Every time I’d grab my bow on a jazz gig, I’d cringe. My swing would suddenly get awkward. I could never figure out how many notes to put in a bow. My vibrato felt forced and unnatural. My sense of pulse went out the window.
As a result, I’d pick up my bow less and less on jazz jigs, reserving it for the last notes on ballads and the occasional special effect.
Therefore, I was so happy to hear that Montreal-based bassist Olivier Babaz was doing a course covering jazz bowing with Discover Double Bass.
The bow can seem quite mysterious, and though most jazz bassists would like to incorporate it into more of their playing, it can be frustrating and overwhelming.
Olivier does a remarkable step-by-step dive into how to sound good playing with the bow in a jazz setting. Here’s a look at how he approaches the bow in a jazz setting, along with several things that you can implement right now to make your arco jazz chops stronger.
About Olivier
Born and raised in Paris, Olivier developed an early passion for blues and rock, which led him naturally to the jazz world. He has been based in Montreal since 2010, and he performs in a wide array of acoustic ensembles and recording sessions.
I had the chance to chat recently with Olivier about his career, creative explorations, and using the bow in a jazz context on my Contrabass Conversations podcast.
Discover Double Bass founder Geoff Chalmers also filmed a video interview with Olivier about his non-classical background, favorite bassists, the fear many players have of using the bow, and other topics.
You’ll certainly be able to tell from the following videos, but I’ll say it up front: Olivier is a beast of a bassist!
Inside the Course
This course is organized into nine main chapters plus a brief concluding chapter:
- Introduction
- Chapter 1: Fundamentals of Bow Technique
- Chapter 2: Basic Bow Strokes
- Chapter 3: Slurs
- Chapter 4: Developing Arco Technique
- Chapter 5: Left Hand Technique and the Bow
- Chapter 6: Bowed Walking Bass Lines
- Chapter 7: Bowed Melodies
- Chapter 8: Improvisation
- Chapter 9: Lessons with the Band
- Chapter 10: Course Conclusion
Here’s a look inside each of these chapters and how Olivier covers these concepts. He’s joined by Sam Dunn on guitar and Caroline Boaden on drums throughout, and there are a ton of PDFs and play along MP3s included as well.
Chapter 1: Fundamentals of Bow Technique
The course starts out with an introduction to the basics of the French bow, including the components of the bow and the bow hold.
While these techniques can be done regardless of whether you play French or German bow, Olivier’s demonstrations are with French bow, so you may want to also check out David Allen Moore’s German bow course for some German bow technique specifics.
Olivier makes it clear that your bow hold position will change depending on specifically what you are playing, and that it will evolve overt he years as you continue to grow and develop as a player.
I’ve noticed this in my own playing over time. Though some of the shifts and changes in my bow technique may appear subtle to outside observers, the transformations feel tremendous to me.
Like David Allen Moore in his Discover Double Bass course on fingering, Olivier stresses the importance of understanding the difference between pain, which we must stop and address, and fatigue, which is natural and which we need to responsibly push through for growth.
Know the difference between pain and fatigue.
Olivier Babaz
Olivier also uses bowing terminology that might be new to bassists:
- Pull – down bow
- Push – up bow
Throughout the course, Olivier has players “invert” each pattern, so that everything that starts on a down bow should also be practiced starting up bow and vice-versa.
This is something that I try to do in my own personal practicing and with my students in non-jazz settings as well.
Learning to play passages like this is incredibly helpful in terms of coordination and deepening retention, and it frees up the jazz bassist to improvise without using all their mental energy on remembering which bow direction to use.
Olivier also covers other important fundamentals like:
- the position of the bass and how it changes from string to string
- the right wrist as a transmitter of the weight from your shoulder and back
- how speed, weight, and placement interact through various registers and playing styles
Chapter 2: Basic Bow Strokes
Throughout the course, Olivier emphasizes the importance of getting a round sound out of the instrument. Playing on the E string and then on the G string feel quite different, and it’s important to understand the difference between the mechanics of pulling (down bow) and pushing (up bow).
