Double Bass Lightness of touch (DB forum thread)

[Chris Fitzgerald]

After playing a great gig last night with a couple of really high energy players, my soul felt well fed and my spirits were high, but I also felt like I had a lump of raw hamburger on the end of my right arm. I seem to be stuck in a bit of a conundrum with sound and tone production: I highly value a strong, solid, confident, joyful sound from other bass players and strive for the same from my own playing. Along these lines, I spend a lot of practice time working on tone production and bringing the force needed to produce sound from the center of my body rather than from the ends of the arms or even the arms themselves, and I think I've made a lot of good progress with this. At the same time, I all too often get caught up in the moment and find myself overplaying in terms of force needed to accomplish what I'm after. I notice that when the groove is really, really right, there's a lightness to what's happening. When the intensity of the music increases (and the volume of the other players with it), there's a real beauty to getting up under that and stepping on the gas a bit more. The downside to this is that I tend to lose that physical sense of lightness and start battering my hands and arms in an attempt to follow where the music seems to be going. As the years go by, I fear this isn't going to get any better without being addressed.

While I think I know the basic idea about what to do in the big picture - relax, let the water flow instead of trying to send a pressurized stream of it through a jet nozzle for long periods of time, etc. - I thought it might be nice to find out if others have dealt with this kind of issue over the years, and if so, hear some of the ways and strategies they've used in trying to deal with this phenomenon. I like the musical results I'm getting for the most part, but the physical cost is starting to get higher and I'd like to avoid crippling myself if I can. if anyone has any stories or thoughts to share, please do.

 

[Marcus Johnson]

Guts, baby.




























Just kidding (I think). I was channelling BAJO there for a minute.

It did play a major role in my conversion. I dunno. No more hamburger arms for me. I can dig in and lay it down if I want to, just like before, or I can just bounce along like a big old Chrysler Dynaflow, wavin' at the girls. All the singing tone of my bass is still there, maybe more so than before.

Probably not your thang, I guess. I really dunno.

 

[flatback]

After playing a great gig last night with a couple of really high energy players, my soul felt well fed and my spirits were high, but I also felt like I had a lump of raw hamburger on the end of my right arm. I seem to be stuck in a bit of a conundrum with sound and tone production: I highly value a strong, solid, confident, joyful sound from other bass players and strive for the same from my own playing. Along these lines, I spend a lot of practice time working on tone production and bringing the force needed to produce sound from the center of my body rather than from the ends of the arms or even the arms themselves, and I think I've made a lot of good progress with this. At the same time, I all too often get caught up in the moment and find myself overplaying in terms of force needed to accomplish what I'm after. I notice that when the groove is really, really right, there's a lightness to what's happening. When the intensity of the music increases (and the volume of the other players with it), there's a real beauty to getting up under that and stepping on the gas a bit more. The downside to this is that I tend to lose that physical sense of lightness and start battering my hands and arms in an attempt to follow where the music seems to be going. As the years go by, I fear this isn't going to get any better without being addressed.

While I think I know the basic idea about what to do in the big picture - relax, let the water flow instead of trying to send a pressurized stream of it through a jet nozzle for long periods of time, etc. - I thought it might be nice to find out if others have dealt with this kind of issue over the years, and if so, hear some of the ways and strategies they've used in trying to deal with this phenomenon. I like the musical results I'm getting for the most part, but the physical cost is starting to get higher and I'd like to avoid crippling myself if I can. if anyone has any stories or thoughts to share, please do.

I'm really dealin with this issue too. I really love to mix it up and follow the energy with the cats. but as I listen back to myself on recordings of these flights I almost always prefer when I hold my ground and dont change my intensity letting the drummer and pianist get all up in it while I keep it cool. Then I feel like I can still drive with power steering as the rpms rev. I really dig the way certain players can increase their complexity and intensity without really increasing the BTU's. . Dave Holland really impresses me with this. He said in a seminar I attended that he spends a large amount of attention practicing everything evenly without increasing the volume (in his hands) for either intensity or register or difficulty. that way he can always accent what he wants and know that he can come back Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0

neutral...and that it is the accent placement that develops the intensity and interest. I find this approach really useful but difficult and counter intuitive. but the more I do it the more I am able to avoid both the hamburger mitt and the 3rd set post dinner burnout....and a host of other problems...

