Finally got back to some experimenting.
Day Three
6″ lower rod; angle about 30°; rotation towards back and E string
So I wanted to see what it would feel like to have the rotation be towards the E string, as Lynn Seaton does. But I had already found that the very “horizontal” approach that seems to be Seaton’s approach wasn’t working for me, so I set this up to be more vertical. The bass definitely felt different here. As might have been predicted—see the diagram about center of gravity on Knickstachel für Kontrabass – eine Übersicht—I initially felt as if the bass were falling away from me.
I ran through my chosen repertoire for this trial, and made some adjustments to where my feet were. I couldn’t quite make this comfortable, but I felt like I was making progress. I decided to move to the short lower rod.
4″ lower rod; angle a little more than 30°; rotation towards back and E string
With the shorter rod, I also chose to make the angle slightly greater, as well as to extend the upper rod a bit more from the body of the bass, compensating for the shorter rod but overall making it just a little bit higher.
This felt pretty comfortable. I think it will be the setting I go with for a little while before making more experiments.
That is not to say that I think I found the perfect setting in just three short days of experimenting. (Far from it!) It is more an acknowledgement that my technical skills are really sub-par these days, and I need to get serious about getting back to form before I can make any final conclusions about how to adjust this endpin.
In other news
My last attempt to get folks together for some music reading did not receive much response. Maybe a combination of the short notice and the fact that it’s the end of summer. If you’re a bassist and want to get together to read through music or to play your audition rep in front of a friendly audience, get in touch with me, we’ll set something up.
Tags: Chromatic Endpin, Lynn Seaton