Olivier digs into adding rhythm to long notes, pulsating one each quarter note with a portato bow stroke. As the chapter continues, Olivier gets into “square” bowing, which is more of a detached stroke in the same bow direction.
These subtleties are conveyed so well in video course format. Nuances like the difference between a portato and more of a staccato stoke are super-challenging to describe in sheet music and in written form. Seeing Olivier demonstrate these kinds fo details and being able to watch them repeatedly is tremendously helpful in learning them.
Eighth notes give way to triplet patterns and swing eighth patterns, and there are a ton off great short grooves that Olivier demonstrates.
Every single one of these is in a PDF as well for each lesson, and I had a blast watching him do it and then attempting it myself. For me, getting the general ideas is one thing, but dialing all the style and character is quite a challenge.
There are quite a few lessons dedicated to practicing alternating (down bow and up bow) patterns and then inverting them (stating down bow, then reversing the pattern).
As Olivier begins introducing accents, he shows how the basic nature of an up bow accent differs from a down bow accent. While we need to work to be able to make the same sounds starting both down bow and up bow, in “real life” playing we can use the natural tendencies fo the bow to our advantage.
Olivier wraps up the chapter with a really cool introduction to 16ths featuring two clave patterns. This is an incredibly catchy and fun exploration of 16th notes, and I keep humming these riffs to myself after I finish practicing them.
Chapter 3: Slurs
Slurs bring your jazz bowing to life, but they are one of the trickiest things for people to master. Luckily, Olivier has a great step-by-step method for introducing slurs into your technical vocabulary and helpful techniques for making slurs sound and feel more natural for bowed jazz bass.
Interestingly, Olivier dives into 16th note slurred patterns before triplet 8ths. This might seem surprising, but because of the down bow and up bow alternations, bowed triples are actually more complex than 16th notes.
You want to be free to play any note in any direction.
Olivier Babaz
He mixes up fingerings and notes to vary these patterns, starting simple and adding in complexity bit by bit.
Starting to swing the triplet 8ths sounds so cool with the bow, and with practice and by following Olivier’s examples, I’m starting to feel this become more natural in my own playing.
Chapter 4: Developing Arco Technique
To further our bowing technique, we need to be aware of the natural tendencies of the bow and to practice exercise that compensate for them.
One of the most fundamental tendencies is for down bows to decrescendo and for up bows to crescendo. Therefore, practicing the opposite (crescendo on down bow and descresendo on up bow) so that you can have an even sound regardless of bow direction.
As you develop your arco technique, you’ll probably start to notice all sorts of cool subtle that you can sonically paint. For example, Olivier demonstrates how you can create a sort fo reverb effect with your bow, almost as if you had a reverb pedal.
The mechanics of how to do this are almost impossible to describe, but Olivier’s demonstration makes it clear how to do so. The bow truly is a sonic paintbrush.
He also shows ways that you can get close to the bridge and pull a bit of ponticallo sound out at the ends of notes, kind of how a blues guitar player with their amp.
Olivier’s “alternative bow holds lesson” is quite interesting, and I’ve been experimenting with some of these bow holds:
- “Baroque-style” bow hold further up on the stick
- 3rd finger behind the frog
- flexible approach to first finger placement
- “German-style” grip for French bow (very cool and not what you might expect!)
His slap bass lesson is totally cool, and it’s another groove that I can’t seem to get out of my head. Here’s the complete lesson on YouTube:
Chapter 5: Left Hand Technique and the Bow
A major concept that Olivier emphasizes throughout the rest fo the course is how the left hand can be the primary source for your sound and your choice of bowing. This may seem counter-intuitive at first, but Olivier lays it out in a really compelling fashion.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this “left hand in charge” concept. For so many years, I’ve told my classical bass students that the right hand was the primary generator of sound and quality in their playing.
I am thinking that it’s different for styles like jazz that have improvisation at their heart. In my mind, it makes sense that the left hand leads the melodic ideas, with the right hand following. Interesting—never really pondered that before.
