Hi everyone, today we're doing a short video on
how to find the best double bass size for you
It's so important to be comfortable
when you're playing
and if you're on a bass that's too small or
especially if it's too big you can end
up with some pretty serious problems
with your neck and shoulders and hands
and it can definitely affect your technique
and therefore your ability to learn
There's lots of variables when choosing
the size, but we've got a pretty
simple method for finding the most
comfortable size for you
To demonstrate we're going to find the best size for my
colleague Bron, who's kindly volunteered
Bron is 155 centimeters tall and for the
purposes of this video we can assume
that Bron is a beginner so the first
thing we need to do is position the bass
in front of the player with the arm
fully extended the left arm and that's
going to be touching the base of the
heel of the neck and then slowly we're
going to bring the bass towards a player
and what we're looking at is the
position of the nut relative to the
eyebrow line and we want those two to be
aligned and in this instance it's quite
a bit higher so we're going to assume
that this bass is going to be too big for Bron
So we're trying this exercise again now
with the half size to see if it's
going to be a better fit for Bron
So, again we're going to put it in
front of the player arm fully extended
and with the spike not extended at all
and we're going to bring it back toward
the player in this case we can see that
it's a little low but that our
preference generally is to go for the
slightly smaller size so we would
probably recommend the half size and to
get the ultimate sizing right we'd then
extend the the end pin a little bit
which we'll do now
So we've extended the end pin just a fraction
and now we can see that
the the nut is in line with
bron's eyebrows which is perfect and the
next thing we need to check just to make
sure that it's comfortable is for Bron
to take a hand
and just with the tip of your fingers to
touch the top of the bridge and that the
back is there not not more than a 45
degree angle and that seems quite
comfortable now so for Bron we're going
to go with the half size
As a final recommendation
I would suggest standing
back from the player once you think
you've found the best size and assessing
them as a whole it could be that for one
reason or another you need to
choose a different size
For beginners, we would
always err on the smaller side but if
you have a player that's slightly
smaller but very advanced you may decide
to go for a bigger instrument because
they can handle, it they've got more
strength in their hands
and they're looking for better projection
If you're unable to come
into a store to get sized
or unable to find a teacher to help you
out we've created a rough size to height
guide which might be useful if you're
unable to come into the store to be
sized in person
If you're thinking about buying or renting a double bass
It's so important to find a good
teacher first and to seek
their advice about the size
If you're just getting
started or you're not sure
about the size then renting is probably
the best option for you as it gives you
the flexibility to change sizes as
appropriate
Thanks so much for watching this video
If you've got any questions
or comments please get in touch with us
via our website at violins.com.au
and don't forget to subscribe for more videos
