Playing Stand-Up Bass is Not for Sissies: How to Build Stamina? (#playingbass)

It has become clear to me that playing stand-up bass is very demanding physically.  You get tired playing string bass.  Your arms, your hands just poop out.

Obviously, if you want to be a double bassist, you need to build stamina and strength in arms, hands, back and shoulders.  I found a thread over at TalkBass forums about this issue.  One double bassist said he thought it would take a year for him to build the needed stamina in his hands.  Another said that it is more than hands that need stamina, but arms, shoulders, back and even butt.

In order to build stamina, it seems to me, that I need to play my bass vigorously for a few minutes a day.  I would say 15 minutes of playing fast and demanding songs.  Be careful not to injure yourself.  I started this regimen yesterday.

Besides playing the bass line to fast songs (recorded), I intend to use two pound weights to exercise my arms and shoulders.  With light weights, it is the repetitions that supply the needed exercise.  I will start with ten repetitions of various exercises, and add more over time.

Of course, your bass needs to be properly set up so that a poor bridge adjustment, too heavy gauge strings, etc, are not issues.

Adopt this regimen at your own risk.  You can injure yourself if you are not careful.

Currently, I am relying on my bass guitar somewhat until I build stamina for my double bass.

Learning Double Bass: Attack On All Fronts!

Lately I am obsessed with learning to play jazz on a double bass (also called string bass, stand-up bass or acoustic bass).  I give not a scatological expression for anything else.  I get on these kicks, where I want to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can.  So I listen to jazz music, paying particular attention to the bass, I read articles on how to play jazz bass, I play exercises, I read musical scores, and I play along to backing tracks.  Lately I have even used a free musical notation program to write my own bass lines from the chord sequence of a song, e.g. "Blue Monk."

Today I finally understand what a 1-6-2-5 chord progression is.  There are many different chord progressions, all described by equally strange numeric references.  The 1-6-2-5 is used in "rhythm changes" jazz tunes, such as "I Got Rhythm."

In other words, when it comes to double bass, I am attacking on all fronts simultaneously.

Ultimately, after digesting a ton of music theory, you have to actually sound good.  So lately I have emphasized playing to backing tracks or the recordings of actual songs.  I don't want to just ad lib, I want to play the chord sequences in clever but accurate ways.  Sounding great on bass is the one overriding goal.  All the rest of it, i.e. the theory, just supports that goal.

I am in my second semester of Beginning Big Band class.  The band leader is a gigging jazz trombonist who really knows jazz and swing, and he is leaning on me to improve (he seems to like me, though).  He is always telling the brass section to "Listen to the bass!  Listen to the bass!"  The bass lays down the rhythm and chord changes that keeps the rest of the band on track.  If I screw up, the whole band can get lost, especially the soloists.  That's a lot of pressure on me not to screw up (i.e. losing my place in the song's bar sequence).

I have learned so much since beginning this class, but there is so much more to learn.