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Double Bass One Finger / Lyrical Technique

#21
At the risk of stating the obvious again (like I do on many occasions ;-) : take the three performers and put them on a timeline.
Koussevitzky comes from a past where there was no amplification, all performances where acoustic, recording technology was brand new so it probably wasn't like: "Ok, I liked the third time best, let's do some punch ins to fix some of the sour notes."
Karr developed his technique still with big concert halls in mind (projection etc. because that was what he was doing most) but did not only have to rely on feedback from the audience but from frequent recordings, too.
Paradzik: from what I'm hearing certainly not played with a concert hall in mind and very closely miked to bring out all the small details.

I am not saying one is better than the other, I certainly enjoy all recordings posted in this thread (the vocal ones, too).
 
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#23
neilG said:
Indeed. As they say, there is no accounting for taste.
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Only if they wish to be derisive. If one was at all interested in allowing for individual differences in aesthetics, one could always quote Voltaire's "One man's meat is another man's poison." Which I always like to malapropise to "One man's meat is another man's poisson."
For obvious reasons.
 
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#25
Gary Karr is a great artist with an incredible sound that has given his life to the instrument. It is true that it would be a tough sell for anyone else to play that way in this time period. I can get a clean sound right on the bridge, and when I do use a "straight classical tone" that is not the one I choose to go with!
As I and others have stated: being able to pull a clean sound on all four strings right on the bridge does wonders for your arco technique, just as one finger melodies do for your ear and shifting abilities.
Again, in terms of performance, that is another issue.
 
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#26
Don Kasper said:
I don't get it.
Something's fishy here.
Thanks.
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I just think it's funny because Voltaire's point was people will have a different take on the same thing and making it about two different things by using a French word because Voltaire was French and that word kind of looks like the English word is just the way my brain works.
They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem...
 
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#29
Ed Fuqua said:
Only if they wish to be derisive. If one was at all interested in allowing for individual differences in aesthetics, one could always quote Voltaire's "One man's meat is another man's poison." Which I always like to malapropise to "One man's meat is another man's poisson."
For obvious reasons.
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No, I think it's a legitimate statement. There are any number of players who's playing someone may not have a taste for, but is nonetheless competent within a style. We can argue that Gary Karr is the foremost practitioner of his style. I don't like the style, never have. That doesn't take anything away from his career, contributions, etc. It's certainly not a matter of "allowing for individual differences in aesthetics". Having an opinion is not derision. If it came across that way, you misinterpreted.
 
#30
neilG said:
No, I think it's a legitimate statement. There are any number of players who's playing someone may not have a taste for, but is nonetheless competent within a style. We can argue that Gary Karr is the foremost practitioner of his style. I don't like the style, never have. That doesn't take anything away from his career, contributions, etc. It's certainly not a matter of "allowing for individual differences in aesthetics". Having an opinion is not derision. If it came across that way, you misinterpreted.
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Well, since I have nothing else to do while I recover from last night's depredations, it's neither your opinion nor the having of it that I was addressing. Which, admittedly, would have been made clear as an azure sky of deepest summer if I had included your quote "As they say, there's no accounting for taste." Oh wait, I did.
 
#33
jheise said:
I'm surprised by the last 3 comments. While I don't think you have to like his sound, I'd like to point out the following:
- Gary developed his technique so he could stand in front of a full orchestra in a big hall and still could be heard
- He won a price for Bel Canto that before him as the first instrumentalist only singers won
- if you witness this being in the audience, it really blows you away



Maybe I'm lost in subtleties of the english language (it's not my first) but if I read this face value: So you tell somebody who played with this technique in 1962 for Bernstein on national US television and had a successful career and is retired for some years now to have "good luck" with it in 2020? Interesting ;-) ...
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I meant no disrespect to Maestro Karr. I have stood on a stage next to him and heard him play, and I would never disrespect him. The "good luck to him" was intended to convey that I was making no judgement, simply saying that I prefer a less "bel canto" approach. His sound is stupendous, I'm personally not so keen on the style. I think we are all allowed opinions, and I don't think Gary is sensitive enough to worry about my opinion!
 
