I got the following question from podcast listener Josh Zimmer a few weeks ago, and I passed it along to our podcast community group. Nearly 60 comments came in over the next couple of days.
I love this topic, and I decided to go through and organize the responses into general categories. Also, I thought that it would be beneficial to dive into the topic of warming up in more detail, and to also think about some general terms and concepts.
After sharing many of the community comments, I also share what I’m personally doing these days for a warm-up routine. I also go into my routine in detail in this week’s YouTube video.
1 – Warming Up is Both Physical and Mental
Though many of us think of warming up as a physical process, it’s also helpful to think about it being a process of getting yourself in the right mental space.
I find that even if I don’t want to practice (not that this ever happens, right?!?), once I begin the physical motions of warm-up process, my mentality changes. Those familiar physical gestures seem to also get me ready to mentally.
2 – Warming Up Versus a Technical Routine
For me, there’s a difference between warming up and going through a technical routine designed to develop my abilities.
People often use the two terms interchangeably, while there’s certainly a lot of overlap, I see them as separate activities.
Here’s how I define them personally:
- Warm-Up: a short routine (5-10 minutes) designed to get me physically loose and mentally focused
- Technical Routine: a longer session (45-60 minutes) designed to focus and develop specific aspects of my playing
Analyzing the Differences
There’s a ton of value to looking at both in detail, and there’s definitely a lot of fuzziness no matter how you define it. My technical routine contains a simple warm-up at the beginning, and though I’m using the routine to constantly develop my abilities, it is also in a sense one big warm-up for repertoire that I’ll be working on after I’m done with it.
Also, my warm-up during a practice session is quite different than what I do when warming up at a rehearsal or performance.
My “at home” warm-up will often be very simple, with the intent of focusing my mind and letting my body relax and perform basic musical gestures with grace.
My “on the gig” warm-up will usually involve more notes and position work to reinforce basic sound production and intonation. I don’t want to go too far in terms of “showboating” types of warm ups, like 3 octave arpeggios and lots of fast pyrotechnics. Experience has taught me that this annoys others on a gig!
Finally, my warm-up routine will differ depending on how much practice time I have in front of me. If I’ve got a nice 2-3 hour stretch of time, my warm up will expand to 10 minutes or so. If I only have 20 minutes to practice, I might just spend 2-3 minutes doing one basic open string motion and focusing on it to sharpen my focus.
Throughout the following quotes, two resources are often mentioned:
These are also linked up in the quotes when mentioned.
Some these are lightly edited for clarity (you’ll see brackets when it happens). Feel free to dig through the original thread on Facebook to check these out and add your thoughts!
Overview
I went through and compiled the most frequently cited techniques used for warming up and put them into this chart:
Here’s a look at what these bassists wrote about their warm-up routines:
1 – Simple Warm-Ups
Long tones!
Richard Duke, Golden Gate Bass Camp director
Long tones on open strings and variations of the vomit technique. Then scales.
Jeffrey Kipperman, bassist in Miami, FL
Long tones followed by scale and arpeggio patterns, all done slowly. I have to remind myself every day what it takes to make a good sound.
James Lambert, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and viola da gamba player
2 minutes of silence, 2 minutes of tonalization on open strings (explanation in the Suzuki book “Tonalization”), slow Boardwalking fingerboard survey in G major (to max sympathetic vibrations), Max’s Magic exercise, Bumblebees, ready to go.
Dennis Whittaker, University of Houston bass faculty and Houston Grand Opera principal bassist
Stretch for 1 or 2 min. Open strings (D or A) adding a beat every bow change (quarter, half, dotted half, etc).
Then some “lazy” (relaxed) scales, where the main focus is posture and awareness of the body. Then some finger drills (Max’s Magic, bumblebees, etc). Vibrato and that’s it!
Carlos Gaviria, Stephen F. Austin University bass faculty
I noodle for a few minutes to loosen up then I start scales, long tones, bowing exercises, etc. I prefer to not jump right into scales or other exercises without giving myself time to relax and focus at the instrument.
Gareth Montanarello, bassist in Tucson, AZ
Stretches before and after.
Francisco Lora, Guitar/Bass Guitar Teacher at School of Rock East Cobb
Chromatic scales. Up, down, all around.
Karl Fenner, Atlanta Symphony section bass
Dianna Gannett warm-up exercises!!!
Alexandre De Negreiros Motta, professor at Universidade Federal de Rondonia, Brazil
Rosin, open strings to work it in, a minute or two of noodling.
