hi it's Geoff Chalmers here from discoverdoublebass.com we have a whole
load of stuff over I if you're a double bass player and know that you
will love the lessons there's courses we have gear reviews and we have interviews
discussions like this one where I'm joined by some wonderful bass players
and today it is Olivier Babaz so thank you for joining us today Olivier no
thanks we've got a question for you you're known as an expert in jazz bowing
we love your videos that you've shared on YouTube and on social media where
you're improvising bebop lines and I've been a fan of them for a long time but
what would you suggest for beginner students who are jazz bass players who
are getting into using the bow what do you think they should be working on to
go from fumbling around with the bow to having a nice clear voice okay that's a
really great question to me the most important thing when you're playing bass
is a sound and time rhythm so basically when somebody wants to have the first
approach and the bow for for a jazz bass player for me is if you don't have any
technique or anything just holding it the right way without hurting yourself
is quite important yeah but the basic thing is just to emulate your regular
bass playing with the bow in the most efficient and discreet way so instead of
playing this
just try to do what you can to have it sounding the best possible
way with the bow
and along the way you will you will learn how how you can have different
kind of sound and what's working what's not working and at the end of the day
you'll play things like
that finally you wouldn't have played with pizzicato so
my advice is a time rhythm and playing simple bass lines with it and then
afterwards you can build a stronger and wider technique and you can learn to
play melodies say do you just play what you've been paying previously pizzacato
so in terms of say walking basslines with a bow is that something that you do
walking basslines yes but you will soon as you will experiment with it I mean to
me it doesn't sound as good as to for playing for example if you were
doing this
this will playing exactly the same thing with the bow is important to
experiment
but it might not be the best thing to play in a context of a band so
maybe you can just go a little lower you will I mean players will realize that
themselves but going on more lower notes and repeating more stuff will be
probably more efficient
Olivier that sounds wonderful and on that note I
think we'll wrap things up but thank you so much for joining me today and I hope
that that has answered some questions for new students who are thinking about
getting into using the bow in a jazz context and if you want to learn more
about that topic from Olivier please go and check out his course jazz bowing
over discoverdoublebass.com and we've got a whole bunch of free lessons and
discussions on this topic so I'm sure that you'll be able to learn something
so thank you for watching and thanks for joining me today Olivier thank you