hi it's Geoff Chalmers here from discoverdoublebass.com i'm joined
by one of our fantastic orchestral tutors uh Joseph Conyers Joe thanks for joining me today
i'm happy to be here well we've been filming this week Joe and i've been asking you
a lot of questions about the double bass i've been really grilling you about your playing and
we've been filming some wonderful lessons that you've been sharing some really interesting
uh insights into the orchestral world and particularly playing excerpts and i've been
fascinated about your bow grip and we've spoken about this a little bit and i wondered if you
could maybe kind of share the story behind the grip and how you're approaching it and we could
maybe just talk about this subject because i know sure bass players are really interested in this i
am and i'd like to hear more about how you how you came to play the way that you do sure yeah
well the one the first things i tell students to study with me is don't look in my right hand
because even though i'll look even from here it doesn't look it's not looking it does not look
bad but i've seen pictures of me where it looks like i'm almost holding the bow from underneath
now i have some german friends who tell me that's my inner german bow player trying to
escape this french bow playing body as i try to as i slowly try to wrap around um uh but i think
it evolved over time uh and honestly i was never challenged by it that was the interesting thing by
my uh teacher Hal Robinson we we may have spoken i don't remember ever talking about the bow grip
in a lesson the reason it evolved was because i was just trying to get more and more relaxed
in my playing and um when i realized when i was kind of on top of the bow i was always kind of
trying to hold the bow so if i'm holding the bow i it's just you to me i'm more prone to to have
bow jumps and i feel there's more tension in my hand so with time i just evolved getting
less and less tension out of my hand which means my hand fell back the other thing is for power
so the little so the little finger is it's kind of moving yeah it actually moves down
so this this part of the hand because nearer to the stick that is correct i see that is correct
so it's almost like i'm and you can see on the bow you can see that where your fingers have
been touching the hair yes yes yes so it might my hand my hand wraps it just wraps around the
the the bow a little bit more interesting and i when i drop weight because particularly if i'm
thinking about being relaxed when i drop weight i can literally just literally i feel like my hand
literally ends up becoming um or the bow becomes an extension of my hand throughout the stick yeah
and then when i get to the when i get to the tip then it's just my first finger you can see
how it's um uh really kind of in the stick that's how i transfer the weight to to the tip of the bow
but this is it's just so Geoff for me is so relaxed relaxing on the down bow is the weight coming from
the back is that what you're saying yeah you're you're energizing it from the first finger as
well is that kind of so that's a great question so we we have not talked about oh let's talk about it
now the inside of the bow and my thumb actually had a teacher Kevin Mauldin down in florida
uh teaching me about this i remember him telling me specifically about putting my thumb
now you it's hard to see because i'm not really if we could address this to this camera here yeah
tricky thing do we think we're gonna get this so yeah on my the the frog you can't see the top of
the frog because i have the grip on here but on the the the frog ends here now what i do is i put
my my thumb there so that there's resistance right resistance is your friend particularly
when you're looking for power so if i were to hold the bow like this try to take the bow away from me
it's very easy yeah because but once i do this try to take the ball away from me i see yeah and
there's resistance and i don't even have to i'm not flexing it's just because i have that little
that that little uh curvature in my hand going into the frog yeah if you try to take away it
actually it it it um ignites that's not what i'm looking for it ignite it um sets off yeah my thumb
it activates my thumb into holding it so when i'm doing a down bow as i feel the resistance in my
hand with my my thumb and because i'm dropping the weight this is actually pulling the bow down yeah
so that's kind of where the weight is falling into the string and then i feel like the with my rest
of my fingers the energy's kind of falling over and this guy's selling kind of yeah a little over
the top but if they're falling over the the stick and i think about dropping down i mean my hand is
so there's no muscle that is tense in my hand to hold to play this note and someone say it's a it's
a big powerful note but that's when going back to i'm just dropping the weight of the bow in the arm
and just drop yeah and then carry through with that first finger yeah wow yeah so the first thing
you're riding the wave and then right there and they're clipping circling the wave when you get
the notes started once you get started then you just ride that energy yeah because if i were to
drop the whole of my my weight into the the string it'll be likely too much i mean this is the weight
of my is too much so what i'm doing is managing the amount of weight that i have on the string
now this grip um and i wish i remember his name there was a guy i saw um some Italian bass player
and it was on and we made it through Facebook and the way he described holding the bow was actually
very similar to the way i hold the bow is i can't remember i just remember the video
yeah okay um uh and i think he called it a school maybe it's the Italian school
i think i know the video i think it's i'm good i'm i'd butcher his second name without a go but
it's Gabrieli and his surname begins with an R I tell you what I'll provide a link below because i actually think i know what
you're talking about it was very good because i was like that's my kind of philosophy you
know we produce and he's in tails maybe in the video yeah it is very it is nicely done yeah um
and he i said maybe it is the Italian school i never was taught that this is the Italian school
of double bass french bow playing but yeah maybe it was but i will say i when my first job with
the Grand Rapids Symphony was principal bass there and uh we had just finished rehearsing the
conductors on the podium and he looked over while everyone's leaving i was on the stage just playing
a few notes just you know wrapping up warming down as the brass players say and he looked over there
and he goes oh Philadelphia i was like uh how did he how did he know my relationship to Philadelphia
and he said i could tell because of your bow grip and uh i think about that because uh we do kind
of have a back loaded approach in the section i look at how because Hal is right next to me
yeah and Hal's believe it or not it's even more back loaded than i am really hit this part of his
hand is like literally touching the stick i'm like how's that then it will really look like
i'm trying to hold it both german yeah thing about Hal's hands his hands are smaller yeah
his fingers are much smaller and stubbier and but when he holds the bow it looks perfect yeah
maybe a little back loaded but it looks more perfect than definitely my grip but the concept
is the same and there are other um bass players there was just a meme i think i just showed you
uh to put on Facebook uh comparing Xavier Foley yeah that's a very back loaded grip as well
um and uh does it evolve out of Philadelphia does it maybe it's something in the water Goeff
yeah it's something in the water that makes the bass players do this back loaded uh grip approach
well i think it's really cool and i'm looking forward to going home and trying it myself
so Joe thanks so much for sharing that i'm glad that we jumped on camera and hopefully we can
people were able to see there the um the detail of what you were doing but it's
yeah it's fascinating it's so it's it's amazing the double bass there's so many different ways
to play this instrument on there so yeah it's a wonderful thing so thank you so much for watching
and if you want to learn more about Joseph's approach to the double bass um be sure to
check out his lessons we put a lot of care and love and attention into these lessons to get um
to get the best out of them and to really share his message about orchestral playing and we take
you through this journey of playing orchestral excerpts i'll provide the links below and
check out Joseph's instagram account where he shares some superb performances a few cool pictures uh
the links for that are also below thanks for watching and Joe thanks for joining me.