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#34
jheise said:
Can you please include a panning shot (? hope it's correct, I had to ask a dictionary for this) of the audience in your next concert video past covid-19 so that we can count? ;-)
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It seems like music would be a tough sell, for sure. Strangely, it is not. I've had strong audiences for two decades now. I think classical solo bass is probably a harder road!
 
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#35
jheise said:
Can you please include a panning shot (? hope it's correct, I had to ask a dictionary for this) of the audience in your next concert video past covid-19 so that we can count? ;-)
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Just to be clear - if we should only talk about double bassists we play to bigger audiences than, does that also apply to only having opinions about strings if we sell more strings than the manufacturer?
 
#36
oliebrice said:
Just to be clear - if we should only talk about double bassists we play to bigger audiences than, does that also apply to only having opinions about strings if we sell more strings than the manufacturer?
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No, No - please no misinterpretation. It was only about the fact that Damon is (Edit: removed "not") into a musical style that's not known to draw big audiences. He is following his own path, that's where most of my respect for him comes from. But I think he should not give other people who might just want to follow their passion advice on musical styles and "success" and how to "make it". And I put a smiley into my post, too.

And Damon gave a good answer already. I hope this clears it up?
 
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#37
oliebrice said:
Just to be clear - if we should only talk about double bassists we play to bigger audiences than, does that also apply to only having opinions about strings if we sell more strings than the manufacturer?
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Or maybe, what I quoted from Damon's post did sound to me like (far fetched analogy coming up):
In the car market where Toyota and VW and others are clearly "having success and making it" there is the manufacturer of submersible cars that tells the manufacturer of flying cars that his suspension is outdated and he won't sell many cars like that. Because the "not selling many cars" was obvious right from the beginning.
 
#38
It's an interesting discussion, especially when including the vocal comparison. It brings to mind the question, "what is legato?". Back in the day my teacher taught me the actual definitions of the words from their native languages, and for legato she used a translation of "tied together" or "bound together"; I don't speak any Italian, so I couldn't say between the two.

On the piano, approximating legato meant a brief physical overlapping of the two notes so as to eliminate any silence between them. We were taught to avoid using the pedal for this, as it was an effect that should be applied after the physical/technical legato where desired, but not as a coverup. The crux of the issue with physical legato technique was about the degree of overlap, which should be enough to connect the notes without audibly smearing them. The overlap itself she considered empirical, but what constituted smearing she (rightly, I believe) considered subjective.

On a single string of the bass, as with the voice, it would mean not having any silence or breath between any two notes in question. In both cases, this means a lot of sliding around, since if you stop the vocal cords/string, there would be silence. The question is not "should I slide from one note to the next", since that is by definition what our mechanisms demand that we do if we are not to stop the string/breath in the process. The question is "how much of that slide does the performer allow the listener to hear"? I have had extensive conversations with members of the vocal faculty at my university about this, and about vibrato, which is another concept entirely.

With regard to Karr's style, it's perfectly fine to like it or not. But absent the visual aspect, I suspect that the objections would likely have to do with the amount of slide he lets the listener hear rather than the technique itself. I think the technique itself is an absolutely essential part of all left hand bass technique, whether it it is limited to a single finger, or whether it is applied to multi-finger legato bass technique. As my old teacher used to say, "it's much easier to break something that is connected than to connect it in the first place".
 
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#39
Maintaining vibrations seems central to the bel canto style.

More from Lamperti:

“Until you feel the permanency of your vibration you cannot play on your resonance.”

“Do not hold your tone, spin it.”

“The difference between speaking and singing is continuity of vibration and energy.“

“In speaking, momentum is constantly arrested; in singing, never.”
 
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#40
An exercise sort of related to this that I’ve been using recently. Basically a combination of a preparatory shift and finger replacement study.

Say you wanted to play B, C, D, E on the G string and finger it 1, 2, 1, 4.

To improve the shift you would gliss with 2 going from C to the D, just as you arrive at D you replace 2 with 1.

Then apply the concept to each scale using your most familiar/home fingerings.

The goal is to maintain the intensity of vibration through the shift.
 
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