Double Bass third finger - left hand

[natedawg5280]

Hey, I'm asking this question jazz wise and orchestral-esque wise.. My recent instructor told me not to use my left hand-ring finger on the neck.. I played electric bass before and used it of course.. yet I complied with his wishes and changed on the upright. Then I recently read about how (I think it was) Bottesini 'expanded the technique' by using the left handed third finger as much as any cellist. Yeah.

So is there a law against using that finger? Is it ill-advised? I'm not with the instructor due partially to financial issues, but mostly because he was mediocre and had no answers pretty much. So I don't necessarily have to 'GO WITH YOUR TEACHER' if that's the response.

 

[Tritonis]

It's a general rule that you should avoid using it anywhere below thumb position, except for a few exceptions. But generally, it's a bad habit. 4th finger is your friend!

 

[Cory Palmer]

I'm not very familiar with technique that uses the ring finger in the lower positions. The Italian school uses it a lot. Petracchi's book uses a lot of 3rd finger and I think Bille uses it a lot too.

It seems like that kind of technique could cause tendinitis very easily. So if you want to develop the muscles well you will need to be a little bit more patient and pay close attention to the muscles in your arm. Also, the 3rd and 4th fingers are fairly weak fingers. When you use 4th finger you have three other fingers helping keep the string down.

If the palms of you hands are wide you probably won't have much problem with it.

 

[natedawg5280]

Oh I certainly love my fourth finger... but sometimes.. well easy example: E-F#-G played on the D-string (2-4-5) would be fun if you used 1st, 3rd, 4th fingers. But if it's generally expected not to be used, then I'll follow suit.. do jazz players adhere to that idea too?

 

[jazzbass72]

It seems like that kind of technique could cause tendinitis very easily.

Hey guys,
I grew up in Italy with the Bille method, and these days I freely alternate between 1-3-4, 1-2-4, and 1-2-3-4 at my leisure. Never had any tendinitis problems, knock on wood!

So, to answer your question, yes, it's is perfectly fine to use your 3rd finger below thumb position if that works for you. There's not a chance I would be able to do without it in my everyday playing.

Just my $0.02,
MP

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Hey guys,
I grew up in Italy with the Bille method, and these days I freely alternate between 1-3-4, 1-2-4, and 1-2-3-4 at my leisure. Never had any tendinitis problems, knock on wood!

So, to answer your question, yes, it's is perfectly fine to use your 3rd finger below thumb position if that works for you. There's not a chance I would be able to do without it in my everyday playing.

You big rebel, you. *













* I use 3 way more than is recommended myself...

 

[christ andronis]

Hey guys,
I grew up in Italy with the Bille method, and these days I freely alternate between 1-3-4, 1-2-4, and 1-2-3-4 at my leisure. Never had any tendinitis problems, knock on wood!

So, to answer your question, yes, it's is perfectly fine to use your 3rd finger below thumb position if that works for you. There's not a chance I would be able to do without it in my everyday playing.

Just my $0.02,
MP

..what he said.
Necessity is the mother of invention.

 

[toman]

If it works, use it. Not using the third finger "just because" is such an old school, small minded way of thinking. I try to stretch out and us all four fingers as much as possible; my hands are big enough to manage it, and I figure it just adds that many more fingering options as well as getting hand opened up and developing more muscles that otherwise might not be used. That might even prevent an injury...

 

[Johnny L]

I came to doublebass from an electric bass 1-2-3-4 fingering technique also, and it wasn't until I started investigating doublebass methods and taking lessons that I started using 1-2-4 fingerings. I didn't know any better at the time.

Then when I started learning Rabbath technique I learned about pivoting, which expands the 1-2-4 fingering technique quite a bit I think.

I think it's important to recognize that 1-2-4 Simandl and Rabbath pivot technique both have survived as long as they have as "standards" for doublebass technique because they're both easy to teach, easy to learn, and their use substantially improve intonation quite a bit IMO.

For myself now, I'm working on 1-2-3-4 fingering technique over the entire fingerboard and find that I like this best...though I was initially taught with insistence the 1-2-4 system. As with the electric bass, it's just more natural for me and all I needed really was a little encouragement to do it my way (which recently came my way when my teacher exposed me to Silvio Dalla Torre's work). In Simandl first position, though, the intervals are a little big and I can't just lay my fingers down and get perfect half steps across. I've got to sort of pivot through the intervals still...but that's what you've gotta do for 1-2-4 while pivoting a la Rabbath, so it's really not anything groundbreaking to me.

My teacher, however, plays cello too and only likes to do 1-2-3-4 fingerings for that instrument...sort of treating distinctions in technique for bass and cello as spoken languages and wants to remain fluent in both without taking the chance of getting confused.

Anyway, I think yeah...the pros, the creative, and the practical among us would stop a string with his/her nose if that's what it took to make the music. I really like learning about technique and find standards in technique to be useful knowledge, but it's at best a means to an end.

 

[jallenbass]

All the professional orchestra players I know use non-Simandl fingerings only on really nasty passages. The rest of the time it's 1-2-4.

 

[DJF]

If you play in tune using the third finger, which is first and fore most, and are musical; then what does it matter if you use your 3rd finger or your chin?

 

[jazzbass72]

If you play in tune using the third finger, which is first and fore most, and are musical; then what does it matter if you use your 3rd finger or your chin?

Nah, playing with your chin is "such an old school, small minded way of thinking", just like playing with the 3rd finger is.

-MP

 

[Johnny L]

I was recently in a music store searching for all things Freddie Hubbard, and I chanced upon Eugene Levinson's scale book. It had 3rd finger usage for lower position intervals too (1-3 for maj2 intervals).

Neat.

 

[markdwallace]

Playing whole steps 1-2 below thumb-position should be the exception. It is not natural and usually goes against the music. Playing 1-3-4 is so much more natural for your hand and in most any circumstance will fit the music better. Plenty of people do 1-2-4 for whole-step/half-step just fine but it takes so much more work to do that, time that could be spent working on much larger issues.

 

[Kevin Gordon]

The things I like about the 1-2-4 method is that you can keep your hand in pratically the same shape all the way up to thumb position, and that it reduces the amount of tension in your hand, allowing a more relaxed, and therefore more agile, style of playing. I've got pretty big hands and probably could use the 1-2-3-4 method, but I find that even when I'm playing electric 1-2-4 feels better. That said, it might just be because 1-2-4's what I'm used to.

 

[TomGale]

How about 1,2,4 AND 1,2,3,4 - both with pivots to expand the range even further? It's no big deal except to the "old Simandlites" to whom the 1,2,4 seems to be sacred.
Tom Gale
ASODB.com

 

[Johnny L]

Has anyone considered Jimmy Blanton to have used 4 finger technique to any degree?

I only ask because I've been studying his arco solos with Duke Ellington lately, and 4 fingers make some of the lines lay out pretty nicely. Plus, I understand Blanton to have played violin for a while as a kid and was wondering what influence that might have had on his bass playing.