 Hi, this video will provide you some basic instruction in playing the upright string bass either for switching to bass from another string instrument or starting from scratch on the bass. Let's get started right away. First thing we need to know is how to hold the bass. The first concept in bass playing is that you want the the lowest peg, machine peg, to be about at the top of your left ear. So what I do is I adjust the end pin of the bass such that it's at that height for me. I'm going to stand to start facing the bass, sort of let it lean on on on my belly actually and then I'm going to turn about a quarter of turn to the right so that the bass is leaning comfortably on me. My left arm is around the instrument and actually I sometimes say you know you want to feel like you're hugging the bass to some extent. My left foot is behind the instrument and my right foot is to the side of the instrument and it's very well supported right on me so that when I go to play I can use my fingers and my hand for fingering and playing not for holding the instrument up. So the instrument doesn't say straight up like this. It leans down on us and you'll notice then that this peg is right about at the top of my left ear. So that's going to get me a good foundation. The next thing I need to think about is how I'm going to place my my fingers down. Now if you play the violin or viola already you might be used to placing your fingers in such a way that they are what we call pronated. This is a huge difference between bass and violin. For the bass your fingers are not going to be bent or pronated. They're going to come straight around the neck and if I show you the back of my hand you're going to see that my thumb is parallel to the floor perpendicular to the neck in such a way that my fingers can come straight around. Now in order to do that I also have to have this elbow coming up a little bit. I can't lean this elbow down like this and this is a very common mistake of early bass players. Your elbow is going to be off the body in such a way that it's coming like this and your fingers are going to come straight across the strings. Okay this is a little bit of early instruction. Now let's talk just a little bit about the strings of the instrument. You've got four strings on a bass. They are tuned in fourths as opposed to a violin or a viola that's tuned in fifths. But if you happen to play guitar you'll be sort of used to the tuning. The lowest string on the bass and the one closest to you is the low E string and then from the E we have an A above that, just like on a guitar, and this is a perfect fourth and if we pluck E to A it'll sound like the interval of Here Comes the Bride. From the A to the D the next string up, same idea. From the D to the G, same again. So the bass is tuned in perfect fourths. Let's take just a couple of minutes to talk about bow grip. If you've already played the violin or viola you have some idea about bow grip, but it's important to note that a bass bow grip is different than a violin or viola's bow grip. We talked before about pronated fingers on the left hand and the fact that our fingers are not curved, but they're straight. It's the same thing with a bow grip. A violin or viola bow grip your fingers are sort of curved and your pinky finger sits on top of the bow. For a bass, your fingers are going to come straight over the bow. Your pinky does not sit up on top of the bow like a violin does. It goes over the edge and your fingers are not pronated or curved like a violin bow grip. Instead they come straight over the stick and you'll notice when I flip the bow over that I'm using the tip of my thumb and my knuckle is protruding out. My thumb is not flat like this. That would be wrong. This would be correct. When we get that all set up real nice, then we want to set the bow down on the strings right very close to the frog of the bow. Now when you first start playing a bow grip on the bass, almost everybody gets a nice bow grip and I recommend you hold on to the bow with your left hand and then get your nice bow grip and set it on the string close to the frog. What happens is lots of people get it there and they let go and the bow goes like this and then they never fix this. Don't do that. You want your hand to be good like this, fingers straight across the the bow, pinkies sitting across, tip of your thumb, bow like this, and initially don't try to play long drawn out bows because the just the sheer gravity of the bow sort of pulls it down. We're going to start with short bows right here by the frog with a nice bow grip and we're never going to pull a real long bow here. So you might play four short notes just to get the feel of the bow grip. This takes a little bit of time to really get used to. Some people like to start playing the bass by playing pizzicato before they play with the bow grip and you're welcome to do that. Let me show you a couple of things about pizzicato on the bass. To play pizzicato or to pluck the strings, you put your thumb on the side of the fingerboard about four inches up from the end of the fingerboard and you're going to use your index finger to pluck and you're going to pluck with the side of your finger. So you're not using the tip of your finger, but you're going to use the side of your finger and pluck. So you might try playing four pizzicato notes on all of the open strings G. Now most of the students that I've started on base like to learn songs and patterns and ideas pizzicato first and then switch to the bow afterwards and you are welcome to do that. Now let's talk about fingering a little bit for the bass. If you've already played the violin or the viola or the guitar, you're used to using all four of the fingers on your left hand. But for bass, we're only going to use your first, your second and your fourth finger. We really never use third finger. So you want to get that idea in mind right away. There will always be a half step between first and second finger and a half step between second and fourth finger. Okay, so the distance between first and fourth at any given time is a whole step. There are two early positions that we're going to learn on the bass. We have half position when we have a half step from open to first finger, a half step from first to second finger, and a half step from second to fourth finger. If we do that on the D string, you'll hear open D and a half step above open D is E flat or D sharp. Then from first to second finger is another half step or to the note E. And finally from second finger to fourth finger is another half step or to the note F. F natural. So open first, second, fourth is all half steps. Now, our next position is first position when our first finger is a whole step above the open string. And then second finger is a half step above first, and your pinky finger or fourth finger is a half step above your second. So open D to first finger, E is a whole step, then E to F is a half step, first to second finger, and F to F sharp is a half step, second to fourth finger. And that would sound like this. Now, I have two basic exercises that I like students to do to learn those patterns. The first one is to simply play all an open string and all three fingers on each of the strings. So if we did that on the G string in half position, we would have this. And I like you to name the notes too. G, A flat, A, B flat, A, A flat, G, D, E flat, E, E flat, D. A, B flat, B, C, B, B flat, A, F sharp, G, F sharp, F, E. First position, G, E flat, B, B flat, F sharp, E, D. C, C sharp, C, B, E, F sharp, G, G sharp, G, F sharp. At this time, let me encourage you to get your bass out and practice each of those, naming the notes, play each of the pitches, and name it so that you really know the names of the notes in half position and in first position.