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Marcus - I hear you on the gut thing, and I do understand the relation to the topic, but you're right about it not being that time for me just quite yet. The thing with guts, IME, is that there's a built in point of diminishing returns inherent in the construction. Overpower them, and they choke and sound worse. With high tension steel on my bass, that point of no return is at such a high threshold that I almost never reach it, and if I do, I immediately turn back because the sound is raunchy and unmusical.

With that said, I think that the same technique of lightness and restraint can be learned on any type of string. With students, it's often about trying to get them to the point to where they can produce the big sound, then getting them to use it judiciously, holding a little back in reserve until it's really needed. If you don't have the sound, if you don't have the ability to punch the listener in the bread basket (not to mention the drummer) with your tone, then there's nothing to hold back, nothing to show restraint on. OTOH, raw hamburger isn't a nice feeling at the end of the night. I like Piro's line about 3rd set burnout. The fact that I know exactly what he means by that, that it's a physical burnout rather than a mental one, lets me know that I'm just on that part of the learning curve.

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Dave Holland really impresses me with this. He said in a seminar I attended that he spends a large amount of attention practicing everything evenly without increasing the volume (in his hands) for either intensity or register or difficulty. that way he can always accent what he wants and know that he can come back neutral...and that it is the accent placement that develops the intensity and interest....

I have seen Dave Holland live a couple of times recently at fairly large venues and once it was great, but the other time he was drowned out by the drummer and it was quite frustrating that you couldn't hear him and it also felt like the band lost direction at these points...?

 

[Jay Corwin]

I have the same problem on occasion - but I'm less than one year into playing, so it's all still new to me. Two things that give me the red flag that I'm playing to hard during band practice:

1. If I start cramping on the right arm. It's usually when I'm "in the moment" and flailing a bit.

2. When I hit a note on the E-string and completely fart it out.

In both cases what I do to try to dial it back is concentrate on my left hand. It's probably over stating the obvious, but my left hand technique seems to influence everything else about my playing. Once I relax my left hand/arm and just start playing again, the rest of my body/playing tends to go back into chill. It all starts at the top right?

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

I have the same problem on occasion - but I'm less than one year into playing, so it's all still new to me. Two things that give me the red flag that I'm playing to hard during band practice:

1. If I start cramping on the right arm. It's usually when I'm "in the moment" and flailing a bit.

2. When I hit a note on the E-string and completely fart it out.

Well - when I was in the first year of playing DB, that happened to me all the time - but after a while I started to develop more stamina and that kind of thing rarely happens now.

But I do often get the case where the drummer is too loud and then I turn up and he gets louder and then it gets to a point where I can't turn up any more and I then feel like giving up and rather than playing harder I just stop trying - but that's really a symptom of my demotivation at the fact that people aren't listening ...


EDIT - I have a feeling this topic isn't going the way Chris intended, but I am interested in what people say about this and am just keeping the thread alive!!

 

[AMJBASS]

After playing a great gig last night with a couple of really high energy players, my soul felt well fed and my spirits were high, but I also felt like I had a lump of raw hamburger on the end of my right arm. I seem to be stuck in a bit of a conundrum with sound and tone production: I highly value a strong, solid, confident, joyful sound from other bass players and strive for the same from my own playing. Along these lines, I spend a lot of practice time working on tone production and bringing the force needed to produce sound from the center of my body rather than from the ends of the arms or even the arms themselves, and I think I've made a lot of good progress with this. At the same time, I all too often get caught up in the moment and find myself overplaying in terms of force needed to accomplish what I'm after. I notice that when the groove is really, really right, there's a lightness to what's happening. When the intensity of the music increases (and the volume of the other players with it), there's a real beauty to getting up under that and stepping on the gas a bit more. The downside to this is that I tend to lose that physical sense of lightness and start battering my hands and arms in an attempt to follow where the music seems to be going. As the years go by, I fear this isn't going to get any better without being addressed.

While I think I know the basic idea about what to do in the big picture - relax, let the water flow instead of trying to send a pressurized stream of it through a jet nozzle for long periods of time, etc. - I thought it might be nice to find out if others have dealt with this kind of issue over the years, and if so, hear some of the ways and strategies they've used in trying to deal with this phenomenon. I like the musical results I'm getting for the most part, but the physical cost is starting to get higher and I'd like to avoid crippling myself if I can. if anyone has any stories or thoughts to share, please do.