Nothing too long or fancy or regimented. Own the bass, don’t let the bass own you!
Brendan Fitzgerald, Saint Louis Symphony section bass
Long noodles, short noodles, noodles with lots of vibrato, double stop noodles. Then on to more structure and/or repertoire.
I don’t even know if I recommend this, but it’s what I do.
‘Noodling’ is ‘playing whatever you want by feel and getting things moving before getting to work.’
Brandon Mason, Kansas City Symphony – also, shout-out to the excellent KC Symphony Bass Section Instagram feed!
These days it’s pain killers and Voltarol. Long bows on the open strings, then on the 5ths across the strings. Various volumes. Get the bass speaking. Then muscle memory finding the 4ths and 5ths across the strings.
Tom Marshall
3 minutes of silence and breathing, 8 to 10 minutes of stretching (Dr. Neubert’s Bassercises), open tone bow warmups, then it’s church…board walking in one of 7 scales, with a drone, making sure you play with in the ring. Then add Strokin’ [by Hal Robinson] rhythms.
George Fahlund, bassist in Austin, TX
Scale wise, I used to do two keys a tritone apart but the regularity can get pretty monotonous.
Lately, I’ve been trying to choose keys based on a specific emotion/feeling/character. If it’s a bright sunny day maybe D major, for example or if I’m in a bad mood for whatever reason playing into that feeling and doing F minor or something darker. Or take a color/character from something I’m working on and use that for my scale practice.
I’ve found it really musically helpful to have my first notes of the day already have some sort of emotional content rather than just a mechanical routine.
Pete Walsh, bassist in Boston, MA
[The] most important thing [is] to warm up your body before you warm up the bass. I have short series of pre bass pick up exercises for this.
Louis Levitt, bassist for Sybarite5
Long tones and breathing exercises. Like say I’ll breath in and play one note and hold my breath and then play the note again while I breath out. I find it relaxing and helps well with focus. Also good stretching.
Giana Formica, high school bass student in Cleveland, OH
Arpeggio 1357 and back on the scale grade by grade along 2 octaves or more. I [also] suggest pilates at least 2 times a week. I do 4 times and my body answers greatly.
Giovanni Sanguineti, bassist in Genova, Italy
2 – More Detailed Technical Routines
These plans resemble what I do when I have more time to devote to warming up and to letting it evolve into a technique routine for the day.
Once I pick up the bass I am doing a series of improvised exercises that approximate the kind of movements I want to be able to make with my left hand – but without concern for pitch.
First I use only the left hand, tapping the strings with each finger, trying to make solid contact without using the right hand, like a hammer-on and pull-offs. I am looking for a strong, flexible and balanced left hand.
The movements are initiated by the forearm and wrist.
I begin to add glissandi to these tapping movements, shifts and trills, crab movements and anything I can imagine doing without worrying about exact pitches. All over the bass.
Then I add the right hand using pizzicato to hear what all this is sounding like.
Then the bow, first with open strings only, all 4 strings, various patterns and sequences, separate, slurred, accented, syncopated, whatever I can imagine.
Then long tones and glissandi with the bow all over and everywhere. Then integrating some of the earlier ideas with the bow.
Finally, a scale and arpeggio routine, one fingering for each for the day a la Francois Rabbath utilizing a variety of rhythms, Bowings and specific intentions to finish my one hour routine.
I use a gym timer app set for 5 minute increments to help me keep moving through these different areas.
Lloyd Goldstein, certified music practitioner at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, FL
Long tones/chromatic scales to remember how to make a good sound.
[I] set a drone, play all major scale modes based on that pitch (C ionian/dorian/phrygian/etc) to remember how to play in tune. I do as many drone pitches as I have time for.
[I play] scales with stroke/bowing variations to remember how to play the bass.
Oh, and if there’s time, I’ll play some pizz/jazz stuff so my right hand callouses don’t disappear.
Bobby Scharmann, Omaha Symphony section bassist
I think there’s a difference between ritualized technical/sound work and warming up – though of course the former warms you up, it’s also building/maintaining strength and the relationship between your ear and the corresponding physicality.
For me at least, pieces need to be warmed up with slow attention to detail about the kind of sound and articulations you want to utilize in the music.
Don’t get me wrong, I also do a couple minutes of long tones and chromatic exercises before a morning rehearsal. Just sharing my personal distinction between that and ritualized technical and sound practice!
