes be reached if they practically behind your head? I hope I am wrong but ultimately, can his technique be used if your instrument is not set up exactly as his? I've just started so again, forgive any perceived ignorance.
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Double Bass Fast technique, Rabbath
- Thread starter Dr Rod
- Start date
Hey Bthrem !
Man, there is no such thing as a stupid question, and no question should be beneath a good person (IMHO), so ask away !!
I have seen people with very different setups use Rabbath technique, but they used a hybrid of simandl and rabbath. I sit and use Rabbath whenever I feel it can be helpful. If you look at old pictures of Rabbath, he also used to use a straight endpin.
I hope I am not being too vague, I suggest you start a new thread.
Doc
Man, there is no such thing as a stupid question, and no question should be beneath a good person (IMHO), so ask away !!
I have seen people with very different setups use Rabbath technique, but they used a hybrid of simandl and rabbath. I sit and use Rabbath whenever I feel it can be helpful. If you look at old pictures of Rabbath, he also used to use a straight endpin.
I hope I am not being too vague, I suggest you start a new thread.
Doc
Dr Rod said:
that's not me in the picture to the left there. I'm blarpgh. Actually my name's paul, blarpgh is just a silly nonsense word I made up a few years ago, don't remember why.
Anyway, Professor Sturm was nice enough to answer an email of mine and he unloaded with a ton of helpful information. No, you're not being vague, it's just that I've just started and I suppose I feel a bit lost. I couldn't even grasp holding the instrument the way he instructed on the CD-ROM, it just wasn't making sense to me. The first time I tried playing upright 14 years ago, I don't even remember being taught any kind of a method but this is something I want to use as the concepts make perfect sense and the first time I played I remember experiencing some pain. I was also using a German bow and I hated it. Well, I'm off to go try again.
Paul, if you have the means you could inquire at Ithaca College about Nicholas Walker, a faculty member there and protege of both Rabbath and Ellison. He possibly could provide you with some more help.
Speed: finding, at the moment, that it is harder to get the bass string to respond while playing fast notes than to coordinate the hand movements. That's probably a plateau however.
Sightreading: it's like speedreading. I have always had a reputation as a good sightreader and never had any problem with clef changes, can read equally well in treble, alto, tenor, bass clef, octave up or down, chant, percussion clef, and transposing by a whole step. For some reason it stops there and I crash and burn trying to transpose other intervals at sight. Anyway, just as in reading any other language, you look at groups of markings, whether they are notes or rests, about 1/2 bar or 1 bar ahead of where you are playing, depending on tempo. It amounts to fairly memorizing a bar ahead, but really, it is analyzing, then committing it to auto-pilot while you read farther ahead. Notes form a little road map which you translate to your left hand, and lucky you, you have a whole bar to figure out how to do that. So, really you are not reading notes so much as pre-planning your shifts and string crossings, dig? Just like when you drive, you don't have to concentrate about what road you are on, only the exits and turns. If there is a run, train your eye to pick out whether it is strictly scalar or if not, then mentally plan that run to take place in the allotted time. You will quickly learn to see the pattern for a straight arpeggio in the root key (no accidentals), or if something is non-chordal. As soon as you identify a chordal arpeggio, you can immediately "forget" about it, and look ahead for anything more complicated, which will take you more time to study. Forget about bar lines, they only slow you down. Just look at notes and rests, as if you were reading chant. To change clefs you only have to get a lock on the first note. The rest goes by interval. You know what a fourth and a fifth looks like. You don't need to study what key you are in; your ear will tell you that, so just worry about accidentals. After a while you will find that for example in a solo piece that constantly switches between bass, treble and tenor clef, you don't even notice the clef changes any more, because the line you are playing will dictate where the next note has to be on the staff, and the clef marking is negligible. In other words when you are headed in a direction where there is about to be a whole phalanx of ledger lines, you can anticipate there will be a clef change, and the first note after that will tell you what the clef changed to, although you can usually guess anyway. Not suggesting that anyone can expect to sightread the solo bass literature, but it just makes it easier to jump in and out of the sheet music, like in your lesson for example when you start and stop a lot.
Probably no one can sightread any challenge stone-cold and perfectly, but those are some things that may make it easier. It IS a learned skill and requires considerable practice at first, but once you get good at it, you will retain the "tricks".
Hyperventilating: I would drop my bass.
Voodoo: it's all voodoo, anyway, which is another way of saying none of it is. When the aliens come back to see how their colony is getting on, they will say OK, we'll buy this violin thing, and maybe the cello, but this bass thing? You people have entirely too much time on your hands.
To master the bass we have to (or will have to, there may be more to discover yet) be in charge of ourselves in all our dimensions to a degree most people don't consider.
Pantz: Q: boxers or briefs? A: depends.
Sightreading: it's like speedreading. I have always had a reputation as a good sightreader and never had any problem with clef changes, can read equally well in treble, alto, tenor, bass clef, octave up or down, chant, percussion clef, and transposing by a whole step. For some reason it stops there and I crash and burn trying to transpose other intervals at sight. Anyway, just as in reading any other language, you look at groups of markings, whether they are notes or rests, about 1/2 bar or 1 bar ahead of where you are playing, depending on tempo. It amounts to fairly memorizing a bar ahead, but really, it is analyzing, then committing it to auto-pilot while you read farther ahead. Notes form a little road map which you translate to your left hand, and lucky you, you have a whole bar to figure out how to do that. So, really you are not reading notes so much as pre-planning your shifts and string crossings, dig? Just like when you drive, you don't have to concentrate about what road you are on, only the exits and turns. If there is a run, train your eye to pick out whether it is strictly scalar or if not, then mentally plan that run to take place in the allotted time. You will quickly learn to see the pattern for a straight arpeggio in the root key (no accidentals), or if something is non-chordal. As soon as you identify a chordal arpeggio, you can immediately "forget" about it, and look ahead for anything more complicated, which will take you more time to study. Forget about bar lines, they only slow you down. Just look at notes and rests, as if you were reading chant. To change clefs you only have to get a lock on the first note. The rest goes by interval. You know what a fourth and a fifth looks like. You don't need to study what key you are in; your ear will tell you that, so just worry about accidentals. After a while you will find that for example in a solo piece that constantly switches between bass, treble and tenor clef, you don't even notice the clef changes any more, because the line you are playing will dictate where the next note has to be on the staff, and the clef marking is negligible. In other words when you are headed in a direction where there is about to be a whole phalanx of ledger lines, you can anticipate there will be a clef change, and the first note after that will tell you what the clef changed to, although you can usually guess anyway. Not suggesting that anyone can expect to sightread the solo bass literature, but it just makes it easier to jump in and out of the sheet music, like in your lesson for example when you start and stop a lot.
Probably no one can sightread any challenge stone-cold and perfectly, but those are some things that may make it easier. It IS a learned skill and requires considerable practice at first, but once you get good at it, you will retain the "tricks".
Hyperventilating: I would drop my bass.
Voodoo: it's all voodoo, anyway, which is another way of saying none of it is. When the aliens come back to see how their colony is getting on, they will say OK, we'll buy this violin thing, and maybe the cello, but this bass thing? You people have entirely too much time on your hands.
To master the bass we have to (or will have to, there may be more to discover yet) be in charge of ourselves in all our dimensions to a degree most people don't consider.Pantz: Q: boxers or briefs? A: depends.
