Double Bass Switching to two fingers on this etude, would you and when?

[Aragorn35016]

Hi all, so it dawned on me this morning that I totally forgot to ask my teacher about this in lesson yesterday. I'm working on the "You Are All Things" etude out of John Goldsby's Jazz bass book and the 1st half is slowly coming together, I'm having trouble playing the notes smoothly in thumb position plucking with one finger, looking for opinions, would you guys switch to plucking with alternating fingers for this entire piece, or maybe just in the upper eighth note registers?

Thanks!

John M.

 

[Lee Moses]

There are several different right-hand approaches to take here. Obviously, there have been great bassists who could play very quickly using nothing but the first finger. For me personally, I pretty much use one finger until I can't. Just scanning this etude, it looks like 8th notes predominate with no real prolonged sections of quarter notes or longer. So I would probably just do 2 fingers all the way through. But I'd experiment--you say you're having trouble playing it with just one finger, but are you close? If so, I'd work on that. Then try 1 on the opening quarter note followed by 1-2-1-2, etc. until the 3rd bar with just 1st finger. There's really no clear right answer here.

 

[Aragorn35016]

There are several different right-hand approaches to take here. Obviously, there have been great bassists who could play very quickly using nothing but the first finger. For me personally, I pretty much use one finger until I can't. Just scanning this etude, it looks like 8th notes predominate with no real prolonged sections of quarter notes or longer. So I would probably just do 2 fingers all the way through. But I'd experiment--you say you're having trouble playing it with just one finger, but are you close? If so, I'd work on that. Then try 1 on the opening quarter note followed by 1-2-1-2, etc. until the 3rd bar with just 1st finger. There's really no clear right answer here.

It's really measures 4 and 5 that feel/sound "choppy" around playing the F to Ab. I almost have it with one finger, but facing other physical impedances with a high shouldered bass and that string cross with my left hand fingering, just wondering if I could mitigate some of it by introducing more fluidity with my right hand, but as usual the correct answer is that I just need to practice more .

 

[sean_on_bass]

In performance, the tempo would likely influence my choice. But for the sake of practice, i'd recommend trying to play it both ways intentionally. And definitely heed the "slowly" on the sheet At a very slow tempo you should be able to play this with one finger, so try slowing down a bit.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

I have a basic rule that when the music goes to 8th notes or above, I automatically use two fingers in the RH. The fingerings themselves don't matter as much as the principle that guides their use: alternate all 8th notes, breaking the pattern only when you have a "joker" in the deck: the basic jokers in my deck are rakes (i.e. descending adjacent string crossings which are plucked with the same finger), hammers, or pulls.

I came to this personal rule probably 15 years ago while working on Bach cello suites, which were my main technique etudes at the time. It made sense, but the impediment was twofold:
- the lesser impediment was just the physical reprogramming of my body to alternate the fingers. Slow practice with a metronome and the willingness to stop and correct as mistakes happened were the key to programming this.
- the greater impediment was the difference in sound between the two fingers. I realized that part of what was keeping me from making this rule a reality was that I didn't care for the sound of the middle finger as much. So I spent some years working on making the middle finger sound more like the index by recording the alternating pattern both ways until I couldn't tell which was which without looking at which take it was.

I would say that you are at an important technical crossroad right now. Take the challenge! Once it's in the rear view mirror, you'll be glad you did, and it will also help program your meta-brain to approach new challenges in the same way. Good luck!

 

[John Goldsby]

View attachment 5069445 Hi all, so it dawned on me this morning that I totally forgot to ask my teacher about this in lesson yesterday. I'm working on the "You Are All Things" etude out of John Goldsby's Jazz bass book and the 1st half is slowly coming together, I'm having trouble playing the notes smoothly in thumb position plucking with one finger, looking for opinions, would you guys switch to plucking with alternating fingers for this entire piece, or maybe just in the upper eighth note registers?

Thanks!

John M.

Hey John M. — Thanks for working on the etude. I would probably recommend playing the whole thing with alternating 2-finger r.h. technique. That said, you could also play it with one-finger, maybe using a few hammer-ons and pull-offs—but I think it will sound more fluid and lyrical with two fingers. On the recording that comes with the book, I'm playing with 2-fingers.

I like the fingerings you worked out. I might play some of the lines a bit differently, but yours work well. Be sure that the and-of-4 in bars 2 and 11 are both Ab. It looks like you know it's Ab from your fingering, but you wrote "A" above both of those notes.

Keep working on it and check in if you have any questions. Please give my best regards to your teacher.

 

[Aragorn35016]

Hey John M. — Thanks for working on the etude. I would probably recommend playing the whole thing with alternating 2-finger r.h. technique. That said, you could also play it with one-finger, maybe using a few hammer-ons and pull-offs—but I think it will sound more fluid and lyrical with two fingers. On the recording that comes with the book, I'm playing with 2-fingers.

