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Double Bass "Standup"

A

Alan Vorse

Aug 20, 2005
1,665
34
#1
I'm sure its been brought up before.

I have only been playing DB for 8 months, but I was kind of under the impression that the term "standup bass" was kind of a no-no. I did a search on the term and it seemed to come up attached to threads like "Standup Noob" or "Question about first Standup."

I was on another website where someone made a comment about Jimmy Garrison playing a standup solo. I politely said that jazz guys don't usually say "standup" but rather "upright" or "acoustic." I was then bombarded by people calling me pretentious or trying to sound smarter than I actually was.

So what is the general consensus on "standup"? Personally it dosen't make much sense to me because you can "stand up" or sit when you play bass guitar. You can also stand up or sit down while playing DB. Is it wrong for me to correct people like I did, even though I feel I did it in a polite and civil manner?
 
#2
I find "standup" annoying, though less so than "bull fiddle" or "doghouse". I've never heard anyone in the jazz world actually state an opinion on the subject, though.

I suppose what you considered polite might have come off to some as snooty, but of course be careful not to confuse what happens on a message board with what will/could happen in real life. People on boards are often dicks just because they can be.
 
#3
I dunno. I've always seen "standup" as a term of ignorance and "doghouse" as a term of endearment.

"Upright". Never really liked that much. As opposed to Laydown? Horizontal?

Do you alway stand up playing Double Bass? Do you always sit down playing other kinds of bases?

Ignorant.

Doghouse, Gutbucket, Bull Fiddle all indicate to me at least the speaker knows what the instrument is and is using a dialect, jargon, or idiomatic expression usually paired up with Bluegrass or Country. Respectful and cute.

Double Bass doesn't come out of many peoples mouths these days.

I don't correct anybody on that these days unless they ask me.
 
#8
Uncletoad said:
Do you alway stand up playing Double Bass? Do you always sit down playing other kinds of bases?
Click to expand...


I think they are referring to the bass, and not the player, in calling it "stand up" although I, too, hate the term. When not talking to other players (in which case I write DB or say "double bass"), I usually call it a string bass.

Edit: I see while I was posting that term got out there.
 
#9
Standup, eh, not so much. I always cringe a bit when I see an article in the paper reading "Marcus Johnson on standup bass" or whatever....

I remember hearing "gut string bass" at times in my youth... even though the basses rarely actually had guts on them at that point.

I usually just say "bass". The little one is electric bass. The NS and the Bugbass are usually "travel bass".

PS.... I have a tune I wrote a long time ago, a little ode to playing bass, entitled "Dancing With Gramma".;)
 
#16
Recently I replied to a call for musicians to play for an independent movie score. The request was for orchestral instruments - strings, brass and woodwinds - and stated they pay was not union scale, but compensation would be provided.

Exploring what that meant, I described myself as a double bassist, as I generally do, and the 'music director' replied asking what a double bass was, and if I could play upright bass, like in an orchestra. Needless to say, I decided not to explore this project any further, because any amount of pay would have likely not been worth dealing with a music director with limited knowledge of common nomenclature.

Since then, I'll choose which term based on the audience. My first choice is always double bass, but after that movie score incident, I try String Bass or upright bass, only specifying acoustic when I think an audience will confuse upright with an EUB - the glorified slab forced to stand on it's tail. (Not that there's anything wrong with that...)

In a nutshell, in order of preference:

Double Bass
Upright Bass
Upright Acoustic Bass
String Bass (I'm using this more and more)
-- standup sounds more like vernacular to me; a reviewer who doesn't really know their instrumentation well or something.

Doghouse, Bull Fiddle (which I heard for the first time only recently in watching Cary Grant's 1951 People Will Talk - awesomely humorous bass references throughout) and the like, I only use sparingly, and in a joking, but not irreverent, way. My dad played a real gutbucket in a jug band, and it had nothing to do with a double bass, except it used a gut G string - that and an old scythe handle and a metal washtub.

Semantics....

-T
 
#17
"Acoustic bass" bothers me because it assumes that basses are normally electric.

"String bass" bothers me a little because the term was invented purely to differenciate it from the brass bass, or tuba.

"Standup" is just horrible.

I prefer double bass, contrabass, or bass.

So of course Americans never know what I'm talking about...
 

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