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Double Bass Sliding into a note

Jack Clark

Jack Clark

Aug 17, 2008
1,022
14
Idyllwild, California
#1
I apologize in advance if this topic has been a thread already, but I couldn't locate it in a search. (Maybe someone can point me in the right direction.)

I have seen some experienced pros, even on CDs and DVDs, who seem habitually to slide into a note whether walking or soloing--especially when a jump or shift is involved. Not just for an occasional effect, but habitually. To me, this style of habitual play carries with it the suggestion that either the player lacks confidence in his ability to hit the note in the center right off--or maybe he's just lazy. I know that's not always the case, but it creates that impression in me. (Again, I'm not talking about doing this occasionally for the effect.)

On the other hand, I know some pros--notably a local/regional favorite here, Bill Saitta--who seems to hit notes cleanly and dead center, on the fly, even with huge jumps at very fast tempos. I've seen/heard Bill do this consistently for an hour as the featured soloist in a rhythm-section trio at the annual Idyllwild Jazz in the Pines festival.

Is this unusual? Or is my particular experience in listening to players biased, do you think? And what do you guys feel is the best way to practice to achieve this? Or do you just have to be born with an ear like that?
 
#8
seriously, i watched the other week an instructional DVD by Todd Phillips "Essential Techniques for Acoustic Bass" and found it good (better than others i've seen), but he was very often sliding into the notes. it got on my nerves a bit because you have to adjust in your mind to not hearing the note but some kind of smeared sound. your brain recognizes it. i figure it is a technique for covering up a lack of accuracy. or maybe it's a form of impressionism...
 
#9
bonaventura said:
seriously, i watched the other week an instructional DVD by Todd Phillips "Essential Techniques for Acoustic Bass" and found it good (better than others i've seen), but he was very often sliding into the notes. it got on my nerves a bit because you have to adjust in your mind to not hearing the note but some kind of smeared sound. your brain recognizes it. i figure it is a technique for covering up a lack of accuracy. or maybe it's a form of impressionism...
Click to expand...

Yes, well, as a matter of fact, his DVDs are exactly those I had in mind--and I had exactly your reaction. I own both of his DVDs, by the way, and--speaking only as a rank amateur--I find them both excellent. I mean, he stresses the basic stuff like no book could, I don't think, and yet by the end of his Vol. 1 he's got you pumping out 1-4-5s like a half-way decent sounding bluegrasser. (In a couple of keys, anyway.)

He says on the DVD that he does this "Gomezing" thing (he doesn't call it that) "all the time," but I really don't care for that style "all the time." When he's trying to hit the notes during his demonstrations, he seems to hit them right on and he impresses me as having an excellent ear. (But, again, I'm a rank amateur.) So, I'm thinking that in his case it's rather a matter of "impressionism," as you put it, BV.

I'll be watching and listening to Todd Phillips's DVDs many times more because I think they're highly instructive and encouraging for someone at my level. And I've got your book on order, Ed. :-]
 
#10
As with anything, take from others what speaks to you and leave the rest behind. Each year I see a number of big name players, and often hear them doing this. I don't personally care for it, so I try not to do it except as an effect, but I try not to let the habits of others that kind of turn me off ruin the whole experience. The fact that you thought enough about this issue to start this thread speaks volumes about how you'd like shifts and jumps to sound in an ideal world. Shoot for that!
 
#11
Chris Fitzgerald said:
As with anything, take from others what speaks to you and leave the rest behind. Each year I see a number of big name players, and often hear them doing this. I don't personally care for it, so I try not to do it except as an effect, but I try not to let the habits of others that kind of turn me off ruin the whole experience. The fact that you thought enough about this issue to start this thread speaks volumes about how you'd like shifts and jumps to sound in an ideal world. Shoot for that!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the comment, Chris; I'll take your advice. And, wow, I see that you play with Harry Pickens, my favorite pianist. I see/hear him every year at the Jazz in the Pines festival in Idyllwild, California. I actually plan my festival activities around his gigs there. I once saw/heard him in a two-plus-hour performance with the Harry Pickens Trio (Marshall Hawkins, bass; Harold Mason, drums) at the then Skye Gallery in Idyllwild where--believe this or not--from my seat, I could have played the highest C on his piano without leaning forward. I don't think I could ever experience a more magnificent evening of jazz!
 
#12
It bugs me when I hear myself doing it too much. It's an effect that's available to us. It seems to me that it has a place in the quiver.

It all goes back to a thing that I try to remember when I'm playing... phrase like you're singing. Leave holes for breaths, gomez a little if it fits, don't play like a data processor. Give the listener a chance to hear something between the notes. Be human. This is my mantra, you all do whatever floats your boat. ;)
 
#14
Ive found bowing classical sonatas or etudes, with lots of arpeggios a great way to sort that out. Cant fudge those notes.

It really sharpens up your muscles for shooting to a note on the fingerboard.