Chris, you took the words right out of my mouth. I get caught up in the moment frequently, although I usually remind myself that I still have a couple of sets to play... If the group is swinging really hard however, I tend to dig in a bit too hard and at the end of the night my hands(mostly right) are shot. It is a bit of a problem in that I am forced to rest most of the next day instead of getting some practice in. Lowering the string height can help a good deal, and I have found 5mm on the G to give me more control. Softer strings higher up work as well. The thing with guts is that you don't have to put as much work into them to get the same amount of sound(and bounce). I have tried them several times however, and I just like the clarity and attack of steel. As well as tuning stability...

I think it takes practice in that the approach needed is to play smarter, not harder.

 

[shwashwa]

i run into this alot and over the years i guess ive come up with a few things to try. one might be trying a lighter or softer feeling string. if the string doesnt offer as much resistance you wont be able to pull it hard. on my bass the softer strings actually speak more than the tighter strings ive found too.
i always try to keep in my mind the idea of "let the string speak" rather than "make the string speak". larry ridley used to play my bass all the time and he got such a huge sound out of it, so i know its capable, but he used to just pull the string and allow it to speak, rather than pulling it too hard and actually choking the sound. i think also its mostly a frame of mind, zen like thing. it may be just a matter of keeping aware of it at all times, and as soon as your awareness of it loses focus you will drift in terms of sound and physical effort. it really is like trying to be come a bass jedi. you've been playing long enough that the physical and technical thing are not an issue, but im sure we can all work on improving our mental focus. i think thats probably the issue. dont be tempted by the awesomeness of the groove to stray from the path that will yeild the best results.
recently ive been recording, and of course its stressful because you want it to sound as good as possible, but when listening back i realize that when im trying to make it sound good then it doesnt, but conversely, if i just try to have confidence in playing relaxed and using my focus on rhythmic intensity and persicion then it always sounds better. its such a hard thing to do tough because when im actually playing i feel like im not doing "enough" when in reality the other way i was doing too much. i need to train myself to have confidence in the relaxed approach and to just know that it will sound better that way regardless of how i percieve it in the moment. its a very difficult thing to do though.

 

[Marc Piane]

I assume from your description of hamburger at the ends of your arms that it is more of an issue with hand fatigue and pain. Couple thoughts.

You know all about the 'using gravity' to your advantage thing so I won't bore you. I'm not sure how that translates for guys who sit. I really feel the power coming from my legs and back when I really want to dig in which are the biggest muscles in you body. Core muscles are the biggies. I don't know if it helps but when I lift I do free weigh dumbbells while sitting on an exercise ball. That way your arms and your core are getting work.

I think of the bass as a dance partner. A chick is not going to respond well to being thrown around. Instead finesse is the key. Same with bass. I definitely stray from that idea but I remind myself that the bass is something that I need to work with not against. At some point the bass starts fighting back. We're not looking to impose our will on an unsuspecting piece of wood but rather help us channel what we're needing to get out.

I also know that I have the tendency on up tempo numbers to dig in just the same as the swingers. I zeroed in on this as a source of fatigue for me. The way I have learned to combat that is 3 fold. 1) try to breath normally. I know I sometimes get excited when things are cooking but I try not to confuse physical excitement with emotional/spiritual/musical excitement. Relaxation breathing never worked for me. Instead I just try to keep my breathing as normal as if I was on break. 2) I make sure there is no tension in my body. I learned about myself that I got really good at relaxing my arms but was transferring tension to other parts of my body... my back, my jaw, my knees. I try to maintain my posture and shift my weight from leg to leg and stay loose. I also keep the arm flapping. 3) Remember to let up a bit on uptempo stuff. This was a biggie for me. I learned you can still go for that same dark/woody tone but making the same physical commitment to each note as you would on a swinger is really hard on your body. Maintaining a light/dancing feel on uptempos is key and I felt like really digging in was giving them a 'heaviness' that wasn't happenin.

Lastly, I spend as much time shedding as time allows. Nothing like good old fashioned exercise to get ready for the big race.

I feel a little strange giving you advice here as you are a way heavier player but I do have to do sometimes have several nights in a row of 3 and 4 hour jobs. Sometimes 2fers so I've had to deal with how to maintain the intensity that I am getting hired for without sacrificing my body for the team. IME, IMO, IMHO, YMMV...

