Double Bass Lightness of touch (DB forum thread)

[Sean Riddle]

Thank You, John!
Yes - RELAXED is a great term to describe it, as opposed to "light".

Agreed. Mr. Goldsby’s explaining is beautifully thorough as always.

Not to sound like a broken record, but that’s why even just basic practice with the bow is so hopeful. The strings have an optimal frequency they want to vibrate at, and it’s our job as the player to give the string the energy it needs. I often teach my beginning students how to under and over bow so they can feel and hear what that sounds like compared to relaxed but strong bow stroke. It’s a good practice to bring over to our pizzicato practice too so we can understand the variety of dynamic levels we can produce. Relaxed and strong wins everyday over digging in for me.

 

[John Goldsby]

Thank God (or whoever or whatever you pray to) for John Goldsby..

Thanks @Jim T — I wouldn't go that far

 

[John Goldsby]

Whoomp...There it is!
100%.

I talk about having a relaxed, flexible (loose) right-hand wrist...but...If you watch Christian McBride's teaching videos, he talks about having the right-hand wrist "locked." There's no denying that Christian McBride is the GOAT (or one of the GOATs whom we like to listen to). Everyone seems to develop their personal way of getting the sound they hear in their head.

This goes to support my statement that there are many, many ways to play jazz pizzicato. The techniques have also changed over the years due to the music evolving, and because of innovations in strings, electronics, and bass setup.

 

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

About a decade ago I spent some time with Putter Smith at the ISB convention in Rochester, NY. Every day he came to our booth to run through the exercises from the book Boardwalkin. A few minutes into the first day’s playing he quietly said, ‘I play the amp’, and kept going. Not what you want to hear from a good player.
However, he led a class on constructing walking lines and did it on a borrowed bass, no amp. None of the thirty or so in attendance had any trouble hearing him. I marveled at the beautiful tone he got and I can only attribute it to how relaxed he was.

There are a lot of ways to get it done. One factor, I believe is to use the right amount of pressure in the left hand, and as John Clayton says, put the bone on the string.

 

[ctrlzjones]

27041554[/URL], member: 55397"]
(…) is to use the right amount of pressure in the left hand, and as John Clayton says, put the bone on the string.

This is already a long thread, but can we take a moment to talk about the left hand? I guess one ideal for sound is making the note “sing”, long legato notes. For me a key moment for enabling that was to welcome the vibrato, making the left hand fingertip aware of how to manage the the room around the point where the string is held down and how to modulate that.

The obvious extremes are (a) “fingertips right from above” (I understand that’s what Greg means saying - bone on the string) vs the (b) “meat from the pad” what produces a softer tone (right?) going into growls. And then there is also the opposite of long notes, more like percussive accents via the first part of the sound, more focussed on attack than endless.

What is your perspective on the left hand and fingertips when it comes to relaxed/loose/light/hard touches?

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

This is already a long thread, but can we take a moment to talk about the left hand?
What is your perspective on the left hand and fingertips when it comes to relaxed/loose/light/hard touches?

I agree with John about the importance of coordination between the hands with regard to tone, touch, and time.

Regarding the left hand and finger placement, I emphasize three things with my students:

- The decision to play on tips/pads/some combination of both is a personal choice that definitely affects the tone. I default to pads except when I want less growl, which usually involves moments on the E and A strings where the growl would be intrusive.

- There is a long running trope about using only exactly the amount of LH force required and no more. While I understand the sentiment and reasoning for this POV, for pizz playing I find it kind of unhelpful when taken to the extreme, because if the player errs on the side of too little force even for a nanosecond, the note is compromised and can’t be recovered with the bow. A better adage would be: “use as little force as possible, but when in doubt, err on the side of slightly too much force rather than slightly too little.”

- Regarding the division between fixed position and free position, AKA the Frame versus Vibrato position, students are free to choose when and where to use these extremes. I default to the free/vibrato position most of the time because I find it produces better stops and promotes a better connection of each note to the core.

As always, EEMMV, and EEMWCB.

 

[bassically_eli]

Katie Thiroux talks about digging in with the L.H. to get more "clarity and intensity." I feel like this should come with a big disclaimer about not use grip strength, but here's the video:

 

[damonsmith]

Well, as Mr. Wint said to him many years ago; "One is never too old to learn from a master, Mr. KIdd"

About a decade ago I spent some time with Putter Smith at the ISB convention in Rochester, NY. Every day he came to our booth to run through the exercises from the book Boardwalkin. A few minutes into the first day’s playing he quietly said, ‘I play the amp’, and kept going. Not what you want to hear from a good player.
However, he led a class on constructing walking lines and did it on a borrowed bass, no amp. None of the thirty or so in attendance had any trouble hearing him. I marveled at the beautiful tone he got and I can only attribute it to how relaxed he was.

There are a lot of ways to get it done. One factor, I believe is to use the right amount of pressure in the left hand, and as John Clayton says, put the bone on the string.

 

[Greg Clinkingbeard]

Some may not know that Putter played Mr. Kidd.

 

[Bruce Calin]

I'm reviving this thread to describe a situation on a gig last night. It was a quartet job with guitar,sax, bass and congas/percussion. It wasn't really loud, but the range of the congas made it more difficult for me to hear myself clearly. This isn't an issue with regular drums, but the frequency range of the congas seems to overlap more. My point is that I really had to concentrate on not overplaying to a degree more than normal for me. It didn't seem to be an issue for anyone else, everyone said they could hear me perfectly well, I just couldn't hear myself as well as usual. It's a lesson for me and I think all of us bassists that we need to trust our physical signals as well as our ears in situations like this so that we don't cause physical problems for ourselves. It wasn't easy. I really had to discipline myself to not force it and trust that the sound was getting out there.

 

[stefaniw80401]

Yeah, I understand what you're saying about congas having that same pitch range, plus we pluck at the same time they hit. It helps to be on opposite sides of the stage if possible.

 

[Bruce Calin]

Yeah, I understand what you're saying about congas having that same pitch range, plus we pluck at the same time they hit. It helps to be on opposite sides of the stage if possible.

I have worked with the conga player many times and this has not really been a significant problem before. The setup onstage was definitely part of it. I'll be more aware next time. I'm glad it happened from the standpoint of reminding me about the overplaying issue.

 

[stefaniw80401]

Ahh -- you mentioned stage setup...bass is a tricky thing...sometimes you just cannot hear yourself from your playing position, while at the same time it sounds great out front or sounds fine across the stage to your band mates. It all has to do with the wavelength of the bass frequencies and the room acoustics.