I prefer to have a strong contrast between accurate notes and sliding notes. Really grabs the listeners attention. Someone like ron carter, when he wants you to hear a slide he will damn make sure you hear it.
 
#15
Jack - always good to hear from someone who likes Harry's playing. I've been a member of his trio for about 8 years now, and we've had a lot of fun making music. About the "sliding" thing, a good way to think of it for me is to think of it from the standpoint of a horn player: if you slide or bend into a note for a musical reason (blue note, legato phrasing, etc.), then it's a useful thing. If you are doing it in order to find the note in the first place, it can become kind of an annoying mannerism. Harry's very intonation sensitive, so I try to be as dead on as I can since an out of tune bass note can make a piano harmony sound very sour. With a different configuration, like a chordless trio, there's a lot more intonation latitude to play with, and the horn player can help find the intonation sweet spot against what you're playing; sometimes they'll even intentionally detune a long tone one way or another for effect.
 
#16
It's something that at the moment seems like a good idea but when I listen back to the recording I'm thinking "Why do I do that". I haven't found a way to use slides tastefully yet. It's not all that important to me to make them part of my dialect.
 
#17
The thing about cats like Eddie and Buster and Reggie; they aren't "trying something out" or trying to play like somebody else. They play that way and make it work because that's the way they honestly hear the music, hear their voice in it.
It was kind of a treat, doing the sophomore juries at the New School; I've gotten to hang out with Reggie a little bit. Coming back from lunch one day, I got to hear Dave Marck (on of the Tuedsay night guys) playing with Charlie Persip and Reggie, who was playing my bass. And I could hear that he was used to a different set up, but he was still playing strong. And it's a weird sort of interactivity; more here's where I am, what I'm hearing, where I want to play than the let's discover something together.
It's not the way I play, not the way I want to play. But it's also not me, it IS Reggie and he would be just as much a fool NOT to play that way as I WOULD be a fool should I try to play that way.

If you hear it, play it. If you don't hear it, don't play ********.
 
#18
Ed Fuqua said:
The thing about cats like Eddie and Buster and Reggie; they aren't "trying something out" or trying to play like somebody else. They play that way and make it work because that's the way they honestly hear the music, hear their voice in it.
It was kind of a treat, doing the sophomore juries at the New School; I've gotten to hang out with Reggie a little bit. Coming back from lunch one day, I got to hear Dave Marck (on of the Tuedsay night guys) playing with Charlie Persip and Reggie, who was playing my bass. And I could hear that he was used to a different set up, but he was still playing strong. And it's a weird sort of interactivity; more here's where I am, what I'm hearing, where I want to play than the let's discover something together.
It's not the way I play, not the way I want to play. But it's also not me, it IS Reggie and he would be just as much a fool NOT to play that way as I WOULD be a fool should I try to play that way.

If you hear it, play it. If you don't hear it, don't play ********.
Click to expand...

agreed. use your instinct and your ear - play the way that is most satisfying to you. if you hear someone doing something you want to be doing, emulate it. also, if you hear someone doing something that really turns you off, make a point of figuring out what it is so that you can know you aren't doing it. i'm primarily an orchestra player, but i play jazz and a lot of theatre stuff as well. i find that portamento into notes can be very effective while playing a solo arco (if used intentionally and sparingly). it really can give the line a melodic/vocal sound, and is likewise appropriate in solo classical rep when used tastefully (that's what gave me the idea for use in jazz playing). when you're walking rhythm changes you probably aren't looking to project a soloistic voice on the other hand, it's a time and place sort of thing. anyways, i think it's way better to try to present your genuine musical personality than to superimpose sensibilities that don't speak to you. you're doing the right thing though if you're thinking about these things.
 
#19
So, Chris, I guess what gets billed as the "Harry Pickens Trio" out here should really be called the West Coast HPT--or maybe even the Southern California HPT, huh?. I would not be surprised if Harry had different trios in various regions all over--who wouldn't want to play with him if he were good enough? At the Idyllwild festival, you have to get a good seat for whatever group precedes Harry in the line-up, just to keep a good seat for Harry. When he plays, the room fills up with other festival musicians--fast. Last year, I had a front-row-left seat for Harry, and just before he started a woman came up and asked if I would mind her sitting on the hard floor in front of my feet. The day before she had been the featured soloist on that same piano.

That night at Skye Gallery, at one point Harry got into one tune so deep I think I was hearing chords I've never heard before or since. Marshall Hawkins (bass) and Harold Mason (drums) were looking at each other and back at Harry with worried looks as if to say "Where is he going from here?" And Harry's just grinning from ear to ear like he does when he's really into it.

Oh, man, when I think that we almost lost him a few years ago, it makes my stomach hurt.

Chris, your points comparing sliding into a note to a horn soloist bending a note, and your comment about more latitude when playing with a chordless rhythm section are really interesting. I'll be listening for that, especially at the festival next month. Meanwhile, I'll keep working on my ear. Thanks, much.
 

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