Making a bent endpin

Hello Bass players!

I recently spoke to a great room of teachers at the NYSSMA Winter Conference here in Rochester, NY. One of things I recommend highly to teachers who must keep their bass players standing (for whatever reasons) is to use a bent endpin.  My favorite supplier is Slava.net but sadly the owner has decided to close the business.  And my research for another supplier led me only to sites that sell a kit which you place on the bottom of the bass that provides for a spot for the straight endpin (which you also buy) to be angled back correctly.  But those kits run about $250, which seems quite out of reach for most public school programs.

So today I'd like to share with you the directions, as given to me by George Vance about 15 years ago.  Don't be put off by the need for a gas torch.  Your facilities department may have one.  I purchased one from an Ace Hardware store years ago and they are lightweight and very easy to use.

HOW TO MAKE A BENT ENDPIN

Any steel rod may be bent.  Grunert uses the Gotz endpin assembly which has a sufficiently thick rod (10mm).  If a thinner rod such as is found on cheaper endpin assemblies is bent it will tend to wobble.  It is possible to bend hollow endpins such as the Ulsa model but the procedure is more complicated.  The rod is bent so that it will hit the floor at a point lined up with the back edge of the bass when it is in playing position.

The bass cannot be carried around with the non-retractable bent endpin sticking out, so a sort rod with a rubber tip (or a wheel) is a necessary piece of equipment.

Equipment:

• Mapp Gas torch. Propane will work but more slowly
• Vise
• Bucket of water
• grinding wheel or hand file
• Endpin (I have purchased lengths of 10mm steel from the hardware store to do this)
• rubber cap - if you are using plain steel which you purchased

How to do it:

• The endpin will be bent at the point where it leaves the socket when it has been adjusted for playing. (Simple math here: measure how far out the student is using the endpin, then accommodate for the angle when deciding how far up to bend the endpin - ex: 4" of  straight endpin will yield 5.6" of length before the bend)
• Clamp it vertically in the vise and heat the bending point to incandescence.
• Wearing a glove, pull the endpin back to the desired angle. (44 degrees is optimal, I'm told by George)
• Remove it from the vise and plunge it into a bucket of water to temper the steel.
• Grind a flat spot on the pin just above the bend.  This is where the screw will hit when it is installed.  Without this flat spot the endpin would twist in the socket.

Here is the page written by Francois Rabbath talking about why he developed the bent endpin idea and how it helps players.

My recommendation is still that players sit from the time they start learning to shift.  However, I have run into enough teachers telling me that they aren't allowed stools or don't have room for stools that I want to make this possibility available to everyone.

Please feel free to contact me with questions!  gmccormick@esm.rochester.edu

Happy practicing and happy holidays!

Gaelen

Early Christmas present for teachers and students

Good morning Bass players!

I received an email from a student who's recently graduated from Nazareth and off and running her own string program here in Rochester.  She's very excited that her bass players, whom she started with the Vance Progressive Repertoire, are getting really good left hand setups and finally able to play some simple tunes in the high position (3rd position, end of the neck).  They had been a little sad that all their peers were playing simple tunes in first position, and wanted to be able to go home and play something for their families to show off what they were learning. We had talked about things like Hot Cross Buns and Twinkle, so that she could keep them parked in the high position for a little longer.

As I thought about how few tunes we get from Progressive Repertoire that stay exclusively in the high position, it popped into my head that "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" would work really well in that high position and give them something popular to be proud of learning.

So, here it is for you, too - Do You Want to Build a Snowman - put in G major and can be played entirely in the high position.  I included some notes at the bottom about how to adapt it to be a shifting exercise between 1st position and the high position, and about the little pivot you'll need to add so they can reach one new note.  The pivot is something you would get to with them in Progressive Rep volume 2, but it's easy enough to show and the kids will probably want to "get it" just so they can learn the whole song. I've marked when it's time to pivot as "move up" and when it's time to return to the "home base" of 3rd position as "move back".

If this jpg isn't clear enough, email me (gmccormick@esm.rochester.edu) and I can send you a pdf of it.

Happy practicing and happy teaching!  Merry early Christmas, y'all!

Gaelen