Hello, Snaxster,
Thanks for the kind wishes -- a happy and prosperous New Year to you as well! I am sorry to hear of the troubles you had, but glad that you came out the other end of them and are still playing. I won't get into mine too much in this post except to say that there was over a year that I couldn't play and that the road back was neither easy nor free of bumps. My hands are fast and strong, now, and I can generally play for a long time, but I still deal with the occasional tweak or flare-up (for lack of a better term).
"Pride" is an interesting word (I wanted to say "foible") and sometimes you stumble upon (or, in my case, trip over) it in surprising places.
You did a better job of articulating the kind of technical considerations/adaptations/tradeoffs that I had fuzzily in mind when I referred to "playing position." I play cello and doublebass (though I don't play DB as often as or at the level that I used to) along with electric bass and there is some cross-pollination between how I approach the bowed strings and the EB and the different playing positions (along with other factors) certainly make some techniques harder/less practical and others easier.
I usually play standing, even to practice, but I did goof around for a minute, sitting on the couch and holding my Fender vertically -- I think that, overall, the left hand (particularly with extended/stretched fingerings) felt easier for me and certain right-hand techniques felt clumsier (which is not to say that I couldn't get used to them). I did try palm-muting and it felt pretty do-able, but that might have been because, on the couch, the bridge was up near my belly button, instead of a half-foot or foot lower (as it appears to be in the demo vid). Of course, this puts the nut and the first few frets up that much higher (there are parallel considerations with finding one's ideal strap height and playing position). I have not, to date, developed a good double-thumb or Matt Garrison or Gary Willis-style right hand technique (though I do employ my thumb and ring finger in other ways and slap a fair amount -- not as much as in high-school, but more than a few years ago ;-)).
I'll have to goof around with vertical/vertical-ish playing more.
He was the first person I thought of when I saw the still for your video! The video made me think of
classical guitarist Paul Galbraith, who plays an 8-string classical guitar, with an endpin, rather like a cello.
Apparently, he went through a transition period, pre-endpin, with how he held his guitar.
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I've not done much strap-button relocating (though I did move the bottom strap button on one bass in an attempt to shift how it hung -- it was somewhat but not entirely successful), but I've noticed that some basses that place the top button close to the neck and up at or past the 12th fret hang better at steeper angles (I had a
five-string fretless Clement bass that placed the button, if I remember, in the neighborhood of 11th fret -- of the basses I've owned, it probably required the least work to keep "up" and was one of just a few that would stay comfortably put above 45 degrees.)
They do.
Doublebass and cello technique has a long development and a lot of history -- there are some different schools of technique (Simandl vs. Rabbath, for instance), too -- some similarities and differences in the utilization of both right and left hands... lots of left hand extensions expected of cellists. Lots of thought (I've got books...) given to ergonomics (certainly these days) and technically sound, body-friendly technique on/approaches to both instruments, but also some pretty high musical and physical demands made on the players, at least in certain contexts.