Lizzie Burns, bassist in New York, NY
I do a modified version of what Max Dimoff presented at ISB. Vomit, scales, arpeggio system, Ring’s Thing, Gradus ad Parnassum, more scales, a vibrato exercise, more scales, finish with the bumblebee exercise.
Altogether [this] takes about 40min and after I feel capable and ready to play anything!
Sean Renaud, bassist in Adelaide, South Australia
I think the most important thing is not what you do but how you do it. Hold thyself to the highest standard of focus and intent. Particularly pitch and rhythm. Let nothing unintentional go or happen by chance.
What I do specifically:
Off the bass:
windmills/tai chi related movements for 2 to 10 minutes. Breathing, mindfulness, etc.
On the bass:
3 octave scale w/drones on a trichord of subdominant, tonic, dominant. Metronome varies but usually whole note = 16bpm (make your brain wake up and subdivide!) while rhythms work up from halves to quarters, quarter-triplets, eighths, etc. usually topping out at 32nds. Finish with whole note double stop 3rds, 4ths, 5ths. The bowing and key change daily.
David Chapman-Orr, bassist in Chicago, IL
I like to start pianissimo, kind of sul tasto with long tones (open strings first) and just focus on my breathing and relaxing to the point of almost dropping the bow while listening to as many of the overtones as I can (about 10mins+).
Then I like to go to the metronome on 30bpm and play subdivision with as much precision as I can (also about 10mins+).
Then, double stops in fifths, focusing on intonation, (also 10mins+).
I think the warm-up dictates the attitude of the rest of the practice/performance attitude.
Makram Aboul Hosn, Bass player, Composer/Arranger, Educator.
3 – Jazz Bassist Warm-Ups
While all of these routines can work no matter what style of music you’re playing, there are some skills specific to the working jazz bassist that shape the most effective warm-up routine.
I practice with my mind on. After a few exercises on triplets, I put my brain to work by going through a set of changes – chord progression preferred over scales or arpeggios. Then rhythm changes chromatic through twelve keys, one chorus at a time.
Clovis Nicolas, Recording Artist at Sunnyside Records
I relax my hands and a pick a melody out of what I heard since last playing. Then play it as best I can, slowly and with the tuner on, then go get the chart and clean off the edges. Then get out the-work-at-hand. I really liked the violin theme from Scheherazade, using a random m7 chord as root, the melody moves around the bass easily.
Stephen J Burke, bassist in Woodbridge, NJ
Since almost every gig I play is a jazz gig, and often in restaurants there really isn’t a lot of warm-up possible, without interfering. I usually just get tuned up, a minimal bit of noodling, just to make sure the notes are where I left them. It kind of annoys me when people do a whole practice routine at a gig.
As a jazz bassist, walking bass lines are a good warm-up by themselves.
Jack J. Hanan, bassist in Albuquerque, New Mexico
4 – Eschewing Routines
Many of us don’t want to feel restricted by a specific way of starting our practice session. I’ve alternated my whole life between spending a ton of time warming up, planning it out, and the like, and then figuratively throwing it all away and just picking up the bass and playing.
Never really learned how to warm up…I just plan my practice with a notebook over some coffee and go.
Nash Tomey, Kansas City Symphony section bass
I don’t like having a routine. I find that doing the same thing to start everyday tend[s] to make me play without active thinking/listening and I, like most of us, don’t want that.
So everyday I pick something different: a 3 octave scales starting in whole note and speeding up every time, vomit and one finger scale, one octave scale with 3 different fingering going up half step by half step in different keys, etc.
I choose something specific I need to work for the repertoire I will be working on or something [where] it’s been a while I worked on or anything that help start a good practice session.
However, I often don’t warm up with exercise but right away with the repertoire I am working on, starting by practice it slowly/ in a relaxed manner.
Working on different tools required for the piece (intonation issues, strokes, time, etc). Often it is the best way to the most with my time as with my family life I don’t have as much time as I wished to practice.
Bobby Lajoie, bassist in Longueuil, Quebec
5 – Out-Of-The-Box Routines
Though my bass warm-ups take place on the bass, I’ll bet a lot of people have routines that aren’t on the bass. Back in college, I used to play a bit of piano and all listen to an inspiring CD before starting, and I thought of that as a big component of my warm-up.
I practice the violin. As a warm-up that is. It helps focus the ear and works on flexibility and dexterity right from the get go.
Kurt Muroki, Indiana University bass faculty
My Current Warm-Up and Technical Routine (30-45 min)
Here’s my current “at home” warm-up and technical routine. Like all things in my life, this is constantly evolving, which seems like a healthy thing to me.