I like the fingerings you worked out. I might play some of the lines a bit differently, but yours work well. Be sure that the and-of-4 in bars 2 and 11 are both Ab. It looks like you

I have a basic rule that when the music goes to 8th notes or above, I automatically use two fingers in the RH. The fingerings themselves don't matter as much as the principle that guides their use: alternate all 8th notes, breaking the pattern only when you have a "joker" in the deck: the basic jokers in my deck are rakes (i.e. descending adjacent string crossings which are plucked with the same finger), hammers, or pulls.

I came to this personal rule probably 15 years ago while working on Bach cello suites, which were my main technique etudes at the time. It made sense, but the impediment was twofold:
- the lesser impediment was just the physical reprogramming of my body to alternate the fingers. Slow practice with a metronome and the willingness to stop and correct as mistakes happened were the key to programming this.
- the greater impediment was the difference in sound between the two fingers. I realized that part of what was keeping me from making this rule a reality was that I didn't care for the sound of the middle finger as much. So I spent some years working on making the middle finger sound more like the index by recording the alternating pattern both ways until I couldn't tell which was which without looking at which take it was.

I would say that you are at an important technical crossroad right now. Take the challenge! Once it's in the rear view mirror, you'll be glad you did, and it will also help program your meta-brain to approach new challenges in the same way. Good luck!

Hey John M. — Thanks for working on the etude. I would probably recommend playing the whole thing with alternating 2-finger r.h. technique. That said, you could also play it with one-finger, maybe using a few hammer-ons and pull-offs—but I think it will sound more fluid and lyrical with two fingers. On the recording that comes with the book, I'm playing with 2-fingers.

I like the fingerings you worked out. I might play some of the lines a bit differently, but yours work well. Be sure that the and-of-4 in bars 2 and 11 are both Ab. It looks like you know it's Ab from your fingering, but you wrote "A" above both of those notes.

Keep working on it and check in if you have any questions. Please give my best regards to your teacher.

I'm always amazed at how accessible and awesome the double bass community is. Chris has been gracious to help me work out things here and there for the last 2 years, and now John Goldsby himself responds as well! I'm not gonna lie I'm feeling a little starstruck !
Thank you for pointing out the Ab correction and to both you and Chris for the direction on the right hand technique. I wish I could take credit for the fingering, but that was all my teacher. I've been using your recorded version as a play along for an intonation check, and per my teachers instruction along with the ireal pro version of "All the things you are" to get used to hearing the chord changes underneath. We're working a lot with all the things you are on a lot of different levels, I'm beginning to think I could spend the next several years on this one tune .

I hope you don't mind me asking another question, you mentioned adding hammer and pull offs in the line, I noticed that too in your recorded version, but didn't see anything like that notated in the written line, I assume that's just part of the personal style left to the player to add? I assume it would be best to play it straight until (if ever) I get the line under my fingers then add personal embellishment?

Thanks so much

John M.

 

[John Goldsby]

I hope you don't mind me asking another question, you mentioned adding hammer and pull offs in the line, I noticed that too in your recorded version, but didn't see anything like that notated in the written line, I assume that's just part of the personal style left to the player to add? I assume it would be best to play it straight until (if ever) I get the line under my fingers then add personal embellishment?

Thanks so much

John M.

Regarding hammer-ons and pull-offs: I think I just wrote the line out first as an etude, hearing in my head how it should sound. I didn't write in fingerings or articulations—it's more like an Urtext of a classical piece with not many performance instructions.

That leaves it up to the player to decide where to play loud & soft, where to slur (hammer-on or pull-off) with two or more notes, how much "triplet swing" to put in the 8th notes…it's all up for interpretation. You can use my example recording as a guide, and then change things to reflect your feeling about the interpretation.

My goal with the etude is to give the player a melodic line similar to an improvised solo that jumps in and out if thumb position. If you want to put in some slurs, play with one r.h. finger, play it straight-8th style…whatever…that's up to you. I would follow your instincts and play "what sounds good" to you.

Then you can let your teacher monitor your progress and give you feedback. It looks like they have a good concept of fingerings in and out of thumb position.

By the way, I worked on "all the things you are" a lot with my teacher, Michael Moore back in the day. I am great indebted to him for my abilities and ideas about how to play in thumb position.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

^^^^ Great answer from John above. I have a long standing practice of playing from Urtext or Urtext-ish scores whenever possible. My old teacher used to go on rants about edited editions, basically saying that you can't develop your own voice properly without figuring out your own articulations, phrasings, and fingerings. If the composer actually wrote it, it stays, but even there you have to understand context. The naked score is our friend in the long run, because it forces us to think for ourselves!

 

[Aragorn35016]

So I finally got the notes mostly under my fingers. My teacher had me learn it more in a swing style, both to strengthen my swing and to better play along with ireal pro. The thing is the last half of the piece is shredding my lower back, and I'm not sure what to do. I have to really lift my forearm to overcome the basses shoulder, and I've had to lower my end pin to help compensate. Ive added a vid so if any may want to help me analyze/come up with a potential solution to alleviate the back pain. I know this is butchered and I'm looking at the fingerboard (which I'm trying to approve). Additionally it's recorded with nothing but an iPad mic. Thanks in advance for the input!

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[Aragorn35016]

Correction now I have it somewhat to speed with about a solid 80 on execution . I'm starting to figure out how to play this without a total back shred!