Double Bass getting back up to speed

[captstern]

I'm really rusty and am hoping that someone can direct me to a method to get me back up to speed.

I recently bought myself a bass that I can play (40" string length for tiny hands) and haven't really played in the last decade or so. I belong to my community orchestra and need to get my technique back up to speed so that I can not embarrass myself while playing Mozart's 41st symphony. I am just realizing how much I have forgotten and would appreciate some direction for what to use to progress quickly up to an appropriate level, to remind myself how this bass-thing is supposed to be played

I have ordered Essential Technique for Strings: Double Bass and Advanced Technique for Strings: Double Bass, both by Gillespie, and plan to plow through them as quickly as I can.

Please help me so that I don't regret jumping from the viola section.

Thanks
captstern

 

[Bisounourse]

A good idea would be to have some lessons by a teacher; her or he can help you to refresh your memory, in stead of doing things wrong because you remember them differently or because memory is blurred.

And nobody regrets jumping the viola section

 

[Phil Rowan]

Agree 100% about getting some lessons in. Might help to fill out your profile so we know what area you're in, in case someone on here might know of a good player you could go play for. If you search here on TB, you'll find that there have been other players who've been in a similar situation as you (and those threads will lead to some videos with solid, meat and potatoes bass technique/practical skills content).

If you don't already, I'd suggest warming up physically and away from the bass with both light stretching and dynamic/kinesthetic movement to get the blood flowing into your shoulders/arms/wrists/fingers. Then maybe focus on right hand and left hand stuff separately for a bit?

Try just bowing open strings. For example, bow just one open string and see how much of variation in dynamics, timbre, articulation, smooth bow changes, etc you can achieve (start nice and slow with long tones, and pay attention to where there's any physical tension and how this affects the sound or articulation, etc you're trying to get. Experiment with bowing on every part of the string between about an inch above the bridge to just over the fingerboard.

Bowing slow eighth notes on the A D and G string (or E A and D) allows you to focus on efficient string crossing (so a string of four eighth notes would be A D G D, then just continue repeating that same pattern, nice and slow, always anticipating the each string change and bow change). You might then just focus on A to G, or E to D to practice skipping over a string smoothly (in the beginning I often will play an A, stop, roll the bow over to the G, play, stop, roll the bow back to A, and so on.. like really putting the motion under the microscope).

As for left hand stuff, work in some scale fingerings and etudes. I think doublebassblog.org might have some scale fingerings in the "resources" section to get you going. The George Vance progressive rep book might be a good thing to work out of as well. I'm sure others will have ideas for which etudes to work through, but I can think of maybe Bille, Storch Hrabe, or even the Kreutzer book to get you going. In tandem with that, you might work through once excerpt at a time *really* slowly, like BPM 60, so you can be hyper aware of practicing each motion, articulation, string change, fingering, etc. involved in actual performance), and slowly/gradually bring it up to tempo. Anyway, just my .2 cents. Good luck getting going!

 

[Phil Rowan]

Also, check out the content at the NWS's Musaic site. Here's a good one to start with (with bow stuff you might add to what I mentioned above): Link Removed

 

[David Potts]

A useful small book is "My First Simandl" (Carl Fischer) that combines something of the Tutor (Book 1) and 30 Etudes. This contains sufficient material to develop you quite quickly again if you have been there before. You have not said whether you are French or German bow. Either way there are lots of examples of bow holds on Youtube, however some are highly questionable. Andrew Anderson's videos contain a lot of good information about technique.

Wohlfahrt"s 25 Studies are out of print (or are they?) and would give you confidence in reading notes in Bass Clef again. They are all in lower positions and easy keys, sometimes going up to D. As you develop you might add Sturm 110 Studies Book 1 (IMC). These work you through playable exercises in a spread of keys that are about orchestral difficulty, each requiring something different of your technique.

Finding a teacher is always good advice. If you can"t then practicing bow hold and bow arm movements in front of a mirror gives you a better comparison with Youtube videos. You are already a string player so recognize that almost all the principles of good string playing can come across from viola to bass. Your left hand will point fingers across the strings more, not towards the bridge, and the bow arm hangs longer, using weight more often and with progressively shorter movements as the strings get thicker.

Best wishes.