The development of a personalized method for right-hand jazz bass pizzicato

Abstract

The energetic musical expression conveyed in fast improvisation passages and the punchy tone of the electric bass in accompaniment sequences have always impressed me as a bassist. Consequently, the ability to play at high speeds with a powerful sound was a goal that I aspired to on electric bass and became a signature of my personal playing style. The realisation of this technique on double bass, however, was limited by both the anatomy and the size of the double bass. From the mid-1990s, in the early stages of my double bass career, my desire to play fast led me to reduce the string height and set-up of my instrument to the absolute minimum possible. The resultant ease of playability facilitated speed, but that was offset by a low acoustic volume, and sound that somewhat resembled that of a fretless electric bass and 2 lacked the typical ‘push’ produced by basses with a medium to high set-up.1 The desire to add that warm ‘push’ to my tone led me to experiment with the set-up of my bass throughout most of my professional career. Neverthelss, the equation remained the same: low set-up equals high speed, lack of push and reduced volume; medium to high set-up equals compromise in speed, more ‘push’ and greater volume. I came to accept these physical limitations of the instrument but I remained determined to realise my goals and sound ideal on double bass. During my DMA research, the focus shifted towards the right-hand pizzicato technique. A review of the existing jazz bass instruction literature did not produce any technical solution. Worse still, the commonly-used and long-established two-finger jazz double bass pizzicato technique emerged as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution, limited to a few hand positions and paid little attention to such aspects as the elbow or hand angles in relation to the instrument, or the size of the player’s hands and arms.2 Thus, the development of a personalised solution for jazz double bass pizzicato became the aim of this second stage of the study and is accordingly addressed in this article. I hoped that a personalised solution would enable my right hand to play at high speed, realise my personal sound ideal, and facilitate the transfer of my playing habits and style from electric bass to double bass.