Double Bass First time holding a workshop. Advice please

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Pjotor

Nov 5, 2018
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#1
I’ve accepted an offer to lead/facilitate a 3 day bluegrass bass workshop at the bluegrass festival in Gränna, Sweden this August. I’d love to hear some tips and advice from bluegrass bass and/or workshop veterans.
- Bad habits you had to unlearn
- Your adaptations in setup/technique/backup playing when coming to bluegrass from other genres
- General advice for facilitating a workshop where the participants have mixed backgrounds and skill levels

Your experiences will be very welcome.
 
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#2
What is the anticipated level of participants?

I have attended several bass workshops at festivals and was generally unimpressed, but that was because most of the attendees would be beginners who needed help learning things like how to play roots and fifths on three-chord songs, and I was hoping to get feedback on how to improve note choices, note lengths, phrasing, working one's way through a chord progression, etc.

And it seemed like half the session would end up getting used on slapping, which I"m not interested in.

So it really depends on WHO you're working with.
 
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#3
As a long time bassist playing bluegrass, I'll give you my thoughts:
1. Don't make it "bluegrass specific." Too often, the prevailing thought is that for some reason, playing bass in a bluegrass band is a lesser assignment. I'll agree that bluegrass music is often simple in structure, compared to progressive jazz for example, but that doesn't mean the bass can't add musicality to the mix. Stress that the important skills - intonation, timing, and taste - are the same as any other genre.
2. Stress the importance of learning the fingerboard.
3. Explain leading tones and passing tones. When to use and not overuse. The value of a passing tone in adding color to the song.
4. Demonstrate how to play the same 1-4-5 progression at different places on the fingerboard. At the same time, demonstrate how to play variations on a root - 5 pattern.

Hope this gives you a couple of ideas. I think the comments from turf3 are accurate.
 
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#4
Congratulations on the gig!

Since our instrument is big and expensive, a lot of bass curious folks get left out. Try to have a half dozen instruments on hand so folks who do not own one can still get the experience.

I cannot stress enough the importance of the participants understanding that you still need to learn music- the notes, how they interact with chords & melody, and how important it is to understand basic guitar chords so you can follow another player and not waste a half hour at the beginning of every tune turning it into a grunt fest for people who have zero music knowledge and poor communication skills.

If you have three days, include a luthier session that shows how to reset your soundpost and how to make hot hide glue in the hotel coffee pot to fix loose seams and cracks and how to do your own repairs and setup work. Wait a second- is there space for me there to give this workshop??? HA!

Go beyond "traditional"....if you want this festival to continue, you need to inject some new ideas for a younger crowd. Most of the festivals I have been to in the last half dozen years catered to a crowd with an average age of 113 years old that only play tunes from July 1938 to February 1941. That is not a long term sustaining model!
 
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#5
james condino said:
...

Go beyond "traditional"....if you want this festival to continue, you need to inject some new ideas for a younger crowd. Most of the festivals I have been to in the last half dozen years catered to a crowd with an average age of 113 years old that only play tunes from July 1938 to February 1941. That is not a long term sustaining model!
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Now wait just a damn minute! Last time I went to a bluegrass festival I played in a jam circle that played a tune written in 1942 and another one from 1946! And get off my lawn!
 
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#8
james condino said:
...

If you have three days, include a luthier session that shows how to reset your soundpost and how to make hot hide glue in the hotel coffee pot to fix loose seams and cracks and how to do your own repairs and setup work...
Click to expand...

Okay, so...no more hotel coffee for me. Thanks, James!
 
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#9
Good ideas so far - as a recovering bluegrass bass player (I played in a band for 4 yrs but not these days) I would add a few thoughts based on observations of many bass players in other bluegrass bands. Many of them kinda stumbled into playing bass as a result of a need in a band or jam circle they were in. Particular weaknesses that I've seen are left hand position, no understanding of fingering, not good at pulling a good tone. Often playing a bass that is poorly set up (really high action), so some discussion about setup and string selection might be helpful. Oh, and intonation - big weakness for many players that I've seen, although not many knew it. Nowadays theres a new breed of young players that are actually decent bassists, so it is a question of "know your audience". Perhaps you could send out a survey to the workshop participants in advance, to gauge their level of experience and interests?
 
