hi I'm David Alan Moore we've been here
all week filming courses for
discoverdoublebass.com and we had a
little bit of extra time and a question
that came up quite a bit was just about
playing the E string so I thought I'd
take a minute and address a couple
things that hopefully can help you get
over that particular challenge hopefully
it's not as challenging as you think it
is but there are three main things that
I want you to pay attention to we're
gonna have instrument position body
position and both speed and maybe a
little bit on weight as well but the
first is and this is going to be sitting
or standing if you're very far behind
the bass access is a problem you're
gonna be hitting the top of the bass
here so I'm always in an active position
in front of the instrument as opposed to
being back this is especially with with
German bow but with French bow it can
you're not going to have the issue at
the top there but just starting the
string and having it be easy to plays is
going to be an issue as well so that
position is no different for either bow
it's just more challenging with with
German bow as far as the instrument
position the more closed the faces the
more challenging that's going to be you
want to have the face of the instrument
open
so that you can use your weight to drive
the e-string there it's not a ton of
weight but one of the face is closed you
can hear just by opening it
that changes the kind of sound I'm able
to get so we've got body position and
instrument position as far as both speed
the slower the pitch the slower the bow
speeds so if you're on the e-string and
you're playing with too fast over both
speed not getting a core in the sound
and you feel like you need to press and
now you're fighting with the string
that's going to be a problem so just
remember that that bow speed is quite a
bit slower than what you're used to
doing on the g string and you might even
back up a little bit in terms of your
point of contact just a little bit
closer to the fingerboard relative to
the g string just because you're dealing
with a little bit more mass that being
said the way that modern strings are
designed the the weight where the
pressure that they put on the top is
relatively balanced across the four
strings if any of you use bell cantos
you'll notice that they actually list
that on the the packaging I think it's
something like 62 kilograms to 65 or
something like that but you can find it
for any of the main major string
manufacturers on their websites so don't
be seduced by the fact that the string
has greater mass it's designed to speak
and function in the same way as the
upper strings so I'm not efforting that
or putting a lot of energy into it I am
focused on the playing side of the
string meaning if you're gonna pits it
you would pits in that direction if you
pits in this direction there's not going
to be a whole lot of sound right so my
energy is going into the string from
that side of the string
nice slow bow speed a little bit closer
to the fingerboard although of course
the string should be accessible
throughout the whole length but get
comfortable with sort of the basic setup
first hopefully those tips are helpful
if you've enjoyed this lesson and would
like to learn more from me I also have a
full-length course on German bow
technique available exclusively at
discoverdoublebass.com
