The Use of Graphic Images to Understand Techniques on the Double Bass

Technology is in everywhere in our daily lives and with classical music is not different. Nowadays we must be able to understand and deal with a great variety of machines, software and apps as professional musicians. They might improve our way of practicing, performing and as we are learning from the readings of this class, our way of understanding the meaning of music. Being a musician in the XXI century requires an acknowledgment of the possibilities of the internet, the process of digitalization, music industry, means of music distribution and reception.

With that being said, I would like to propose a research that analyses images on a spectrograph of the sounds of the Double Bass. The idea is to compare different bowing techniques on the instrument, and, for now, I wanted to delimitate my research to the difference of timber on the following approaches: spicatto, staccato and legato. I also want to explore the bridge adjuster of the instrument to compare the same techniques with different heights of the strings, considering the pressure and angles that changes when we move the adjuster.

Composers have been using the technology of the spectrograph to produce music through graphic images and one of the engagements of this paper is to provide historical background of the music production and analysis done on this field, showing the relevance of the machine. Another goal is to try to understand how the images can help us to improve our technique and highlight why the position of the strings might affect our approach to these techniques.


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