Double Bass New Classical Technique Videos

[lcpierce]

Hi everyone! As some of you know, I’ve been recording and uploading lesson videos for the better part of this year. I created a website where I keep all of them, but recently, I’ve been adding some to my YouTube channel. I wanted to share these videos with all of you, but didn’t want to create a separate thread for each one, so I thought I would create a bulk thread, similar to Chris Fitzgerald's jazz lesson videos. Here, I'll add my lesson videos anytime I release one and answer questions anyone might have about the content.

I know I look like I'm not old enough to drink, so let me give you some background information about myself:

I grew up in Atlanta and studied privately with the late Doug Sommer, former section member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. I received a degree in Double Bass Performance from the University of South Carolina, where I studied with Craig Butterfield. While there, I was a section member with the South Carolina Philharmonic and played as principal in the USC Symphony. After that, I attended the University of North Texas, where I studied and worked as a Teaching Fellow to Jeffrey Bradetich. Since then, I’ve moved to Austin, where I perform and teach. Recently, I’ve been invited as a guest artist in several workshops, including Bassmania at Columbus State University, the Austin Bass Workshop, and Jeff Bradetich’s Annual Summer Bass Camps, which I also coordinated last year.

My most recent video is on the use of weight in the bow, instead of pressing. This is something I struggled with for a long time, so I’ve naturally put a lot of thought and effort into helping my students get it right.

In my opinion, the difference between using weight and pressing is the amount and the way you use your muscles. When I press, I’m using my muscles to press the bow into the string, forcing a sound to come out. When I’m using weight, I’m allowing the weight of my arm to do that work naturally.

Pressing does a few things that hinder our performance. First, it exhausts us much quicker since we’re using more muscle power. I relate it to running – moving my body from side to side and swinging my arms might feel like I’m helping power through, but I’m really just tiring myself out. This can also lead to injury, or at the very least, sore muscles. There’s a lot of tension in the arm when we press – holding that tension over long periods of time is never good.

I find I have less control over the sound when I press. My sound breaks more easily and it’s harder to recover when it does. I also get a much bigger sound when I use weight than when I press.

In the video, I discuss how to figure out if you're pressing or using weight. I also discuss the proper form you should have in the arm when using weight and how to apply this idea to your every day playing.

Here's the link to the video:


If you have any questions or have anything to add, I look forward to reading your comments below!

 

[Tom Lane]

Really nice video! What a great addition to the current state of good technique. I see Chris has some competition now, and that's a good thing for the art. Hopefully, you two will encourage others to contribute well-considered methodology.

 

[lcpierce]

Really nice video! What a great addition to the current state of good technique. I see Chris has some competition now, and that's a good thing for the art. Hopefully, you two will encourage others to contribute well-considered methodology.

Thank you! I don't think I can consider myself in competition with someone I admire as much as Chris, but I do appreciate the sentiment. The more people putting their methods out there for others to benefit from, the better!!

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

I'm really glad to see this set of videos, and not only because I'm a big proponent of public pedagogy - I also plan to learn to play the bow properly when I retire (or get closer to that point and some time opens up), and this kind of thing will be very useful! Subscribed.

 

[David Potts]

Hi Lauren, not saying for a moment that you are wrong or that I am more right but just comparing my approach for using weight. I have lifted the following from a recent thread I started on the Pedagogy Forum called "Does a powerful sound.......?"

"Obviously people of different heights, weights and builds each can approach sitting or standing to play differently. I am rather short (5 feet 7 inches) with thick (!!!) torso and short,thick arms. I have the nut at about eyebrow level and rely on a longer arm to reach the desired bow contact point above the bridge. Mostly sitting to play means that the bass leans back and there is more weight available from my arm resting on the strings through the bow.

I set my bow hair tension so that at the middle of the bow I just press three strings at once when the hair touches the stick. I will never use more downward pressure than this. Then I adjust up or down slightly to find the best connection between hair and strings.

I set up my French bow hold to turn in a few degrees onto the stick so that weight is thrown forward into my index finger and my slightly higher elbow can then bend and straighten in the same direction as the bow moves. Shorter faster bow strokes come from the interplay between biceps and triceps that bend and straighten the elbow, using a springy wrist and fingers to extend the twitching of these muscles. The upper arm is relaxed and free to move but acts like a shock absorber. I do not think of bowing "from the shoulder". Instead I use a blend of upper arm and lower arm movements to move the bow at 90 degrees to each string. The freedom of movement of this "double pendulum" motion is independent of, and not affected by, the weight of my arm plus any extra downward pressure.

I feel that this maximum downward weight/pressure comes from muscle groups lower than my right shoulder."

Lauren, I think there is a case to be made for using some extra pressure on the strings beyond the weight of the arm (that is already applying its own pressure). Obviously the G string will too quickly collapse and each of the other strings requires its own careful treatment to avoid killing the freedom of string movement and sound resonance. As notes get shorter, faster and louder they require a measure of extra weight to control the string and avoid skidding IMO. I am talking about On-The-String playing with or without the use of "release". An extreme case would be Martele bowing at Fortissimo dynamic.

