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Double Bass Practicing without the instrument

E

Enzo

Guest
Feb 5, 2007
57
0
Sydney
#1
For work reason, I'll have to be away for 1 or 2 weeks at the time, ever couple of months, wihout a DB - I can appreciate that during this time one can do reading and ear trainining exercises (and others) but how do you keep up the bowing / intonation type exercises usually done on the instrument? Do I invest in a cheap, portable electric upright?

Txs
 
#2
Mental practice? I know it sounds like it wouldn't do much but I often do it when I have problems with a certain passage. I just go through it in my head and see what it feels like and what it would look like. It makes all the difference for me. But I am not sure how it would work if you didn't have a bass... It's worth a try though.
 
#3
Hey

when I was looking for a Upright, I asked a another group I belong to about a Upright,

This guy wrote me, saying he had developed a portable Upright Bass. As soon as I find it agin I will send you a llink to contact him.

Kirk
 
#4
Enzo said:
For work reason, I'll have to be away for 1 or 2 weeks at the time, ever couple of months, wihout a DB - I can appreciate that during this time one can do reading and ear trainining exercises (and others) but how do you keep up the bowing / intonation type exercises usually done on the instrument? Do I invest in a cheap, portable electric upright?

Txs
Click to expand...

depends on what you're doing. You're posting this in Orchestral technique so I'm assuming classical studies. if you're working on a certain piece then doing score study can be really useful, as well as just listening to recordings of the piece.

bowing exercises? well, bring your bow along and do bow crawls, then practice bowing in front of a mirror to ensure your bow is straight all the way through your stroke.

intonation, try sight singing exercises. torture? perhaps. useful? definitely.

hope this helps.
 
#7
Interesting topic.

I believe that there is a fair amount of research that has been done on athletes, dancers, etc., who have similar strength, coordination, and "muscular memory" issues as do instrumentalists; looking into the effects of visualization on neural pathways and improving performance.

Here's a sample article. Too bad about the background, which makes the article nearly illegible. If you copy and paste the text onto a white background one can read it better...

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Apparently, when we think, in a very vivid, engrossed way, about doing a motion, or series of motions, our brain triggers the muscle movements/impulses as if we are really doing them.

When I can't practice on the bass, I run through things in my mind, as if I am playing, either with the music or by memory. I find that it actually seems to improve my playing, because I don't get hung up the instrument's resistance or hung up in my own technical shortcomings, etc.

Visualization is powerful stuff...

In addition to that, I took one of those funny bass ukeleles on a trip, recently, just for practicing. When I came back to the DB some stuff I had been working on had gotten better, surpringly...
 
#9
Eric Swanson said:
Visualization is powerful stuff...
Click to expand...

I've always felt I was in some way singing through the instrument and practicing just the singing part without the bass has been of clear benefit to me.

I've recognized that I can articulate much faster on the instrument than I can in my head; to give voice to a passage or exercise purely mentally requires much deeper attention. Practicing without the instrument is one of the most difficult things I've tried but I feel like it improves my articulation, intonation and brings improvised ideas to a more concise point. The music doesn't come from the instrument.
 
#11
This is a great time to improve your musicianship as opposed to improving your muscle skills.

There is listening to pieces, in a concentrated way, with headphones and a score. Or with just the bass part in front of you, working out the fingering and mentally "playing" the part while listening. Most recordings are dead-on in-tune, so hearing that is always a good thing.

There's reading musician biographies or stuff about art history to get a feel of the times of pieces you are working on.

There's visiting museums or attending concerts of various genres if you can get away from your work duties.

I find when I take a break from the instrument, my bad habits disappear and I have to focus on playing properly when I get back to it. This improves my bass playing when my fingers get back to strength.

It usually only takes about a few hours to get back on the horse. The longest break was about 10 years and it took about 3 weeks to get to my former level. It's a long story, but my tuning was much better after the long break.
 

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