Double Bass (Noob) Need help with starting to learn the bow

[Bin Son of Bin]

I've just rented my first upright Bass for learning to play at home and I want to start arco. So I have a few questions. And before you say "Get a teacher", that is already in the works. I am going to get names of teachers in my area and their pricing, but before I get hooked up with a teacher I have these questions:

1) When playing in an Orchestral/Wind Ensemble setting do you always play Arco or do you sometimes play Pizz

2) or is Pizz mainly for Jazz/Rockabilly and such?

3) or is it up to your conductor?

 

[MartinBorgen]

In an orchestra, it tells you in the scores (Unless you play from an Electric bass sheet in a wind band, for example) if it's pizz, otherwise arco. Classical music is mostly arco, but sometimes pizz, with the bow in palm (the score tells you if it's pizz, otherwise it's arco).

 

[Andrew McGregor]

It's written in the music. For anything orchestral, the default is arco, and it will say 'pizz' where that is required. For Jazz, it's the other way around, pizz is the default.

For most orchestra music, it's 90% arco or more; there are plenty of symphonies with no pizz at all.

Also, there are many different variations on HOW to do pizz, and you need to get the right variation for the kind of music you're playing. Don't worry about that yet, just be aware that anything you could possibly change you probably will one day.

 

[Bin Son of Bin]

Thanks guys! I appreciate the responses.

I did some arco practice for about 2 hours yesterday. It was fun! Lots of bad sounds but a fair number of clean sounding notes too.

Sadly I'm a portly fellow so when I tilt the bass to my left then rotate it slightly so the edge of the side of the body is touching my stomach, well, my stomach gets in the way. I then find I have to tilt the body a bit too far to the left which then causes shoulder discomfort.

I guess I have another reason now to get to the gym.