 

[Uncletoad]

We were talking on break the other day about being marathon runners. The norm for my gigs is 2 or 3 long sets, usually 1.5 hours. Union style gigs are 40 on 20 off. I don't do to many of those. I see those as sprinter gigs, especially the showcase gigs where the ensemble plays just a 30 or 40 minute show. I don't even get out of the gate by then.

So I'm set up to start slow and soft and moderate and warm up all the big guns for later as the evening progresses. I'm called upon to play hard and deep in the groove a lot by the end of the night. When I do it right my arms and back are sore or I should say have a good workout style burn/fatigue in them.

When I do it tight my hands hurt and sometimes my forarms. I have to force myself into thinking light and loose when things get heavy. The deeper louder and heavier things get the more I try to get the ping and clarity from the note with my arms and back. I try to keep my hands light and supple and I honestly think that when I notice my self tense up.

Thing is I don't do it right 100%. I'm forever falling into habit that tightens hands, neck, back, shoulders etc. and then I start to choke and the note looses its round and my left hand starts to fail and I loose accuracy and intonation.

Sometimes I can bring myself back by going way down under the volume stack and letting the loud boys have it...not going along. They eventually catch up with me. Or not. Other instruments are way more capable of loud than I and there is a point where I have to not try to keep up and give them the hint that I'm out of range and see if they'll drop back to get me. Sometimes they do sometimes they don't.

So for me I try to stay within my game. Light hands strong arms and back. Focus on tone not volume. Create intensity with my intention not my volume. When I stay close to my game often it gets people to go with me.

 

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

I've begun to record my gigs and practice sessions and that has really opened up my eyes to both the sound and the feeling the music conveys. It's not always pretty :-(.
This is helping me to be pull the string just enough to pull a good sound. There is a time for that Ray Brown rattle and a time for his finesse. Gotta learn to serve the music more and be in there. As an experiment, I am imagining a ballad as a fluffy cloud that can be pushed one way or another with dynamics; trying to play it as pretty as possible. It's like a highwire act where one wrong move kills it. Hearing playback of this is helping to get me where I need to be. Relax, breathe, go to the happy place or whatever. Just don't kill the music by overplaying.

 

[Uncletoad]

I've begun to record my gigs and practice sessions and that has really opened up my eyes to both the sound and the feeling the music conveys. It's not always pretty :-(.

Yes. Recording my gigs is very helpful. I don't think it captures the energy of the room and as such it shows the actual performance in a clearer light. I generally need to play less by the tape. Sometimes I think I play to much or to hard to "serve the energy". I'm not thinking it does though.

 

[Marc Piane]

The recorder is the single greatest learning tool IMO.

 

[Ed Fuqua]

DURRRL, the thing about gut (or gutlike) strings is that yes, they choke if you dig in too hard like you would if you were trying to get a bigger sound out of a high tension steel string. But if you DON'T do that, you get a projecting, bouncy sound. That's much easier on the hands than what's currently happening with you.

I'm never going back.

 

[Treyzer]

I know I sometimes get excited when things are cooking but I try not to confuse physical excitement with emotional/spiritual/musical excitement........I just try to keep my breathing as normal as if I was on break.

This is a great discussion. This quote by Swami pretty much sums up what I try to do. There seems to be certain points in a performance when you can either get caught up in the frenzy of the moment or sit back and refocus on what is most important. When I'm most successful at projecting the sound I hear in my head and playing clearly without creating lots of tension in my arms and hands is when I'm there but not there, completely focused but not caught up in the moment.

Shoot this is beginning to sound to touchy feely. Sometimes the words just don't quite convey the concept. I've got it, try to stay real relaxed!

 

[Treyzer]

Bump!

 

[Treyzer]

Yes. Recording my gigs is very helpful. I don't think it captures the energy of the room and as such it shows the actual performance in a clearer light. I generally need to play less by the tape. Sometimes I think I play to much or to hard to "serve the energy". I'm not thinking it does though.

Well said. I think that's why on record dates when you can really hear what's going on less id generally more!

 

[Mark Perna]

DURRRL, the thing about gut (or gutlike) strings is that yes, they choke if you dig in too hard like you would if you were trying to get a bigger sound out of a high tension steel string. But if you DON'T do that, you get a projecting, bouncy sound. That's much easier on the hands than what's currently happening with you.