Olivier digs into hammer-ons and pull-offs, applying this tho thumb position, when to use the 3rd finger, and how to add this left hand articulation int your playing to improve your sound.
He also presents an outstanding lesson on vibrato in a jazz context, which is another big challenge for many bassists. As a classical player, I find myself vibrating like I would for a bass concerto or as a member of a bass section.
You don’t necessarily want “classical-style” vibrato in an improvisation.
Olivier Babaz
This sound is not typically what works in a jazz context. Olivier presents ways to get a wider and more discrete vibrato, adding it in later in the note and using it for occasional and deliberate effect.
Slides add a ton of character to bowed jazz playing, and Olivier has excellent exercises to round out the sound and navigate the instrument with slides.
Chapter 6: Bowed Walking Bass Lines
This chapter gets into common jazz tunes and how to build two feel and walking lines over them.
Inverting the bowing patterns to be comfortable starting both down bow and up bow is important for walking bass lines as well, as is emphasizing two and four just like in a pizzicato line.
He also gets into the power of repeated notes, adding fills, and practicing a passage pizzicato first to get the feel of the line before applying the bow.
It’s hard to practice fills systematically without it feeling artificial. The best thing to do is to experiment and improvise until these more sophisticated elements feel natural.
Chapter 7: Bowed Melodies
This chapter digs into five tunes:
- Bernies Tune
- All of Me
- Billie’s Bounce
- Ornithology
- There Will Never Be Another You
For each tune, Olivier goes through the tune by himself, showing the ins and outs, fingering options, and important concepts, and he then demos the tune with the band.
There’s PDF music and a play along MP3 for each of these, and I’ve had a grand time loading all of this on my iPad Pro and practicing along with it. I’ll often have the course playing on my iPhone while looking at the examples on my iPad, taking notes on the music with my Apple Pencil as I work through the lessons.
Chapter 8: Improvisation
Olivier has a wealth of knowledge for getting comfortable improvising with the bow, learning how to build rhythmic motifs and repeat notes for added power, and the importance of practicing a passage first pizzicato and then applying that phrasing to arco playing.
He also demonstrates how useful it is to switch between focusing on the right hand and the left hand and how this focus shift can generate new ideas.
I found his “feeling the pulse” lesson to be quite valuable. Focusing too much on 2 and 4 as the tempo increases used to cause problems for me, and Olivier demonstrates a great method for focusing on beat 3 at faster tempos.
He also digs into stylistic phrasing, the musical challenges of switching from pizzicato to arco during a tune, the use of humor (this is really cool!), and creating a mini-song within your improvisations.
Chapter 9: Lessons with the Band
Olivier wraps up the course with several more performances with the band, focusing on concepts:
- Lyrical phrasing with the bow
- Lyrical bass line accompaniment
- Funk bass
- Different approaches to walking with the bow
- Musical considerations when switching from pizzicato to arco
- Latin style grooves
- Swing and even 8th note phrasing
These lessons all feature PDF transcriptions so that you can follow along with what Olivier is doing.
Final Thoughts
I have learned so much about using the bow in a jazz setting, and I feel like this course has opened up a whole new world of sonic possibilities to me. Olivier is such a groovy player, and there’s an infectious style and soul to his playing that keeps me bopping along with these tunes in my mind well after putting my bass away.
If you’re looking to up your game in the jazz bowing department, this course will be immensely helpful to you. I love it!
Past Discover Double Bass interviews and course reviews:
- Katie Thiroux: From Beginner to Bandstand
- David Allen Moore: German Bow Technique
- David Allen Moore: Fractal Fingering
- Danny Ziemann: The Bass Player’s Guide to the Trio
- Olivier Babaz: Jazz Bowing
- John Goldsby: Building Up
- Lauren Pierce: Practicing
- Lauren Pierce : Left Hand Technique
Bass News Right To Your Inbox!
Subscribe to get our weekly newsletter covering the double bass world.