Use your ams not literally, but the power is from your arms, You cab play fast with just obe finger, but 2 looks more elegant and to a point faster
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Double Bass Using the middle/2nd finger with right hand
- Thread starter mljonesqwe
- Start date
Me too. Same technique and I can play really fast and loud with it. I use my third finger as well.
Think of the power coming up from your feet, up your spine, across the back and shoulders, down through the natural weight of the arms and then through the hand and fingers. This will tune you to pay attention and use your entire body to make your sound.
While awesome advise, this body awareness probably can be done through things like yoga. modern dance , pilates etc and probably not everyone in TB is tuned with their body to do that. The arms probably is a good start to avoid wrist injuries and exacerbate condition like arthritis
I can’t think of a single reason to not be fully aware of your body when playing an instrument, any instrument, but especially the double bass. Yes, for health and to avoid injury but just as much for sound production. It might seem lofty to some but I think it is truly doublebass 101. I start every student off by building a foundation from the feet up. It might seem hocus pocus in the beginning but after playing professional for 30 years you will be glad you took the time.
I've got a pretty decent handle on using my body to play the notes. The part I'm not so great at is getting the side of my middle finger to be flush against the string instead of at an angle. I find myself having to really change the angle of my hand compared to the index side, so I either am (too) slow to do it well, or I end up playing the middle finger slightly at an angle.
We play the way we play. No two people generate sound the same way. I talked to Christian about this, in particular this side of the finger pizz approach. Bass, string choices, set up, tension, hand type etc all play a role. There is no answer except that you have to find your sound, your way. Try everything and tweak as you go. Is there someone you are trying to emulate? Are they still alive? Can you reach them to have a lesson, or ten. Ultimately we have many ways to get a full palette from our instruments. That one particular pizz may just not be in your toolbox.
This makes zero sense to me.
Why should it matter which finger you start with? I play these types of tempos all the time.
There is some great perspective and info here. My only comment involves injury. In my experience with students I find so much potential for injury if I don't frequently make sure that they are not doing something harmful. Whichever techniques you are trying, please be careful and aware of any potential issues before they become real problems.
Same. I practice starting both ways, since you never know where the string crossings are going to take you.
Sorry to pick on you, as I agree with most of your post, but I've got a quibble with this little bit of it. At least for bluegrass, I think the speed of your finger going through the string is crucial to playing on top of the beat. Makes better tone too. I'm not much of a teacher, but I've cured at least one chronic dragger by getting them to think of striking through and hitting the fingerboard/next closest string, instead of pulling a bowstring and releasing it. Though any bowhunter out there will tell you that that's a bad analogy to begin with.
Am I alone on this? Would love some properly trained folks' thoughts.
No that makes total sense! I think my brain is so used to the concept of aligning the sound with the beat rather than aligning the movement with the beat that it didn't occur to me to add that.
Well, I’m not sure if I’m “properly trained”, but I agree with you on this one if I understand you correctly. The release of the string is almost an incidental occurrence. If the stroke is too slow, you get multiple sounds, which always strikes me as some version of “puh-thuh”. The first part with a slow stroke is the finger hitting the string (puh), and the second part is the release of the string (thuh). It disconnects notes from each other, and can even be seen on a wave editing program graphically.
A good stroke has to have proper velocity, IMO. The idea of articulated legato is always an aural illusion - what my teacher used to call “sleight of ear” - because in fact the finger hitting the string before it releases it always stops the string from vibrating for a microsecond at least. But in reality, at a certain velocity the illusion is that the string never stopped vibrating at all, the same way that a series of still images at 30 frames per second create the illusion of a moving picture to the eye. If the velocity is fast enough, the brain fills in the blanks and basically says “those sounds are connected”. I can’t put a number on it, but I know it when I hear it.
There’s also the notion of the amount of time it takes a note to bloom. This is also difficult to nail down, as higher notes speak quicker than lower ones. But there is a slight lag between when a string is struck (especially the E and A strings) and when the bloom is heard. The trick, I believe, is to get the bloom closer to the center of the beat, which makes playing on the lower two strings very tricky; it means you have to play a bit more on top on those strings in order to be perceived as being in the center. In the end, it’s a feel thing, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to work on this in the practice room, especially if you can record yourself to review occasionally to help reconcile “what it felt like” with “what it sounded like”. In the end, this is kind of what our brains do, and we adjust accordingly.
I rarely have to play blazing tempos, but I still use my middle finger a lot. As a for-the-most-part-self-taught-hack, what I can recommend that worked for me is just skills and drills. I used Chris' video on permutations, but added my own variations to it introduce different string crossings. For a sports analogy, I treat some of these routines like if I was practicing free throws for the basketball team. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Very mechanical.
In time, it will start to feel like a normal part of your skills. For me personally with drills like these, I find that they don't immediately pay dividends. What usually happens with me is that I'll be playing in a group setting, and then out of nowhere or out of necessity - the thing I've been drilling just sort of comes out in the context of playing a song. Once that happens it becomes permanent for me.
In time, it will start to feel like a normal part of your skills. For me personally with drills like these, I find that they don't immediately pay dividends. What usually happens with me is that I'll be playing in a group setting, and then out of nowhere or out of necessity - the thing I've been drilling just sort of comes out in the context of playing a song. Once that happens it becomes permanent for me.
