• 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 studying bass without learning arco

#41
Ahh, so now it's an argument about risk management!

I say that, in the early years of learning, the player should cover off as many sources of the risk of bad playing as possible. In the early years, you don't really have a decent sense of what your personal tastes, strengths and weaknesses are.

Never put all your eggs into one basket unless you're 100% positive you hate eggs. Can't see how you'll make that decision unless you've given 'em a decent shot. You may just decide they are exactly the ticket...
 
#42
On the other hand - if you have been to hundreds and hundreds of Jazz gigs over many years and hated the sound of virtually every arco bass solo you've every heard - no matter how good the player - but loved the plucked sound of almost every one - surely that's going to sway your decision? ;)
 
#43
Can't see how you'll make that decision unless you've given 'em a decent shot. You may just decide they are exactly the ticket...
Click to expand...

I think this is right on the money. These discussions (To arco or not to arco?) always have burst of posts that are highly passionate. I apologize if my post came off sounding aristocratic. In my case, it wasn't so much that I thought I needed arco to be a good jazz player, it was more that playing arco put the instrument in front of the idiom. At that point I decided not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Other people may decide to and there's nothing wrong with that.

You can can enumerate all of the great bass players who've been classically trained but you'll always run across exceptional player who's never picked up a bow in his/her life. It's kind of futile to go down this path.
 
#44
Many years ago, I was in L.a. for a few things...one was to help my old friend Cal Tjader do some listening to some tapes we made in order to pick some cuts for a record we did. We took a break and I wandered down the hall of this sound studio and heard some of the WORST arco work i'd ever heard! It ended up being two bassists...Slam Stewart and Major Holley. For those who aren't aware of these guys....they both sing their bowed solos'...at least in this case, Major Holley in the same octave as what he's bowing and Slam, an octave above. The engineers had to separate the basses from the voices, so all I heard was the two basses being bowed without the singing voices to temper the sound and help cover all the scratching and BAD intonation. This sounded like two grizzly bears in heat! Actually, it didn't sound that good. The end result was edited and mixed into a passable record once they added the voices and pulled down the volume on the basses. This is a great example of what we're talking about here. This is not to put these guys down. Some of the most historic records were made by Art Tatum with Slam on bass...but without the vocals, look out!
 
#46
Since there is no harm at all in learning arco, why not?

Knowing a little bit about how to get a good bowed sound can only be a benefit. In the early stages of learning, I don't think it is going to be a great compromise of your time.

It is absolutely true that you can develop good intonation without playing arco. I never bowed a fretless EBG, but got it down eventually.

But I do think it is fair to say that you will gain better intonation more quickly if you practice arco as well as pizz. Especially if you have little overall musical experience.

Plus, it is wonderful for your instrument.
 
#47
I know I'm going to get some flames for this, but what the heck. :hiding:

I've posted in other threads that (yes I'm a noob) I'm getting my intonation down by putting myself up against a chromatic tuner (yes I'm playing pizz only). Now before you start saying that I'm cheating or something let me explain how I do it.

I find myself practicing over scales really slowly so I can hear relative pitches against open strings. This seems to work quite well. I focus on 2 or 3 notes at a time in the scale, and try to get as close as I can on the tuner. I focus not so much on where my LH is, but more on the tone I'm getting. I restrain from wiggling, because that's cheating to me - I'm not hitting it on the first try. The tuner will tell me if it's not a clean tone because it'll fluctuate if it isn't. If it's done right, it seems like the tone is pretty, the bass resonates at a pleasing vibe, and when I look at the tuner, I see it dead on. If it's not right, it's off in those senses and there seems to be a color if it's sharp or flat.

I've been doing this slowly for several weeks now and it seems to have some great results. Some questions:

1) Is this cheating? Or... is this even better because I'm forced to get as close to the perfect pitch as I can? Regardless if the bass is in tune or not?

