Starting bass

[The Mad Hatter]

Hi. I'm a 17-year-old classical cellist, and I'm fairly advanced. I'm hoping to start playing the bass soon, (I've tried it once with a classical orchestra, but that's it), but I don't know where to start, especially for moving into jazz. Does anyone have any suggestions, especially on how to learn improvisational skills and some of the theory behind it? Would it be wisest to find a teacher, or are there any instructional books that would suffice? are there any things I should regularly practice, like scales or arpeggios?

Thanks, Justin.

[Samuel]

Here's my two cents:

GO DO IT! Double-bass is a wonderful instrument and will quickly become the highlight of your day.

Get a teacher. Don't reinvent the wheel. Double-bass is a very physical instrument, and you can hurt yourself if you are not careful and unlucky.

There are a variety of method-books, each of which have their own adherants.

It's no slam on this site -- which is a wonderful general-jazz board -- to note that there is a top-notch double-bass board you can review. Try the double-bass forum at www.TalkBass.com and review all the "Newbie Links" carefully.

But above all, have fun. Good luck!

[berkleebassist]

Glad to hear we'll have a new jazz bassist joining the ranks. :) Like Samuel said, a teacher is a must. You can develop tendonitis VERY quickly playing upright improperly, although your cello experience will help with proper technique. There's basically 3 method books for learning bass: the Nanny, the Simandl, and the Rabbath. I've looked at the Rabbath, and am currently studying out of the Nanny. The Simandl method is the original, but Rabbath offers some interesting ideas on left hand technique, especially considering jazz, and the Nanny is more melodic than the other two methods, making it a bit less of a chore to practice.

When it comes to jazz method, not just technique, pick up Chuck Cher's The Improviser's Bass Method and Rufus Reid's Evolving Bassist. Excellent reference, especially the Reid book (he's an AMAZING player and an extremely well-spoken teacher). Important things to practice are scales across a single string (being able to move up the neck on one string is one of the hardest things; cello has got NOTHING on the bass' string length), and knowing your chord scales. Playing jazz bass is all about constantly improvising. When I come into a session, a jam, whatever, all I get is a lead sheet with the chord symbols & some ensemble hits written in. Often the hits aren't even written, they just get worked out as you rehearse. VERY different from the classical world, where almost everything you play is right in front of you. You have to be able to CONSTANTLY come up with a way to go from this chord to that chord, on the fly. THEN they call on you to solo :P Old bass player joke about how we play a bazillion choruses, and then, after we're ready to fall over, we get called to solo. If you've got the mentality for it though, it's well worth it, and your cello chops will help you craft more melodic solos.

The most important thing though, is to listen to bassists. Paul Chambers, Ron Carter, Oscar Pettiford, Milt Hinton, Dave Holland, Christian McBride, Percy Heath, Avishai Cohen, Scott LaFaro, Eddie Gomez, John Patitucci, Larry Grenadier, Charlie Haden, Brian Bromberg, Charles Mingus, Curly Russell, Reggie Workman, Bob Cranshaw, Doug Watkins, etc etc. The best place to find good bass is on the late 50's-60's Blue Note recordings (the Rudy van Gelder remasters are EXCELLENT; PC's bass is SO much clearer). If you want some suggestions on specific albums, feel free to hit me up. :-)

Hope this helps!

[The Mad Hatter]

Thanks alot, both of you. So far, with the little experience I've had, the hardest part has been remembering that bass strings are in fourths, not fifths. I'll get used to it eventually...

Would you suggest Rabbath, since I'm going into jazz, or Nanny, because of my melodic background?

[Samuel]

Each of the various physical approaches -- Simandl, Rabbath, Gary Karr, what-have-you has their adherants and detractors. Each has produced sucessful, healthy bassists. Personally, I'm oriented toward Gary Karr's physical approach, which I believe is the most ergonomically-based, but YMMV.

The bottom line, again, is this: As Ron Carter noted in his recent Bass Player interview, "Get a teacher. There are no excuses." Really. Use the method(s) your teacher(s) are willing to instruct you in. Do not jump in with things that worked on cello. Do not simply buy the book or video. You risk establishing bad physical habits which can bring potentially-serious consequences.

I'm encouraging you to pursue DB, and discouraging you to reinvent the wheel. Good luck!

[idlehands]

Originally posted by berkleebassist
There's basically 3 method books for learning bass: the Nanny, the Simandl, and the Rabbath.

Wow. Fran Drescher had a bass method published? I really hope there's no audio with that.

Seriously, though, this is all good advice. But I was thinking that Red Mitchell (was an amazing player; you should really check him out, too) tuned his bass in fifths. Coming from a 'cello background, this might make for an easier transition for you, as opposed to someone who had always been playing bass with the standard tuning. Thomastik makes a 'Red Mitchell' set of strings designed to be tuned that way. This might not be the best idea, but your bass lines would certainly be different from almost every other bass player's. Joel Quarrington is an advocate of tuning the bass this way, and I think he has a website dedicated to this subject....

[Mike Schwartz]

Click the saxophone Icon above and check out Rufus Reid's website here and e-mail him.

Regarded as a titan on the bass, he came up through a rigid classical regimine, and still has invlolvement there, along with being a great jazz master.