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Double Bass Warming up the bass?
- Thread starter AZNBassist
- Start date
But it better be damn fine bourboun or scotch if you're gonna warm it up first. Most of your general Irish or blended whiskeys better be chilled if you want to warm yourself up properly.
I believe there's some empirical evidence to support these findings, let me go back to my lab notes . . .
I know for a fact that I get Louder with any kind of whiskey in me . . . I don't know how it affects my focus, though . . .
I believe there's some empirical evidence to support these findings, let me go back to my lab notes . . .
I know for a fact that I get Louder with any kind of whiskey in me . . . I don't know how it affects my focus, though . . .
But it better be damn fine bourboun or scotch if you're gonna warm it up first. Most of your general Irish or blended whiskeys better be chilled if you want to warm yourself up properly.
I believe there's some empirical evidence to support these findings, let me go back to my lab notes . . .
Wait... I'm running the experiment right now.
Oh, so you're a mid-day drinker.Wait... I'm running the experiment right now.
That explains it.
Wow, its interesting to see where this thread went after my initial post. My original intention of this thread was just originally to open a discussion on whether or not spending some time (10-20 minutes) bowing long tones on the double bass actually has an effect and makes the bass's sound "open-up" as opposed to being played right away and sounding "tight", again, I guess what I heard from this before was that this "warm-up" (bowing long tones) had to be done arco because (as I heard) that playing pizzacato won't help the bass open up, since only playing arco can get the bass bar (or some other part of the bass) to get vibrating properly.
Though I guess it went a little further than a "little discussion"
I recently was selling a Englehardt m1. and a jazz major/Teacher came over to check it out for possibly a student of his! the setup on it wasnt great but playable.. he started playing it,( no bowing) and he said "RIGHT NOW I AM JUST HITTING ALL THE HARMONICS AND E.C.T.. TO SEE IF I CAN GET THIS BASS TO OPEN UP A BIT" and after about 15-20 minutes, i could definatly hear a big difference in the bass. It was starting to growl, when he held down notes!!! and it would not do that before.. so when i got to play it, i was getting the same growly notes( growl= seemed to be deeper tone with more vibrating sustain) it seemed to be very loose and nice i may say.. anyways.. it stayed that way for rest of the day, but the next morning it WOULD NOT DO IT!!! so i totaly think a bass opens up!! with a good know how!! that was my experience!! good luck
- Based on all the Pms and emails I woke up to, yes a lot of us and several. I don't have a short temper - I'd like to point out that I had way more patience for outright attacks on my own music than your condescending responses.
I don't mind being the one to speak up, but when I do there are generally many who feel the same way but for what ever reason choose not to voice it. Ok, enough about that.
Here is what "one of the names I dopped" (which I prefer to call consulting an expert) Said:
"Clearly, the instrument is responsive to vibration, humidity and heat.
My own experience shows me that my instrument is played regularly it sounds more responsive than one when it is sitting around for weeks. (A situation that now exists with having more than one bass) Sustained vibration with the bow seems to open up the instrument as well as pushing the dynamic levels on the either end. There must be something to it, as long tones are a tone development technique on wood winds, strings and brass. Another way I like to think of the bass-as a big lung, with a potential capacity for air (sound) based on how efficiently and completely it is being vibrated.
I notice subharmonics forces the bass into a certain kind of responsiveness which reinforces the fundamental."
I'll add the name when/if I get permission.
Are you experienced? Have you ever been experienced? Well, I have.--------Jimi Hendrix
Right on Damon.
I guess I'm not experienced, because I don't understand. What's a subharmonic?
Please tell me that there's a way to play an octave below low E.
Seems we're even on that score.
Makes sense to me. It doesn't pinpoint the explanation and it would have been unreasonable to have expected that it would. To the degree long-term effects are involved in the above, I will say that I can certainly understand how they would result from changes in the properties of the wood, per se.
Subharmonics refer to frequencies below the fundamental, specifically integer fractions of the fundamental. When you play the low E, or any note on any string for that matter, the lowest energy present in the spectrum is the fundamental. The bass does not generate subharmonics on its own. One would require some other (active) device (such as this) to do that. This being the case, I'm not sure what was meant in the quote. Perhaps what was meant was that, for example, playing the low E makes the E an octave above sound better. The low E is, after all, a subharmonic of the E an octave above it.
You may find [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]useful.