Does your bow hold turn in a little on the stick? From your video it would seem that if it did not and you flexed your elbow (with the bow stationary) the bow would rise from the strings as you executed an up bow, forcing you to bow from the shoulder in order to stay on the string with even weight from end to end of the stroke?

Cheers, DP

 

[lcpierce]

Hi Lauren, not saying for a moment that you are wrong or that I am more right but just comparing my approach for using weight. I have lifted the following from a recent thread I started on the Pedagogy Forum called "Does a powerful sound.......?"

"Obviously people of different heights, weights and builds each can approach sitting or standing to play differently. I am rather short (5 feet 7 inches) with thick (!!!) torso and short,thick arms. I have the nut at about eyebrow level and rely on a longer arm to reach the desired bow contact point above the bridge. Mostly sitting to play means that the bass leans back and there is more weight available from my arm resting on the strings through the bow.

I set my bow hair tension so that at the middle of the bow I just press three strings at once when the hair touches the stick. I will never use more downward pressure than this. Then I adjust up or down slightly to find the best connection between hair and strings.

I set up my French bow hold to turn in a few degrees onto the stick so that weight is thrown forward into my index finger and my slightly higher elbow can then bend and straighten in the same direction as the bow moves. Shorter faster bow strokes come from the interplay between biceps and triceps that bend and straighten the elbow, using a springy wrist and fingers to extend the twitching of these muscles. The upper arm is relaxed and free to move but acts like a shock absorber. I do not think of bowing "from the shoulder". Instead I use a blend of upper arm and lower arm movements to move the bow at 90 degrees to each string. The freedom of movement of this "double pendulum" motion is independent of, and not affected by, the weight of my arm plus any extra downward pressure.

I feel that this maximum downward weight/pressure comes from muscle groups lower than my right shoulder."

Lauren, I think there is a case to be made for using some extra pressure on the strings beyond the weight of the arm (that is already applying its own pressure). Obviously the G string will too quickly collapse and each of the other strings requires its own careful treatment to avoid killing the freedom of string movement and sound resonance. As notes get shorter, faster and louder they require a measure of extra weight to control the string and avoid skidding IMO. I am talking about On-The-String playing with or without the use of "release". An extreme case would be Martele bowing at Fortissimo dynamic.

Does your bow hold turn in a little on the stick? From your video it would seem that if it did not and you flexed your elbow (with the bow stationary) the bow would rise from the strings as you executed an up bow, forcing you to bow from the shoulder in order to stay on the string with even weight from end to end of the stroke?

Cheers, DP

David, Thank you for such a great response. I always enjoy reading your posts about bass technique.

I absolutely agree with you about using extra pressure on the strings beyond weight and I unfortunately did not do a great job of explaining that in my video. To answer your question - yes, my bow hold does turn in on the stick - a technique introduced to me by Tim Pitts, who calls it "torqueing." I actually just recorded a video on this and it outlines exactly what you describe. I'll make sure to post it here when I get it edited.

What I talk about in the video above mostly serves as the beginners steps to playing with weight and avoiding pressing. Usually, my students come to me with quite a bit of tension in the bow hand from a lack of understanding of weight - my first goal is to get them to relax in order to regain some control. When I was in high school and early college, I used my index finger to force sound out of the string (which then caused tension in the entire hand and eventually the arm), rather than turning the whole arm into the string, which is what I see a lot of my students do.

In addition to your point on lack of control, one of the big problems I see with only using weight and no added pressure is with bassists who play with their instrument more straight up and down. There's only so much gravity can do there, so extra pressure is definitely needed.

I'm not sure I would necessarily classify "torqueing" as pressing, though. It is pressure, but at least in my mind, I see pressing as using unnecessary muscles to force a sound - whereas with the torqueing technique, your arm is holding a definite form (which rotates as you get farther out in the bow) as the bow moves to help control the weight.

 

[lcpierce]

Hey all! Here’s another lesson video of mine – “Bow Weight to Placement Ratio.”

To get a consistent sound while moving up the fingerboard, we must adjust our bow placement. If we were to keep our bow in the same spot on the string when we play in first position as we do when we move up to thumb position, the sound quality would be softer, thinner, and might even break depending on the amount of weight we use.

The weight must change as well. In order to keep a consistent sound, moving the bow closer towards the bridge requires more weight because the tension is higher than it is over the fingerboard.

The combination of the two ideas above is the basis for the bow weight to placement ratio. In the video, I explain more about this, demonstrate how to use it in your playing, and discuss different factors that might change the formula (i.e., different desired sounds, like sul ponticello or flautando).

 

[David Potts]

Hi Lauren, in earlier threads I have repeated the trick that Tom Martin showed me years ago. If you angle the bow downwards but draw the ENERGY sideways at 90 degrees to strings the contact point will slide towards the bridge but the hair will remain engaged with the string vibrations (not slither) and the sound will remain clear. When your LH reaches its destination you simply straighten up the bow to resume its movement at 90 degrees. This was to account for moving big distances up and down the strings in, say, slurred passages.

