• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Double Bass Playing with higher strings

TroyK

TroyK

Mar 14, 2003
8,127
10,484
Seattle, WA
#1
When I sit in on someone else's bass and their strings are higher off of the fingerboard, what right hand adjustment should I make to keep myself from soiling the linens?

It's happened a few times this year and I struggle to get the time dialed in.

Tonight I tried spinning the bass away from me to come at it from a different angle, digging in less and playing more with my fingertips, digging in more and using more of the side of my fingers.

I feel like there is some adjustment I could be making in these situations. Anyone got an idea what?
 
#2
When I play someone else's bass and the strings are lower than my preference (I play with fairly high spiros so that way round is much a more common experience for me) the thing I struggle with is getting the feel that my whole arm weight can bounce the time - I feel like I have to use my fingers more and my arm less, so weirdly it ends up feeling like more physical effort over the course of the gig despite less tension... maybe the reverse will work for you on higher strings? ie more big motor, arm and back based movement, and less finger work
 
#3
For me it’s a matter of elbow/shoulder angle. Since my basic RH goal is for my fingers to be an extension of the arm, and for the finger to touch the board before and after plucking the string, the adjustment is made at the shoulder but is most easily seen and thought of at the elbow.

Put another way, when trying to dig in more deeply, the elbow is higher and more perpendicular to the bass in order to apply downward pressure into the board. The opposite is also true. So when I play a bass with lower strings than mine, the elbow is raised higher because my body wants to dig more to get the same sort of sound and feel it is used to; when the strings are higher than usual, the reverse is true and the elbow is lowered to help achieve the same basic perceived resistance.

By turning the bass slightly away from you as a standing player, you are working the same sort of geometry since turning the bass changes the elbow angle using a different mechanism.
 
  • Like
Reactions: LaFaro01
#4
Thanks, guys. My strings are not especially low, by the way. I go for a big acoustic sound and like to get as much meat into it as I can, but a few times lately I've been on a bass that was set up differently enough that it was an on-the-fly adjustment that I didn't feel like I adapted to as quickly as I would have liked.
 
#7
Chris Fitzgerald said:
For me it’s a matter of elbow/shoulder angle. Since my basic RH goal is for my fingers to be an extension of the arm, and for the finger to touch the board before and after plucking the string, the adjustment is made at the shoulder but is most easily seen and thought of at the elbow.

Put another way, when trying to dig in more deeply, the elbow is higher and more perpendicular to the bass in order to apply downward pressure into the board. The opposite is also true. So when I play a bass with lower strings than mine, the elbow is raised higher because my body wants to dig more to get the same sort of sound and feel it is used to; when the strings are higher than usual, the reverse is true and the elbow is lowered to help achieve the same basic perceived resistance.

By turning the bass slightly away from you as a standing player, you are working the same sort of geometry since turning the bass changes the elbow angle using a different mechanism.
Click to expand...

Interesting! None of this makes much sense to me. What do you mean when you say the finger touches the board before and after? How is that helpful?

I always try to have my elbow as close to the body as possible when bowing or pizzing. It moves some depending on what string I am playing but the further you holding your elbow from center of gravity the more energy you are expending. I try to keep that part of the arm soft and floppy so the weight is always going into the string.

I really think the adjustment you are looking for is as simple as higher action = more of the meat of the finger.
 
Last edited:
#10
I'm a little uncertain what's considered high or low. 1/4" under the G and 5/16" under the E are what I believe are considered more or less standard now. Are higher or lower much different? I've played basses with much different heights both ways but that standard always seems pretty functional to me as part of overall playability.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mark0
#12
crd said:
Interesting! None of this makes much sense to me. What do you mean when you say the finger touches the board before and after? How is that helpful?
Click to expand...

By plucking through the string along the axis/curve of the board at that string, the resulting excursion of the string is parallel to the board. This keeps the sound clean even when a strong pull produces wide excursion. Pulling down on the string produces a diagonal excursion pattern, the lower half of which is prone to rattles against the board when a strong pull creates wide excursion.

An example is the difference between a traditional classical pizzicato (light excursion) and a “Bartok pizzicato“ (heavy excursion). Both are pulling up on the string, which causes the string to vibrate up and down instead of side to side. The difference is that the traditional pizzicato stroke is light, and doesn’t produce enough excursion for the bottom half of the wave to hit the fingerboard, while in the Bartok pizzicato, that snapping sound of the string hitting, the board is actually part of the point.
 
#13
I've seen some DBs with very low action -- action that would make a guitarist jealous. I've seen this most often with performance-setup Eminence EUBs strung with steel (Spiros, etc.) which are setup for amp'ed jazz/bebop, and in experienced professional hands it sounds great.

I've had a chance to play one of these for a short moment, but it was long enough to realize that it would take some real time for me to get used to that kind of action. The action is low enough that to me the Mittel tension steel strings feel like low tension strings; they require almost no effort to stop on the fingerboard, but there is absolutely no getting under them with the fingers of the right hand.

That said, to me, with fat strings and a 1/4" to 5/16" action range as discussed in earlier posts, low action DBs like above really seem like different kind of instrument.
 
#14
Both Peter Kowald and John Lindberg had huge sounds without SUPER high action. I keep mine medium - I set it so it is height I need to dig in with my right hand at the end of the fingerboard. Lindberg recommended this. He said you get more sustain the lower it is.
When I borrow a bass with high action, I play more up on the fingerboard with my right hand and make more of an effort to use my left arm & shoulder to hold down the strings.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AGCurry, Earl, TroyK and 1 other person
#16
Earl said:
Yeah, lighter touch, and also what Damon said.
Click to expand...
Yes, this is something people who slam the action (when I was young, my friends & used to call it "touch-bass") forget: you can always play soft no matter how high the strings are but, you cannot dig in if there is no headroom. Gary Peacock once said something like: You set the action where the bass sounds best. Everything you can play with them at that height is what you can play, the rest is what you can't.
 
  • Like
Reactions: oliebrice, bassmanbrent, Don Hergert and 3 others

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back