2) What is "good intonation"? Is it always dead on 99% of the time, or maybe 5 cents off now and then? Even if you're bowing, what if you're off by 5 cents? Can you tell the difference?

Bowing would be fun, but my main intention is to play pizz. Right now it's just not affordable, especially after buying the bass making the mistake (or maybe it's not a mistake actually) of getting Labella Nylon wraps... I'll get to the bow once I can afford some obligato's too.
 
#52
I was doing some slow scale exercises until my new full time university gig kicked into high gear. I may try again this summer. But I still maintain (and so does my teacher) that it's possible to be any level of pizz player possible without the use of a bow - it's more about your committment level and the sounds you're hearing. Thanks for asking, though. :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Jazzbrew
#53
I've been playing about 15 years. I play jazz, and it's 98% pizz, except for a few bars of arco on some ballads, etc. I would always work some classical playing in to my practice routine just to feel like a real bass player, though I am not even close (to playing classical well). Lately though, I have been doing jazz excercises with the bow, and wow. If you can understand how to swing hard with a bow, your pizz swing will really get solid. My goal is to have the guts to pull the bow out on some jazz solos by the end of the year. If you don't ever try it, you should. Just start swinging a few scales every day. Commit to it for a few weeks and see what happens. But don't be lazy. Use a metronome and make sure you're swinging hard. You will dig what happens.
 
#54
Mr. Fitzgerald said:
"We can but accept their curmudgeonly derision, as they're probably right."

To which I playfully responded:
"You MUST play arco if you are going to play bass!
LM
Curmudgeon"

To which Mr. Fuqua said:
"Chris....your career is over! We better get ahold of Don Thompson and some of your other arco-less buddies"

To which I respectfully respond:
I am not worthy to pluck even one note on Mr. Thompson's bass!

I think my point on this is, if the fella has access to a classical teacher, why should he miss out on some great training? He can always hang the bow on the wall later. . . (For the record, I'm not a big fan of arco jazz solos either, except for P.C., Mingus here and there, Michael Moore, George Mraz, and more recently Dave Young. I almost never play arco jazz myself. On the classical end, I really love what Gary Karr, Joel Quarrington, Renaud Garcia-Fons, Edgar Meyer and many others can do with a bow). Why miss out?
 
#55
LM Bass said:
snip...I think my point on this is, if the fella has access to a classical teacher, why should he miss out on some great training?...snip
Click to expand...

I share your opinion. Don't worry too much about the polemics that's going on about this. A decent arco is very useful tool to make music with a DB. But it's hard to learn and it puts in evidence sloppy intonation, even to untrained ears. It requires dedicated practice and if the people you're playing with have no patience, they'll ask you to leave the bow at home. I feel lucky that my band mates were encouraging when I first pulled out the bow on ballads or intro to bossas. Now I use it in solos, often starting pizz and finishing arco. Practicing PC and Slam transcriptions from J Goldsby's book has been a great help. Finally, to use ChrisF argument on nowadays jazz gigs being often duos or trios, not only fluent soloing is a necessity, but arco playing is an asset. Nobody is forced to do it and you'll find lotsa good DB players who don't do it, but I don't understand the point of finding excuses.
 
#56
Larry says:

I would always work some classical playing in to my practice routine just to feel like a real bass player

Oh come on now - you're not a real bass player at the moment or is this an inferiority complex - the only real players are always classical? Don't tell me the bass was designed to be bowed - the piz tradition goes back into the mists of folk music. I'm not sure all classical players find jazz piz a breeze if they don't practise it either.

and also says:

You will dig what happens

which is what precisely - you must be able to say what happened?

Olivier says:

its hard to learn ... it requires dedicated practise

which sound like good enough excuses for me for limited practise time.

I always do some arco practise but time is short. I feel this helps intonation, posture and balance of the bass (I play standing up), control of rh. I'm not sure about what it's adding to the quality of sound or swing. Because its not easy I just want to keep my hand in.

