hi it's Geoff Chalmers here from discoverdoublebass.com where you
can go to learn about the double bass with our courses our lessons and interviews and today
i'm joined by the wonderful double bass player Florentin Ginot so it gives me great pleasure
to welcome you to discover double bass Florentin and thanks for joining me today thank you for
having me well here we are in Huddersfield in the UK because you're performing this evening
at the contemporary music festival with ensemble music fabrique and i know that you are playing a
lot of contemporary and modern music and i'd just really like to talk to you a little bit
about some of the techniques that go back behind some of the more modern repertoire
and one of the things that was really interesting to me is that I found this
beautiful video online of you teaching uh pinched harmonics yeah i really enjoyed it would you mind
maybe demonstrating some of that yeah um do you want me to hold your bow or no it's okay
well actually yes you should because it's obviously making a lot of noise
and yeah i think beautiful yeah we can uh yeah it's about i mean it's a technique which was uh
developed mostly by Stefano Scodanibbio of course and which i mean most players i think discover in
in the sequenzas by Luciano Berio uh where they start to practice and they start to
hurt their fingers a lot uh while doing this and then yeah it's uh i think you get it's
it's about it's also about finding other ways to you we were talking about virtuosic elements
in the previous video and it's about finding you know uh side ways to to bring the latency
of the bass to another level obviously so you're um could you explain a little bit about how you're
you're doing this then so your uh maybe the technique behind it yeah so it's
uh obviously maybe the technique behind it the strings is divided in in not in harmonics and you you you know the thumb the bass
principle that the sum is on the harmonics spot and then you use always
the two first fingers yes to plug the strings in a reverse side because you can divide it
but the first of the first the left hand will plug it one string per finger
actually while the second finger can actually uh benefit from the from the double string so
yeah you see and that's what makes it that you can go much guitaristic it's a guitaristic and
actually in the sequenza if you look a bit more into the score there is also a lot of
guitar tremolo etc like you know using the the four fingers technique etc
so there is a lot taken from the guitar techniques and the one difficulty that the guitar strings are
very different the tension is very different and they're resonating as well and we are fretless
i mean at least with the upright bass so so you need to adapt this to find the right way and then
the main i mean what usually you have to learn is is to move the hands of course uh i mean the
the continuity comes from of course to move while the other hande is playing so that's
uh that's a simple principle but then sometimes you talk with composers who want to write for it
and then you need to and they want to write more complex lines than just you
know takadoku takadoku tikka like you know so they need to understand that
you need to understand how you move in between and to give the time um such a different sound
world isn't it i love the way that you're moving and combining the two hands yeah
i mean this bass is tuned with one string lower
so it's a bit less tension it's in solo tuning but with yeah exactly
a e b e
actually wow so
and what i do like a lot with this technique is also the multiphonics i mean
very special sounds also very complex which brings a lot of different harmonics fighting each other
i love this yeah it's wonderful and especially with the tuning as well
i think in solo tuning it really pops out yeah are there any other kind of uh more
or less traditional techniques extended techniques that you particularly enjoy
on the double bass yeah i mean with or without the bow yeah there are a lot i mean it's it's always
uh i can't count anymore how many composers come with a request you know i want to write
for a sound that doesn't exist you know yeah and then you need to i mean somehow it doesn't exist
a sound that doesn't exist but you need to find other ways of of um playing with your tools
you know we have a base we have a bow mostly we have other pizz techniques obviously on the bass
and then maybe you need to to you know to to use the same elements differently
i love this so you're actually plucking the string with your left hand yeah and then
you use as a sort of you know uh it's a buzzing wooden element it's not a bow anymore it's a
wooden stick basically so if you bought it would probably hit my face yeah that's right you know
so can you use a drumstick and yeah you can also do that but sometimes you know you need to do
you need to to be very flexible using all those things together and and the
composer wants you know everything so so you need that's why you need to use this
uh of course i mean um yeah there is a lot of things we we can we can actually do i mean
of course you can
this is not an extended technique but it's an extension of what already exists in classical
which are the harmonics and you can filter it with different positions the bow
different pressurized so you're playing more ponticello more over the bridge yeah exactly and then
the left hand is very loose contributes to this
so you might not be able to see on the camera but you're not actually depressing the string onto
the fingerboard you're going on the side of the string you're putting it on the side and then you have
this kind of vibrato which is a very wide one yeah and this somehow you you know it brings the wall
spectrum you shift the wall spectrum somehow so it's quite interesting as a
and then playing with the pressure and the position
if you reduce it's another sound already
so this is also it's another way of the extended
technique it's just extending the already existing things of course
you also have all the multiphonics what we call complex sounds in your music
all the more complex things you know which you can bring and
so you're bowing behind the finger that's yeah you have your finger is right but i've never
seen that done before the bow yeah and then uh well it's the sound that you can
take an exact example is a clarinet um i i won't remember the English name for that but in French
is son fondue do you know this this very typical clarinet sound actually that you're using yes
this probably will freak out some classical people but
and then your new filter by moving back and forth you filter the high frequency while the low stays
as a fundamental of the bass yes um yeah there are many different things uh
do you ever use many percussive percussive elements in the double bass as well yeah yeah yeah
yeah i mean this is a this is also of course uh i can give you this one in place uh yeah i mean the
so you know it's a
actually you can combine things we have been talking about like the
you know with this harmonics oh yeah
i mean this is basically a sort of marimba right it's a
you know all the wooden sounds you can have is very fine when you start listening to
the details actually more in a percussion player here i mean more than a bass player
it's incredible the other things because it's i mean of course it's due to the tension in the
woods and the different size of each part you know here when you're near to the to the
soundbar the soundbar you know it's very very deep yeah and profound and here
you have this super things which is actually harmless for the bass because it's you know
it's a very solid point of course
and then yeah you can combine it with more traditional coming from the jazz technique
of course the pizz the tapping do you ever play any jazz no i didn't unfortunately yeah
i wish but you know they are 24 hours and it's uh yeah it's another life life is short i mean
yeah i love jazz but it's just it's uh there is yeah well thank you so much for joining us today
to talk about this it's i've seen this video where you're teaching in more detail um the uh
the approach to the harmonics which we'll provide a link for below because i'm sure many of the uh
um the viewers will want to learn more about it but it's been really incredible to kind of
meet you in person and to hear this up close and hopefully we'll cut to a video of you playing but
i just wanted to thank you on behalf of everybody here at discover double bass for joining us today
it's been really inspiring to kind of hear your approach to the double bass
and if people want to learn more about you please go and visit florentinginot.com
it's a the place that you can find out all about Florentin's music his performances
of uh Bach as well as contemporary classical music and many other projects as well so thanks
so much for watching at home we'll see you next time thank you so much for joining me thank you