Double bass technique: Back muscles, weight, and flexibility in the right hand

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Many string players use too much muscular force in their playing. With the bass everything is much bigger, so when we use too much arm muscle instead of weight, it creates problems with the way we use our fingers; excessive pressure kills much of the instrument’s vibrations. Among other things, this affects our string-crossings, articulation and the quality of our sound. Instead, we need to use relaxed weight (gravity), from the shoulders and back all the way to the bow. In this article, everything discussed relating to the back muscles, arm weight and playing on the ‘correct’ side of the string applies both to the French and German bowing systems. When I talk about flexibility and activity in the fingers, this too can be applied to both systems, except in the case of string-crossings, which relates mostly to the French bow.

EXERCISES

‘Relaxed’ does not mean passive. The arm and fingers should be active at all times. Many bassists bow from the arm alone, but the shoulder blades should also be active, with weight coming from the back between them. Identify the right muscles by trying this exercise without your instrument:

• Let your arms fall down by your side.
• Pull your shoulder blades together, so that your arms move behind you. Don’t use your arm muscles to do this – only the muscles in your back. Keep your shoulders low at all times. Now relax.
• Open your shoulder blades and extend your shoulders forward, again using only your back muscles and not your arms, and making sure that your shoulders stay low. Again, relax.
• This time, pull back only your right shoulder blade, then move it forward as far as possible, and relax it again. That’s the action we need when we bow. If we use these muscles as well as our natural arm weight, a lot of the work needed has already been done, meaning that the smaller muscles in the hand and fingers can focus on more intricate details such as articulation and string-crossings.
• Finally, repeat the last point with your left shoulder blade. This is the movement we use when the left hand plays high up in thumb position.

Using the back muscles and a relaxed arm with a pushing–pulling motion when bowing will give you more weight than you need, and helps you to stay flexible. If the bow arm is relaxed and you are using weight effectively and without pressing, you will feel your bass, strings and bow vibrate more freely.