I'm never going back.

You beat me to it. I had the same problem Chris had until I switched to guts. It took a few months to really internalize the new touch needed to play guts but I was determined to master it. Now it is the greatest thing ever. Huge bouncy sound. Incredibly easy on the hands and I'm not fighting the instrument at all anymore. For me, it is so much easier to make the music dance when I'm playing on guts.

Ed is right. You don't pound on guts. They don't respond to that. There is a particular way to pluck that will maximize volume and projection from the bass though. And once you find it, you can feel it even if you're unamplified and playing with drums. A couple of weeks ago, I got stuck in traffic going to a gig and got there right as we were supposed to start. Instead of taking the time to set up the amp, I just pulled the bass out and played figuring that I'd muddle through the first set getting buried by the drums and get the amp out second set. I didn't bother getting the amp out that night. I was amazed at how easy it was to project through the cacophony without pounding my hands into ground round or the bass into splinters. It wasn't pounding but just finding the touch needed to project through.

I'll never go back to steel, either.

mark

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Great stuff in this thread, just the kind of thing I was hoping for. Not including everybody and in no particular order:

The thing with guts is that you don't have to put as much work into them to get the same amount of sound(and bounce). I have tried them several times however, and I just like the clarity and attack of steel. As well as tuning stability...

I think it takes practice in that the approach needed is to play smarter, not harder.

Exactly where I'm coming from. I love the way guts sound and feel in my living room. In context, the pulse is nice but the pitch doesn't have the same edge on the center of the pitch that I like, and it's as if I hear the rhythm before the pitch. They feel cool under the hands, and sound cool when other people play them, but I have never found the range when playing with another instrument.

i think also its mostly a frame of mind, zen like thing. it may be just a matter of keeping aware of it at all times, and as soon as your awareness of it loses focus you will drift in terms of sound and physical effort. it really is like trying to be come a bass jedi. you've been playing long enough that the physical and technical thing are not an issue, but im sure we can all work on improving our mental focus. i think thats probably the issue. dont be tempted by the awesomeness of the groove to stray from the path that will yeild the best results.

Good stuff here. Kind of where I'm trying to come from, until I forget.

You know all about the 'using gravity' to your advantage thing so I won't bore you. I'm not sure how that translates for guys who sit. I really feel the power coming from my legs and back when I really want to dig in which are the biggest muscles in you body. Core muscles are the biggies. I don't know if it helps but when I lift I do free weigh dumbbells while sitting on an exercise ball. That way your arms and your core are getting work.

Sitting is a little different in that you are still below the hip, but what's nice about it is that the bass is either completely immobile or solidly attached to my body - right knee in the bass C bout, violin corners digging into my legs and transmitting vibrations strong enough to feel time and intonation with, and the left hand can use total arm weight to stop the strings. With the right hand, it's more a matter of being careful to be mindful of the fact that my core can produce way more power than the joints of the hand and wrist can handle if I don't have some sort of regulator on the mechanism. Dominants at 7-10mm with a Stark E on the bottom get a gorgeous sound, but they're also very stiff, and more importantly, can take more abuse than the scrawny little fingers I'm pounding on them with. If I had the four little pigs and a thumb on the end of my arm like Ed, things might be differnt.

Exercise is important, too, no doubt, but I'm pretty anal about that, 5 mornings a week on the elliptical and 100 pushups or the equivalent on a core exercise of some variation. I've been fortunate to have had a pretty maintenance free body so far, and am going to continue to try to keep it healthy. If I can get a handle on the issue at hand, that will be a big step.

I feel a little strange giving you advice here as you are a way heavier player but I do have to do sometimes have several nights in a row of 3 and 4 hour jobs.

Don't sell yourself short even for a minute. You're playing great, and playing way more these days than I am. I wish I were playing that much! Your advice is much appreciated and a good reminder of how to approach things in the future.

Sometimes I can bring myself back by going way down under the volume stack and letting the loud boys have it.

I definitely need to do this more often. I remember many times when I've done this and it was just the thing. And somehow I keep forgetting to do it until it's too late.

The other thing is just basic life stuff. Life with a family is complicated, then the gig at the U gets complicated and busy, then I find myself opting for reduction of my sleep deficit over practice at times and showing up at the next gig several days cold. That's a good recipe for hamburger helper right there.