How great is YouTube?! Truly a world of information is at your fingertips. All you need is the inquisitiveness to hear/see other points of view.
While I am by no means one of the cats who travels in classical or symphonic circles with any regularity, I nonetheless spend a fair amount of my practice time working with the bow. Working out of various etude books, method books, and orchestral excerpts, i strive for the beautiful sound, intonation, and lyricism I hear from accomplished classical double bass players.
Most of the time, progress is slow; it comes in small, almost imperceptive, increments. Occasionally, a revelation will occur. I posted recently about something as inane as experimenting with the tension of the bow hair and how it impacted my playing. Similarly, I just wiped the slate clean regarding my bow grip.
I play German bow and - via a wonderful & informative post on YouTube - I discovered that within the German-bow-playing community, there are several variations of bow grips. And, interestingly, a few of those variations have their development based in their country of origin. Until viewing this clip, I did not know that there were specific American, German, and Viennese (or Austrian) versions of holding the German style bow.
Upon further investigation, I discovered that the "German" version of the German bow grip felt particularly comfortable to me and afforded me a great deal of power, control and dexterity I had not enjoyed before. (I surmised that since they invented the German bow that perhaps they knew what they were doing!).
So, another step in this ongoing journey of discovery replete with many obstacles, defeats, and yes, the occasional victory.
Until next time,
Adam