I’ve been a fan of Marcos Machado and his sophisticated approach to double bass technique ever since interviewing him for my podcast several years ago.
Marcos’ book Tao of Bass blew me away when I first discovered it. It weaves together several seemingly contradictory approaches to left hand double bass technique. Also, it introduces several fingering concepts typically found only in violin, viola, and cello pedagogy.
For me, the major challenge with Tao of Bass has been knowing how to dive into this massive book. At over 200 pages for the first volume, this method presents a lot of material.
Integral Technique: The Course
I was thrilled to learn that Marcos was filming a Discover Double Bass course called Integral Technique. For years, I’ve been a fan of these courses from Geoff Chalmers and his group of teachers. They have been tremendously helpful to me as both a player and a teacher, and I’ve grown quite a bit as a musician from what I’ve learned in these courses.
In this course, Marcos leads us through the fundamentals of his approach to double bass technique. It’s a treasure trove of left hand techniques, and Marcos demonstrates how to apply these concepts to solo and orchestral repertoire throughout the course.
Who’s It For?
This is an advanced course, with many exercises that even professional bassists will find challenging. I’d recommend this course to a player that is already playing solo literature lat least as challenging as the Dragonetti Concerto and with a knowledge of three octave scales across the instrument.
This course will open your mind to all kinds of solutions to fingering challenges on the instrument. It’s likely that you’ve never even considered many of these techniques. Many of them come from innovations in the violin and cello world, or in lesser known methods by past bassists.
Listening to and watching Marcos demonstrate each of these techniques and then break them down and show how they can be applied is tremendously helpful in understanding them. This is one of the huge benefits of the online course format.
There’s an accompanying PDF for every lesson in this course. At 80+ lessons, the PDFs make up a sizable technique book just on their own!
Techniques Covered
I’ve been playing and teaching bas for decades, and I’d never heard of or even considered many of the techniques in Integral Technique. It has really been opening my mind to the possibilities of what can be done on the double bass, and I feel like I’ve got a whole new set of resources that I can draw on to learn challenging passages.
Marcos covers dozens of techniques, including:
- Squared and angled (slanted) hand position
- Finger pressure
- Finger motion and wrist motion
- Economy of motion
- Reference points
- Vibrato
- Marcos’ fingering matrix
- Endurance and daily warm-ups
- Coordination using slurred and detache bowing
- Facility and coordination exercises
- Bridge (barred) fingerings
- Forked fingerings
- Shifting between all fingers and with all combinations
- Types of shifts: old finger, new finger, “giant pivot”, wrist shift, arm shift
- One finger scales
- One string scales
- Trills
- Finger substitution
- Pivoting and four finger technique
- Types of pivots
- Crawling
- Geminiani chord
- Davidov Hinge
- Anticipation and Crab techniques
- Pivot technique in thumb position
- Collapsed 1st finger and its application
- Shifting vs lifting the thumb
- Fan technique
- Cossman etude on bass
There are numerous examples throughout the course on how to apply these varied techniques to commonly played solo and orchestral pieces.
How I Practice This Material
Whenever I dig into new material like this, I have the urge to go crazy and play it exclusively for hours on end. This is not a good idea! These techniques are all in the “advanced category” for me, and the best approach for me is to introduce one new concept every few days.
I have all the PDFs loaded up in forScore on my iPad Pro, and I take notes on them with my Apple Pencil. The course is loaded up on Safari, and I have both the course and the PDFs open in split screen mode on the iPad.
I’ve also got my iPhone on the stand, loaded up with my favorite practicing app Modacity.
I spend between five and fifteen minutes each day reviewing a previous technique and then beginning to learn a new one.
Slow and Steady Progress
Like so many musicians, I have to remind myself to take things slowly. I play each exercise quite slowly, analyzing how my hand is moving, listening for good intonation, and monitoring my body for any strain.
There’s a difference between fatigue and pain in musical technique, and it’s important to be constantly aware of the signals your body is sending. Bass is a physically demanding instrument, and we need to build up our strength and endurance. In so many ways, it’s like doing strength training reps at the gym, or interval training for cardiovascular exercise.
Many of these techniques use non-traditional hand shapes, so it’s even more important to go very slowly and err on the safe side. I only practice these materials after warming up for 20 minutes or so, and I start slowly each day with Integral Technique and build up gradually over time.
Coexistence
Throughout the course, Marcos emphasizes that there are multiple acceptable ways to move the hand and utilize different fingering combinations. With him, it’s not an “either/or” proposition. It’s possible to play the same passage using three or four fingering possibilities, or even some combination of all of them.
Different fingerings bring out different aspects of the music. Doing a 1-2-3-4 pivot might be great for a legato passage under one bow, while the same noes in a different context might work best with a more traditional grouping.
Final Thoughts
This course is like a Masters Degree in left hand technique. It has opened my mind to a whole new set of possibilities on the bass, and it is making me see passages in a whole new light.
I know that I’ve found something truly useful when I look at the fingerboard and see all kinds of patterns that I’ve never imagined before, and that’s totally happening for me with this course. I’m actually finding myself waking up in the middle of the night and visualizing all these intricate patterns on the bass.
It is also making me reconsider the way that I’ve fingered some of my longtime repertoire. For me, having more possibilities in all positive on the double bass, and this course has moved me into new territory in terms of imaginative options on the instrument.
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