Pizzicato Technique--for uptempo jazz soloing

Something I like to do for pizz practice is pizzicato long tones, which I picked up from the great Ken Filiano. What you do is you take a finger, place it on any open string, and let your natural arm weight drop into the string. Relatively soon your hand should fall through the string and it should vibrate in a very open and full manner. It's important that you not force the string to vibrate. The goal is to let the string do most of the work, while you just provide it the energy it needs to vibrate fully. Ken thought of this while reading "Zen and the Art of Archery" when he read a description about drawing and releasing a bow string back, which reminded him of the process to play pizzicato. I like to do this on all open strings several times and sometimes like to practice a scale or two through the range of the instrument. It's really helped me key in on how to really use arm weight while pizzicato and to keep fairly relaxed as the tempos go up. Otherwise, I've been mostly practicing arco but I believe it's made my pizz playing a lot in better these past months.

 

This is a problem shared with drummers. Keeping relaxed while playing fast successive notes is an essential part of snare drum technique. For this particular aspect I'd recommend the Master Studies by Joe Morello. It's also an excellent book for working on dynamics, accents and time feel. On that note, I feel that the drummers' all-time classics Stick Control and Syncopation are absolutely worth having a look (or ten). You will need to know how to transfer the exercises to the bass, but I think they are all a rich source of inspiration.

 

If you haven't already, check Chris Fitzgerald's Right hand perspectives. I personaly find it very helpful.

 

Yep, Marco is BAD! He posted some videos to TB a long time ago and he's always been that great. Is he still around here? I just love his chops & ideas. Who wouldn't? Great you got to play that thing together with Marco, Chris.

 

I think practicing with a metronome is the best way moving between a 2 feel with arm and 4/4 with alternating fingers. Speed is only a matter of precision and being relaxed. I would use as simple material as possible in order to focus on the time and right hand technique.

 

You might want to try the vertical Eddie Gomez/electric bass like angle of the right hand. That gives you much more speed and clarity.

 

It could also helpful to have a clear and vivid imagination of how that what you are trying to play should sound like. There was a paragraph in that "Alexander Technique for Double Bass" text saying that it is a good thing to build a "trust the fingers" thing; in the sense that they allready know what to do when the sound-image from the (sub-)consciousness is telling them what should come out. This is not for starters of course, but they wouldn't care about blazing 8ths anyway.

Playing music is not gymnastics (and the way gymnasts are being trained changed too in the last years; people start to understand the power of imagination, mentally and emotionally).

 

I personally think having a clear idea melodically is more important than playing a lot of content devoid of emotion. If you can connect the two, I’m all ears.
If you need speed in order to get your thoughts across, fair enough. I think the upright speaks slowly... I also believe from what I’m hearing that most players have a muddy, unfocused sound usually, and don’t really spend enough time listening to recordings of what the listener is hearing. Musos tend to not be able to be objective about what the average person is hearing. One of the clearest acoustic players I’ve heard recently is Stanley Clarke. Weird as it is, One of the weakest acoustic players I heard yesterday was Nathan East IMO... I’m going on the end product...

 

What do you mean by 'vertical', Les? Vertical makes me think of standard pizz (walking) technique where fingers are parallel with the strings, pointing down towards the bridge.

When I think 'electric-bass-like' I think more perpendicular than vertical.

The only success I've had with building two finger speed is somewhere in-between the two: vertical (pizz walking position) I can't get fast enough, totally perpendicular (electric bass style) hurts the right wrist too much and I lose power and tone. Something like a 45 degree angle works best for me, best of both worlds? Is that what you meant?

Here's some footage of Eddie's right hand. What did you mean by vertical angle?

 

For me, fast = soft. You could put this on a bell curve graph to illustrate that as tempo increases dynamic range decreases. The faster the music, the lighter it needs to be to prevent it from getting heavy or bogged down, IMO. I personally do not want the bass or the music to sound difficult or labored.

As far as right hand technique, on fast tunes, specifically if I have to solo, I switch to full-tilt two finger bass guitar mode-- light touch, all finger tips. I always use an amp, and while my tone isn't "Super 70s Eddie or Ron straight into the board" tone, it's also not the big, bold and beautiful acoustic bass tone so many strive for.

 

I meant perpendicular. Vertical if you measure from the string. But that might be a confusing term. So perpendicular is a better word. As Pat Harris said more with the fingertips like on electric bass. Works great for fast solo lines and more staccato stuff. You can still get enough power with the perpendicular playing.

 

Ah... got it. Thanks!

 

I completely agree... I just hope and pray that we play music and touch/heal people. Our own personal pain or joy can be relayed to the audience. I really believe that at some point in a musicians life we will affect someone in a deep profound way. If we’re playing from the heart... That is the only reason I want technique. I don’t want my deficient technique to limit my expression. I’ve touched people with my songwriting, and a few times with my playing. That’s important to me... A great solo should make people feel good about feeling bad...