Double Bass Resisting emphasising the downbeat

[Andy Mopley]

Hi all
I am trying to resist the somewhat natural tendency (and gravity) that has me playing the downbeat slightly louder and with a little accent. For example, an exaggerated version sounds to me like this:
> > >
DO RE MI FA SOL etc.

(Not sure what happens when I post, but the accent is on every downbeat).
This is even more evident when playing a crotchet followed by 2 slurred crotchets in 6/8 time, as another example.
Currently I am addressing by really slowing the bowing down, and concentrating on keeping an even tone, up and down, conscious of where the downbeat is. But are there any other suggested methods that may also work to address?
Regards to all.

 

[RobMac]

What period of music are you playing? The reason I ask is that at various times in musical history, the downbeat was meant to be a little louder than the other beats. This inequality of stress was seen as a good thing, both to define harmony and forward momentum. Baroque music, for example. But maybe you are talking about Swing, where beats 2 and 4 often have the slightest accent?

 

[Andy Mopley]

What period of music are you playing? The reason I ask is that at various times in musical history, the downbeat was meant to be a little louder than the other beats. This inequality of stress was seen as a good thing, both to define harmony and forward momentum. Baroque music, for example. But maybe you are talking about Swing, where beats 2 and 4 often have the slightest accent?

Thanks RobMac - I am talking in general, but not Swing specifically, where I understand the need for the accents. Even when playing a simple scale, it is about how to learn to keep an even volume of sound, up or down bow, regardless of the patterns and of any pre-dictated indications...More Zimmermann perhaps? Txs

 

[User4843936]

Record, preferably film, yourself playing simple passages with definite accents in different places on purpose. Do the same aiming for no accents anywhere. Watch and listen to yourself as much as you can bear. Make the accents and no accents conscious so you can have control over doing or not doing them whenever it suits you.

More and more you’ll get it down to an automatic embodied feeling - it sounds like it might be a bit of a head exercise at the moment...!

Zimmerman/Sevcik never goes amiss..

 

[AGCurry]

Although I'm a relative arco novice - and therefore haven't been exposed to a whole lot of repertoire - it seems to me that emphasizing the downbeat is a little "baked in" by our convention of playing downbeats with down strokes. No?

 

[David Potts]

To distract you how about playing scales and arpeggios with crescendo and diminuendo patterns as though you are phrasing?

 

[Dogfightgiggle]

Another thing that may help is doing more phrase analysis and marking up the score. “1” is usually more like a pickup or resolution point.

 

[CaseyVancouver]

Another thing to keep in mind is not to emphasize the final note in a run, if it is not marked for it.
Sometimes folks will emphasize that note with a big BOOM.

This is a pet peeve of my conductor who considers doing this an irritating amateur move. Easy to find examples, but this happened to be on my stand. Each of these final notes in each little run should not be emphasized.

 

[Neil Pye]

Like the Tchaik 4 example! In general, unless notated otherwise, there will be a slight emphasis - no more than a sense of "arrival" usually - on the downbeat. Best not to train it out of your playing entirely, most conductors will want it to "drive" the music to some degree. As AGCurry said, that's why we look for bowing patterns to help us place the emphasis. It's certainly not universal, but it should usually be there to some degree and getting rid should be a conscious choice

 

[DuluthBassist]

Hi all
I am trying to resist the somewhat natural tendency (and gravity) that has me playing the downbeat slightly louder and with a little accent. For example, an exaggerated version sounds to me like this:
> > >
DO RE MI FA SOL etc.

(Not sure what happens when I post, but the accent is on every downbeat).
This is even more evident when playing a crotchet followed by 2 slurred crotchets in 6/8 time, as another example.
Currently I am addressing by really slowing the bowing down, and concentrating on keeping an even tone, up and down, conscious of where the downbeat is. But are there any other suggested methods that may also work to address?
Regards to all.

i suggest practicing with your bowing reverse of normal (‘up’ bows on downbeats, or just reverse of what you are regularly doing). Then, try accenting your ‘up’ bows and not accenting the ‘down’ bows. Also, when I studied with Klaus Trumpf he had me playing two-octave scales with a huge variety of bowings (I had to buy his book), which really helped in completely liberating the bow arm to any variety bowings. BTW - on the Tchaikovsky 4 excerpt shown, I like to start the held note with an ‘up’ bow and do a little Crescendo and end the phrase with a ‘down’ bow and a slight tapering off of volume. But, we must do what the principal and conductor wishes, so we need to have total mastery of the bow.

 

[CaseyVancouver]

A bit of emphasizing the first beat is rather natural. We are taught this. The default feel is too emphasize it, but not over emphasize it unless marked so.

In ‘Rhythmic Training’ by composer and Juilliard teacher Robert Storer, he clearly shows the default emphasis should be on the first beat. Of course this is just a tiny slice of the music picture, and is not always taken literally.

 

[ILIA]

Hi all
I am trying to resist the somewhat natural tendency (and gravity) that has me playing the downbeat slightly louder and with a little accent. For example, an exaggerated version sounds to me like this:
> > >
DO RE MI FA SOL etc.

(Not sure what happens when I post, but the accent is on every downbeat).
This is even more evident when playing a crotchet followed by 2 slurred crotchets in 6/8 time, as another example.
Currently I am addressing by really slowing the bowing down, and concentrating on keeping an even tone, up and down, conscious of where the downbeat is. But are there any other suggested methods that may also work to address?
Regards to all.

An easy exercise to fix this is to play the same passage with a backwards bowing, and consciously trying to replicate the problem that you hear with the normal bowing. Then go back to the normal bowing. If that fixes the problem, then you simply had, ingrained in your muscle memory, a bad habit of playing down bows louder than up bows. It's not an uncommon problem. It's a good thing that you caught it now.

If it doesn't fix the problem, the problem may be ingrained in how you mentally conceptualize music. If you play under a conductor that over-emphasizes downbeats, in their conducting gestures (e.g. conductors who give too much velocity & height emphasis bouncing off the ichtus on beat 4 of a 4/4 conducting pattern, in order to feel "grounded" on the following beat 1), you inadvertently start playing that way whether you realize it or not. (Good conductors don't do this BTW, so avoid bad conductors if you can or at least be aware of their shortcomings and try not to let it affect your musicianship). Also, crappy stand partners might over-emphasize downbeats, as well. Again, don't let them affect your musicianship. Also, if you work a lot with digital audio workstations like Pro Tools or fun consumer apps like a capella, the click tracks kind of suck you into emphasizing 1-2-3-4 especially beat 1. Again, don't let that affect your musicianship. Listen to recordings of great orchestras, who don't over-emphasize downbeats & strong beats. Listen to a lot of Stravinsky, Copland, and other composers who intentionally obfuscate the tendency of musicians to over-emphasize the so-called strong beats, in a lot of their writing.

 

[David Potts]

Reversing the bowing is a good idea. Another might be to spend much more time using the upper 1/3rd of the bow, consciously trying to establish more resonance, projection and clean note starts where you have the least mechanical advantage. Perhaps note starts and scales using only 6" of bow at the point in both directions. Ideally this what should workable anyway, without losing the nice shape and flow of the bow hold. You might also find out if it is time to upgrade your bow.

Practicing near the point of the bow also has a flow on effect to improve use all over the bow length when you drop back to "normal" IMO.