Double Bass Need some Advice

[Sean Riddle]

So I just learned today during a lesson that one of my students fractured her left wrist last year and it is effecting her ability to press down the strings with her left hand using a proper left hand shape ala Simandl. She's 11 and in the 6th grade. Have any of the more experienced teachers encountered this before or are there any players who have a similar injuries and can comment about how to go about addressing this? I'm wondering if it's wise healthy to keep focusing on a Simandl style left hand with her or if it's better to find a different left hand shape (like Teppo Hauta-Aho for example) that will help her due to her injury last year. Thank you so much for any help!

 

[neilG]

I don't know what Teppo does, but if your student is having trouble, she might benefit from some physical therapy and making sure her bass is as easy to play as possible. Broken wrists can take a surprising amount of time to recover from.

 

[ddcolby]

I don't know what Teppo does, but if your student is having trouble, she might benefit from some physical therapy and making sure her bass is as easy to play as possible. Broken wrists can take a surprising amount of time to recover from.

Sean, If I may offer a few comments and suggestions. First off Simandl is often misunderstood and some teachers believe his approach is stiff and unforgiving. Not the case. His hand position approach is meant to be natural and comfortable with as little stress on the hand as possible. Have your student drop her arms to her side and relax completely, Then draw the left arm up bending at the elbow and look at the left hand. She will see a very natural curve to the fingers and the thumb. A c shape between the thumb and the first finger. This is the position Simandl wanted. Granted, he moves the thumb behind the second finger for strength. But always the hand is to be relaxed.

I suspect your student is bending her wrist as she plays, particularly in the lower positions. She should keep a straight line from the elbow to the fingers with the elbow not to high or too low. Her strength and arm weight sohould come from the back muscles, not the wrist. As soon as the wrist is bent the strength from the back and arm is negated and the wrist is doing all the work.

Second, most students do not balance the bass with their bodies and therefore grab with the left hand to hold onto the bass.

Third, try to emphasize pulling the fingers into the fingerboard rather than pressing down on the fingers. This also engages more of the arm weight and back muscle support.

There is more of course but I believe the biggest advantage is to keeping a straight elbow to fingertip line and keeping the hand relaxed.

 

[sean_on_bass]

I also broke my wrist(fractured two bones) and had surgery on my wrist as a middle school student. I second the physical therapy advice. Her doctor/therapist should be making recommendations to get the wrist back to normal functionality.

In my case, as the wrist healed i was also a growing kid. My left wrist now looks pretty funky visually, crooked compared to the right wrist. It does not have the same range of twisting motion as the other wrist, making it very important to keep my wrist as straight and neutral as possible at all times. Recently, i am accepting that i may just need to be a sitting player forever. The advantages to wrist comfort are just too good to force myself to stand. Sitting makes it easier for me to "pull" on the string rather than squeeze.

 

[Jim Dombrowski]

I’d suggest she work with a physical therapist who will also work with her teacher and her bass to focus on developing good form and a strong hand.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

I'll second all posts advocating a more relaxed left hand technique. My lifelong musical mentor once told me, "we don't play the piano with our fingers; they are just the first things to touch it. We play the piano with our entire bodies." She was also an advocate for an extremely relaxed hand and a huge proponent of elbow/shoulder/torso choreography as the biggest drivers of force, velocity, and sound.

Not surprisingly, I feel the same way about the bass.

 

[Reiska]

Teppo Hauta-Aho had his left thumb tendons messed in a surgery failure in the beginning of the 80`s, if I recall, therefore he has no gripping force in his left thumb at all. He plays with his thumb resting " upwards "on the neck. Anyhow, the man is 77 year old now, and was a adult full time professional bassist when he got his hand wrecked. So, he was extremely well educated to develop a technique he could continue playing with. A 11-year old is all different story IMO, and should have her hand properly rehabilitated before anything else! With that said, if there is a way the 11-year old could keep on playing, enjoying it and progressing under physiotherapy, go on and find a way together with the therapist and student. I wish great luck for both of you!

 

[neilG]

I'm going to reiterate what I said about making sure the bass is as easy to play as possible. I teach a lot of middle schoolers, and their "basses" are super difficult to play when they get them. I spend a lot of time filing nuts and bridges and wish I knew how to shape fingerboards.

 

[David Potts]

Yes, Yes, Yes to physio, alignment and low action and other good advice given above. Recovery has to be carefully managed so that not only strength but confidence too are rebuilt. The injury must have caused not only physical pain. My only suggestion to add is the use of a soft foam stress ball. If the arm is held up in playing playing position with nice forearm-wrist-fingers alignment then wrap the fingers and thumb around the ball and squeeze all towards the center. Start with a few repetitions and gradually increase as strength and confidence about no pain increase. I have seen two sizes of these balls, adult and child, that are very cheap.

 

[Sean Riddle]

Thank you all for the advice. I’ll definitely be continuing with what I’ve been working with her on, with a keen focus on relaxation. She does have a brace and I told her and her family to have her start wearing it while playing for the time being. Bass wise I’ll check what could be done to it next lesson and will talk with her family about possibly getting her into physical therapy.

 

[damonsmith]

To build on this, I would get her some solo strings and tune them at pitch or some Corellis. Also, really focus on getting her upper body to pull down the strings instead of the hand squeezing.

I'm going to reiterate what I said about making sure the bass is as easy to play as possible. I teach a lot of middle schoolers, and their "basses" are super difficult to play when they get them. I spend a lot of time filing nuts and bridges and wish I knew how to shape fingerboards.

 

[neilG]

To build on this, I would get her some solo strings and tune them at pitch or some Corellis.

I haven't tried it yet, but I'm thinking of having my 1/2 bass size students use 3/4 strings. It should make the strings looser, but maybe not as much as solo strings. Anybody tried this?

 

[Sean Riddle]

To build on this, I would get her some solo strings and tune them at pitch or some Corellis. Also, really focus on getting her upper body to pull down the strings instead of the hand squeezing.

I'm now definitely going to talk to her music director about getting a set of the 1/2 size Correllis since her bass belongs to a middle school, and for sure use that as an ability to fine tune her bass setup to the best of my ability. She brought a brace the doctor gave her last year to her lesson yesterday and that helped a lot with her ability to pull the strings down with her left hand and with keeping her hand fairly consistent while playing. It doesn't interfere with her left hand shape and ability to shift at while playing. I'm planning on moving forward with her using the brace for the meantime and try in a month or so without the brace.