Hi Gael,
Here are some reminders from Gemma, following your lesson with her today. Have fun playing!
- Gael, make sure your bass is straight. Your left knee needs to move outwards a little bit to allow the bass to turn.
· Left hand – make sure the elbow is high enough (off the bass), like it’s being held up by a helium balloon, but not too high. We made some silly balloon noises here.
· Telescope shape with the left hand – the palm of the hand shouldn’t touch the bass – check the thumb positioned on the back of the neck and not peeking round.
· Practise finger press-ups and mountain rockers with this hand shape.
· Use the blank stave and some counters to consolidate note reading with games like we did in the lesson. Please remind him about E on the D String being different to open E - this is 1st finger E on D.
· We talked about the bow should be off the fingerboard. I think it's travelling at a good angle at the moment, just help him to re-position the contact point if it creeps up.
· Clown Dance – we talked about different lengths of bow for the ta and ti-ti notes. We said about ta being like a rabbit length and ti-ti being like a guinea pig (this isn’t the best example, because he wanted to play ‘guin-ea pig’ rhythm, but it gave him another reference about how much bow to use)
· Gael is doing brilliantly – I’m sure he will make a fantastic bassist!