I was partly inspired one day by seeing Ngyuen Lee's (can't spell his name but I guess you'll know who I mean) bass player - wish I knew the name, who stood onstage with the bass neck slung over his shoulder by virtue of an enormous articulated spike. This put the bass in a cello like position. He played all bass lines piz and then all solos arco in thumb position, sounding not uncello like. He had amazing facility and I've never seen or hear of him again.

BTW, I find that for arco (using French) I prefer/need the bass a fraction (half a notch on my bass which doesn't do half notches) higher than piz.

If I have a wish, it's that people would approch piz with the rigour of learning of articulation and dynamics that the classical fraternity apply to arco. I think it is something most of us do without awareness. Hell, you might get threads in future about the advantages of learning piz for the arco player.
 
#57
Mike Crumpton said:
you must be able to say what happened
Click to expand...

My answer to this is that you hear the instrument sing, and you learn to breath out the melodic lines like a singer or a horn player. It alows to appraoch to concept of articulation.

On the other hand ;) pizz definitely requires practise. Its good for RH and LH. For the record, I play without amp even in the jazz quintet, and at the moment I practise the prelude to Bach's 2nd cello suite both arco and pizz (trying to keep alternating my two RH fingers no matter which string is plucked).

I don't think that the segregation between jazz and classical musicians is that strong anymore, and also other tribes such as period or baroque music have emerged, accordion and djembé are now taught in conservatories (dulcimer or ukulele anybody ?), etc...

Good thing is that the DB allows for a lot of crossing-over between the various categories. Be happy.
 
#58
LM Bass said:
Mr. Fitzgerald said:
"We can but accept their curmudgeonly derision, as they're probably right."
LMTo which I playfully responded:
"You MUST play arco if you are going to play bass!
LM
Curmudgeon"
To which Mr. Fuqua said:
"Chris....your career is over! We better get ahold of Don Thompson and some of your other arco-less buddies"
to which I respectfully respond:
I am not worthy to pluck even one note on Mr. Thompson's bass!
Click to expand...
LM, the quote you quote was by myself Paul Warburton....not by Mr Fuqua. I had no way of knowing you were making it in a "playfully response.." manner. In fact I thought you were dead serious...I guess we just need to get to know each other better? And I had no intention of getting you to say you're not worthy.....And I can forgive you for becoming confused with the name thing around here...my brother bassists especially MR. Fitzgerald get thier kicks from messing with our names. We thank Mr. Fuqua for starting this initially.
 
#59
olivier said:
My answer to this is that you hear the instrument sing, and you learn to breath out the melodic lines like a singer or a horn player. It alows to appraoch to concept of articulation.

On the other hand ;) pizz definitely requires practise. Its good for RH and LH. For the record, I play without amp even in the jazz quintet, and at the moment I practise the prelude to Bach's 2nd cello suite both arco and pizz (trying to keep alternating my two RH fingers no matter which string is plucked).

I don't think that the segregation between jazz and classical musicians is that strong anymore, and also other tribes such as period or baroque music have emerged, accordion and djembé are now taught in conservatories (dulcimer or ukulele anybody ?), etc...

Good thing is that the DB allows for a lot of crossing-over between the various categories. Be happy.
Click to expand...

Excellent reply - lets see it again! :hyper:
... and anyone who plays acoustically gets my appreciation :)
 
#60
olivier said:
..trying to keep alternating my two RH fingers no matter which string is plucked...

I don't think that the segregation between jazz and classical musicians is that strong anymore, and also other tribes such as period or baroque music have emerged, accordion and djembé are now taught in conservatories (dulcimer or ukulele anybody ?), etc...
Click to expand...

I don't find any personal advantage to alternating fingers where rakes can be done. Rakes to me are an essential technical facet for the jazz bassist to master and deserve to be incorporated into scale/arpeggio woodshedding from the very beginning.

But I buy the jazz/classical boundary being pretty much vapor, or delusion, wholeheartedly. When did music itself ever begin to care about storage shelf categories?
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back