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#10
Thank you for all your points. The vast majority are things I was already planning to address. I won’t go too much into setup but I will make sure to offer to try the participants’ basses and give what advice I can about setup.

Great idea with the survey before the workshop. I had planned to start the first day by gauging the individual skill levels and goals, and work from there. But having that info prior to starting would be even better. The workshop info went public just yesterday and the festival is in August; I’ll do my best to sell the concept to players on different levels.

I have also seen many self-taught bassists (I am one, too) with less than optimal technique, and I’m planning to address technique during the afternoon sessions, with some one on one time. I will specifically show how to produce different tones using variant right hand techniques and plucking the string in different places, and also how to hold and lean the bass and use the bigger muscles to produce a big sound with less fatigue.

All points on where and what to play are very much in line with my own thoughts, and I’m grateful for now knowing I’m on the right track. Please keep adding information that you think would be useful.
 
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#11
One thing I've seen/heard bass players around here do that I don't think helps the music, is make fingerboard noise (slap?) on the two and four all the time. I think this infringes on the mandolin's territory and frankly doesn't sound too great. It would probably sound better if they focused on getting a big note on the 1 and 3.
 
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#13
The most impressive DB workshop I've attended was by a known bluegrass band's DB player who was classically trained and was fluent with both written music and playing by ear.

His technique was Simandl thru and thru and his mastery of the instrument was tremendous; he used the bow a bit, but also had well adapted to pizz for bluegrass. In particular, left hand Simandl on a DB is rare in our bluegrass region of the USA, so this was pretty amazing for us to watch.

He also demonstrated the "baseball" method, jazz right hand and slap, and he also provided beginner tips for those of us who were new to the DB. He pulled it all off well, but to me his classical technique adapted to bluegrass was the most interesting to watch. Other participants in this workshop also enjoyed that a lot.

Regional standard methods change from place to place. I'd suggest that it's healthy to be able to demonstrate and teach a variety of methods for people to be able to observe and try, exposing them to things they may never have seen in person before. Especially in a 3-day workshop, this could help the whole span of the workshop be interesting and useful.
 
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#14
I think it's really cool that there are people in Sweden interested in playing bluegrass. What would their musical background likely be?

My experience with musicians not from the US has been that they tend to have more school system music education than their corresponding American counterparts.

I wonder (but don't know) if the advise you're getting is designed based on an expectation of the background of Americans who might be interested in learning bluegrass.
 
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#16
TroyK said:
I think it's really cool that there are people in Sweden interested in playing bluegrass. What would their musical background likely be?
Click to expand...
Extremely varied. I'd wager a majority of DB players are self taught and a fair amount play DB only as one of several instruments.

TroyK said:
I wonder (but don't know) if the advise you're getting is designed based on an expectation of the background of Americans who might be interested in learning bluegrass.
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That may be, but I'm filtering the advice given and try to extract the points applicable to my situation.
 
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#17
bassgrass said:
One thing I've seen/heard bass players around here do that I don't think helps the music, is make fingerboard noise (slap?) on the two and four all the time. I think this infringes on the mandolin's territory and frankly doesn't sound too great. It would probably sound better if they focused on getting a big note on the 1 and 3.
Click to expand...
Happens all the time. I'm gonna address this. I went to an online workshop with Dan Eubanks of e.g. Special Consensus and there are two quotes I remember well:
"In bluegrass, groove is everything."
"About slapping: A little bit of slap goes a very long way."
 
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#18
Don’t forget to spend some time on slap styles. There would be no bluegrass (or jazz double bass playing for that matter) without slap. Too many modern players dismiss the roots of BG and ignore slap. It’s just wrong.
 
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#19
Keith Rawlings said:
Don’t forget to spend some time on slap styles. There would be no bluegrass (or jazz double bass playing for that matter) without slap. Too many modern players dismiss the roots of BG and ignore slap. It’s just wrong.
Click to expand...

"About slapping: A little bit of slap goes a very long way."
Somehow, Pjotor managed to respond to your post before you even posted it! ;)
 
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