Another possible way to approach larger LH shifts is perhaps to already be there (or most of the way there) with the bow contact point for your final LH destination.

Tom also demonstrated how he played the huge slurred passages so clearly in Strauss' Heldenleben that start on the bottom string and fly up into thumb position. He used tiny twitches in his elbow (biceps and triceps) to just break what looked like a continuous bow movement, for each lower note as he crossed strings. Neat!

Cheers, DP

 

[David Potts]

To convince my students to use the weight of their bow arm I talk of the "crane" muscles that enable you to lift the arm out straight in front of you at shoulder height. I rest my fingertips on their shoulder (with permission!!) and demonstrate the full relaxed weight of my arm (no crane muscles). I ask them to hold the bow up at shoulder height with straight arm and have my hand under the frog before asking them to let me support the full weight of their arm. I lower their hand onto the strings, saying"no crane muscles, just relax", etc). If their bow hold has nice shape I ask them to raise the back three fingers and feel the "hook" formed by the index finger ahead of the thumb. They will see the bow hair bend gently over the string with full contact but more bend on the top side than the lower side. I ensure that there is no residual use of crane muscles in the shoulder by jogging the bow vertically up and down on the string with relaxed arm. Then I might suggest that they move the bow out to the middle and explore the flexibility of (or the springs in) the strings, hair, stick and their bow hold by adding extra weight through their entire hand, not just their index finger. I encourage a French bow hold that is flexible and sensitive to these springs, with fingers and wrist just able to support the relaxed arm weight without collapsing. Starting with the bow stationary and resting on the string they should be able to take up a small amount of slack in each direction while pulling the string sideways before it releases itself and jumps into motion. There should always be some flexibility in the bow hold no matter how much extra weight is added by torso muscles IMO.

Of course the discussion goes on into note starts and stops, bow changes, the use of "release" to ensure sounds that continue and end musically, and the importance of timing and coordination between hands to ensure clean articulation, blah blah...........

Keep it up, Lauren.

Cheers, DP

 

[lcpierce]

To convince my students to use the weight of their bow arm I talk of the "crane" muscles that enable you to lift the arm out straight in front of you at shoulder height. I rest my fingertips on their shoulder (with permission!!) and demonstrate the full relaxed weight of my arm (no crane muscles). I ask them to hold the bow up at shoulder height with straight arm and have my hand under the frog before asking them to let me support the full weight of their arm. I lower their hand onto the strings, saying"no crane muscles, just relax", etc). If their bow hold has nice shape I ask them to raise the back three fingers and feel the "hook" formed by the index finger ahead of the thumb. They will see the bow hair bend gently over the string with full contact but more bend on the top side than the lower side. I ensure that there is no residual use of crane muscles in the shoulder by jogging the bow vertically up and down on the string with relaxed arm. Then I might suggest that they move the bow out to the middle and explore the flexibility of (or the springs in) the strings, hair, stick and their bow hold by adding extra weight through their entire hand, not just their index finger. I encourage a French bow hold that is flexible and sensitive to these springs, with fingers and wrist just able to support the relaxed arm weight without collapsing. Starting with the bow stationary and resting on the string they should be able to take up a small amount of slack in each direction while pulling the string sideways before it releases itself and jumps into motion. There should always be some flexibility in the bow hold no matter how much extra weight is added by torso muscles IMO.

Of course the discussion goes on into note starts and stops, bow changes, the use of "release" to ensure sounds that continue and end musically, and the importance of timing and coordination between hands to ensure clean articulation, blah blah...........

Keep it up, Lauren.

Cheers, DP

David,

Thanks for this. I will have to steal this in my own teaching! I agree with you about flexibility in the bow hold. Rigidity when playing a musical instrument can only lead to poor sound and unnecessary pain.

I enjoyed reading your accounts of Tom's playing. It's always interesting hearing from a great player like Tom what they do to get their sound - I love that he's so aware of what his body is doing.

Thanks for the great discussion!

 

[lcpierce]

Hey guys! I just released another lesson video on YouTube. This one covers how to learn something new, whether it's a solo piece of music, an orchestral excerpt, or an exercise.

Learning something new can be daunting at first. When we have a ton of music in front of us, it can be tricky to know where or how to start. What often happens - and what used to happen very frequently with me - is we'll do things that aren't productive, which leads to us taking much longer to learn something that we should, and sometimes even learning it incorrectly.

In this video, I spell out the steps I take when learning something in hopes to help you make your music more manageable and less overwhelming.

 

[lcpierce]

Here's my latest video lesson about playing in a band setting. This is one of my favorite things to do (and I've been lucky to play with some awesome singer-songwriters), so I thought I would give some perspective on what I think about when I'm in this setting and some tips to help enhance the music.

 

[dkimbrobass]

Great stuff here, thanks for posting. A bit off topic, but who installed your fingerboard inlays? Cheers. DK