Well, the player is an "active device" with any musical instrument. Our technique plays a large part in making sub harmonics "audible". Consider the room that the acoustic instrument is played in to be an "active device" in producing/amplifying subharmonics. IMHO.
Unrelated to the subject here, but may be but applicable to one of our prolific participants.............
Tar Baby-
tar baby
noun informal a difficult problem that is only aggravated by attempts to solve it.
ORIGIN with allusion to the doll smeared with tar as a trap for Brer Rabbit, in J. C. Harris's Uncle Remus.
Have a nice day!
Unrelated to the subject here, but may be but applicable to one of our prolific participants.............
Tar Baby-
tar baby
noun informal a difficult problem that is only aggravated by attempts to solve it.
ORIGIN with allusion to the doll smeared with tar as a trap for Brer Rabbit, in J. C. Harris's Uncle Remus.
Have a nice day!
They Mirror the harmonic series but below a chosen fundamental. The intervals are reversed so instead of a fith you get a fouth, third you get a sixith.
They can be achieved through bow pressure, bow speed and left hand technique. While posible, it is very hard on open strings. So an F below your low F is easier to get than an E. So far they are only available arco and not Pizz.
The Person I quoted meant that playing sub-harmonics tends to strengthen the fundamental they are played on. Unlike the way we generally work with harmonics (divisions of an open string) we work with sub-harmonics at each fundamental stopped by the left hand.
There are several recordings and studies published of double bass players using Sub-harmonics. They use This device to get the sub-harmonics: http://worldofbow.com/images/bsg38a.jpg
Unrelated to the subject here, but may be but applicable to one of our prolific participants.............
Tar Baby-
tar baby
noun informal a difficult problem that is only aggravated by attempts to solve it.
ORIGIN with allusion to the doll smeared with tar as a trap for Brer Rabbit, in J. C. Harris's Uncle Remus.
Have a nice day!
I will respect Chris Fitzgerald's plea and refrain from responding in kind. That is, other than to make the following observation:
Attachments
Well, gee, I was unaware that this could be done with the bow. As I understand it, you are creating something akin to the type of distortion product with the bow that a loudspeaker sometimes does when it generates an unwanted subharmonic.
Yep, I was just plain wrong. While the lowest frequency of any note you play is the fundamental, here the bow is being used to drive distortion products. In fact, here's a nice link about it (scroll down on the page). You will see that "subharmonic" is in quotes. What are generated are more formally called distortion products. They come about as a result of non-linearities.
Another fine link.
Thanks, Damon-- and I do mean that.
I speak of myself, here ye! One wonderful aspect of of this discussion on warming up the bass is the mystery of it all. So I think refraining is a good thing overall here, who knows what pieces of the this puzzle might be offered if space is made for them!
I'm with Chris and mrpc, let's call a truce and admit there are things we can't all explain or completely understand. The sad part would be this, if we knew all the answers to all the questions, we would have less to talk about, right?
I don't know about "more formally" called distorstion products. If you work with them you can produce a clean tone recognizeable by a tuner as a pitch. In John Zorn's book Arcana there is a whole essay about them as produced on the bass. The Japanese violinist Mari Kimura first developed them on violin and then Mark Dresser did extemsive scientific research with experts in the field.
The problem with a lot of this stuff is it has to be tested with bass in hand - it cannot only be constructed intelectually.
I can make sub-harmonics, so I understand how they work and behave.
It is like your assumption about the the way the overtone series lines up with the tempered pitches - you were looking at the overtones as they appear in order. When you consult the bass, you find an overtone over every pitch - because the overtones appear at infinite sub-divisions.
Also, as someone who works with these techniques, I find that many of them are just not available until the bass is "warmed up".
In different weather conditions that affect the wood, it takes varying degrees of said (but the same) warm ups before the sounds I want are available which leads me and many experts to believe it is in fact, short term changes in the wood.
Distortion products are very clean tones. It does not mean at all that they are distorted. They are called that because they come about as the result of non-linear addition of other tones. For example, a prominent distortion product in systems is the so-called 2f1-f2. So if f1=500 Hz and f2=750 Hz, the distortion product will be at 250 Hz. It will be a perfectly clean tone. It is called a distortion product because, if the system were perfectly linear, then if 500 Hz and 750 Hz went in, that's all that would come out.
By the way, are the results of Mark Dresser's research accessible? I'd like to read about it.