I have a playlist called “current” on both Modacity and forScore, so all I need to do is advance to the next part of the routine on both devices as I work through my warm up and technical routine.
You can learn more here about how I use Modacity and forScore together.
If I’m warming up for a gig, I basically take the components of this routine (minus the etude) and reduce them down in a “non-showy” way. No matter what, I make sure that I spend some solid time in part I (Simple Motions) and part 2 (Slow Scales).
Though I’ve spend many years doing shifting drills, progressive scales, string crossing exercise, Max’s Magic and the like, this is the stuff that seems to work for me right now. I’ll probably swing back to these other tools in future years, but the following routine seems to keep me on track and developing new skills.
Finally, like so many stated in the above quotes, it’s not so much what I do as it is how I do it.
1 – Simple Motions – 3-5 minutes
I start off by tuning my bass with a tuner and then, in no structured order, by playing open strings, octaves, 5ths, and harmonics with full bows.
I’m focusing on:
- Staying relaxed.
- Using only the necessary muscles for each physical motion.
- Thinking curves and fluidity in all my gestures.
- Letting gestures emerge from the largest possible muscle groups.
In this phase, I’m letting my body guide me and feeling the vibrations of the instrument.
Throughout my entire practice session I’ve got Modacity, my practice app, open. This phase has the simple directive of “tune, rosin, get set.”
Seeing that timer helps keep me on track, and simply seeing that purple Modacity background triggers a response in my brain telling me that it’s time to focus and get to work.
2 – Slow Scales – 5-7 min
I find Boardwalkin’ to be the most “useful” way to cover scales for me. This excellent book by Hal Robinson runs scales up and down the fingerboard in each Vance/Rabbath position. I practice these slowly and with a tuner on the 5h scale degree, and I spend a week on each key before advancing to the next one.
Also, I practice the corresponding arpeggio pattern that Hal includes, and I’m focusing throughout on smooth motions, good intonation, balanced tone, and staying relaxed in all registers of the instrument.
3 – Bow Stroke Development – 5-7 min
Next, I move on to Strokin’ Hal Robinson’s edition for bass players of the Sevcik School of Bowing Technique Op. 2. I use the scale that I am doing for Boardwalkin’ that week, but I just do a simple fingering pattern over two octaves since this is primarily a right hand phase of my routine.
I try to do 3-4 “cells” out of this book each day, and I simply go through it from the first page through the last. I find all the parts of it to be valuable, and while I’ve tried picking and showing a few cells from different sections for each day, I find that just going sequentially through the book to be most beneficial for me.
Strokin’ helps me to sharpen my ear for different articulations, and engages my brain with creative solution to the “musical puzzles” that each cell presents.
4 – Left Hand Skill Development – 10-15 min
Many method books and resources come and go in this category over the years. Right now, I’m really digging Marcos Machado’s Tao of Bass and David Allen Moore’s Fractal Fingerings course.
This phase of my practice is about increasing my accuracy and capacity, and it’s one of the more physically demanding parts of my technical routine (which is why I save it for fourth). I’m sure to take a lot of breaks during this phase of my work and to make sure that I’m never feeling pain.
In terms of what I’m actually doing, I add in new exercises and subtract out ones I’ve been working on for a while, moving sequentially through them just like I do with Boardwalkin’ and Strokin’. I find that once I can do the from memory and they are feeling natural, it’s time to expand my comfort zone and add in a new one.
5 – Etudes – 5-10 min
I used to never practice etudes, but in recent years I’ve found the value of spending time with study pieces intended to cover a specific component of technique.
My current jam is the Sturm 110 Studies, and I work through them sequentially, doing one a day. I like these etudes because they are musical, not too long, and something that I can play through and sound good if I’m focusing well.
After that, I’m into the repertoire component of my practice session, which of course varies quite a bit depending on what’s coming up and what my repertoire goals are.
Learn More
Warming up and technical routines are a big topic for sure! I hope that this post helped, and if you’d like to learn more, here are some of my favorite resources on the topic:
- David Allen Moore’s Fractal Fingerings course and German Bow Technique courses from Discover Double Bass are great resources for understanding physical gestures on the double bass.
- Marcos Machado has a truly awesome compendium of exercises in his Tao of Bass.
- Hal Robinson’s books Boardwalkin’ and Strokin’ are some of my favorite resources for basic skill development.
- Though it’s a violin-specific resource, Nathan Cole has covered warming up in great detail on his fabulous site Nate’s Violin.
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