Klinghoffer: Mr. Karr, Would You Teach ME How to Drive a Double Bass?

Revolution - A dramatic and wide-reaching change in the way something works or is organized or in people's ideas about it.When I began to study the double bass in 1950 the strongest pedagogical influences were the method books written by the Czech bassist, Franz Simandl. His published materials were then considered to be the bible of double bass studies. My association with this approach to playing was further cemented by the instruction that I later received from Herman Reinshagen, who was a Simandl disciple. The Simandl concept involved using only the first, second and fourth fingers for half of the fingerboard (the other half used the thumb, first, second and third fingers). His codified approach was vertical with an emphasis on positions rather than a horizontal, intervallic perception of how the notes relate to each other on all four strings. In the 1960s when I observed what electric bass players were doing, I began to eschew or modify the Simandl method in favor of a four-finger