Exactly, and much better written than mine! Thanks. Also, your third paragraph is ultimately the reason I prefer (nylon-wrapped) gut top and steel bottoms (Spiros). Gut speaks a little slower so it helps me be consistent with my beat placement.
An update on this for anyone down the road learning this as I have. Practice has helped a lot, and I've found some keys/observations that helped besides the "you'll get used to it eventually" advice.
-I treated this kind of like the left hand. When learning new instruments/switching to different basses or string spacing, I've favored doing the bass fitness routine briefly. 1,2(3), 4 finger on one string (one finger per fret on other instruments), next time one finger drops down a string, etc. to get the most extreme stretches. It shows you gaps in your technique.
With this I practiced different combos of multiple notes per string and crossing strings to figure out how my right hand needs to compensate. I'll add that bluegrass can be very repetitive or use the same patterns, so I've found a lot of value especially with right hand in playing different genres. Jazz has a lot more scales/notes down one string I find. Others can be valuable for other reasons. Obvious but worth noting.
-I found in a bluegrass context (lots of Root, 5th below) the best way to give my fingers a break are:
1) play index for root string, middle finger is resting on string below and can play without further shifting. Helps if fingers are in a relaxed peace sign posture that develops naturally. Key to this was finding how to cleanly strike with the middle finger to get it to sound the same as the index and trust it to mix the two.
2) play middle finger root string, rake it down across the fifth below.
3) index/rake index works but index tends to get a lot of action for me so I think it's less desirable for the root 5 rhythm compared to spreading the load on two fingers.
*Once you get the feel for these, it feels a lot like alternating jump rope tricks in a rhythm to rest one leg while the other hops so you can jump for a long time without shin splints. Feels very natural.
4) fills are where alternating really makes you play cleaner easily. Example: in a key of G 1, IV, V song. You are on the 5th/D chord about to go back to the top of the song on the G. In one bar you can play open D, E, F# up to open G with middle, index, middle, and your index is naturally "cocked" to pull through the G string. I've found the middle/index to be great for playing breaks and scales. If you're doing index only you're missing out.
-I will probably play around with it more, but I just haven't found a consistent/comfortable feel with (on one string) playing index finger, flipping the index out of the way quickly, and playing middle finger. I avoid it still but it's on my slate to experiment with more because I see plenty of players do it well.
-Finally, with the middle finger, I didn't find a good way to contact the string across the whole side of the finger like the index. Instead, I've had good results realizing it's different. You can get a good powerful tone by playing it with the piece of the finger from tip of the finger to the first knuckle (about just below it for me) Any other meat is a bonus. Still following Chris F's method/advice of pointing it out, rotating with thumb underneath, and meeting the string with it. Key with the smaller contact point for me has been "pulling"/striking mainly through the meaty point just under the knuckle where it's harder and more consistent, but your mileage will vary.
-I treated this kind of like the left hand. When learning new instruments/switching to different basses or string spacing, I've favored doing the bass fitness routine briefly. 1,2(3), 4 finger on one string (one finger per fret on other instruments), next time one finger drops down a string, etc. to get the most extreme stretches. It shows you gaps in your technique.
With this I practiced different combos of multiple notes per string and crossing strings to figure out how my right hand needs to compensate. I'll add that bluegrass can be very repetitive or use the same patterns, so I've found a lot of value especially with right hand in playing different genres. Jazz has a lot more scales/notes down one string I find. Others can be valuable for other reasons. Obvious but worth noting.
-I found in a bluegrass context (lots of Root, 5th below) the best way to give my fingers a break are:
1) play index for root string, middle finger is resting on string below and can play without further shifting. Helps if fingers are in a relaxed peace sign posture that develops naturally. Key to this was finding how to cleanly strike with the middle finger to get it to sound the same as the index and trust it to mix the two.
2) play middle finger root string, rake it down across the fifth below.
3) index/rake index works but index tends to get a lot of action for me so I think it's less desirable for the root 5 rhythm compared to spreading the load on two fingers.
*Once you get the feel for these, it feels a lot like alternating jump rope tricks in a rhythm to rest one leg while the other hops so you can jump for a long time without shin splints. Feels very natural.
4) fills are where alternating really makes you play cleaner easily. Example: in a key of G 1, IV, V song. You are on the 5th/D chord about to go back to the top of the song on the G. In one bar you can play open D, E, F# up to open G with middle, index, middle, and your index is naturally "cocked" to pull through the G string. I've found the middle/index to be great for playing breaks and scales. If you're doing index only you're missing out.
-I will probably play around with it more, but I just haven't found a consistent/comfortable feel with (on one string) playing index finger, flipping the index out of the way quickly, and playing middle finger. I avoid it still but it's on my slate to experiment with more because I see plenty of players do it well.
-Finally, with the middle finger, I didn't find a good way to contact the string across the whole side of the finger like the index. Instead, I've had good results realizing it's different. You can get a good powerful tone by playing it with the piece of the finger from tip of the finger to the first knuckle (about just below it for me) Any other meat is a bonus. Still following Chris F's method/advice of pointing it out, rotating with thumb underneath, and meeting the string with it. Key with the smaller contact point for me has been "pulling"/striking mainly through the meaty point just under the knuckle where it's harder and more consistent, but your mileage will vary.
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