I saw a bassist last night in a jazz ensemble. She was very good. She was also using both her index and her middle finger at once to pluck (not alternating, just treating them as one fat finger). Is there a name for this technique? Why would someone do this? I’ve been trying it out at home and it feels a bit louder and more forceful than alternating, though of course it’s harder to play fast.
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That’s the reason!
Was it on upright or electric?
I haven’t seen this much on electric, but do it all the time on the upright bass.
It’s just to get a bigger, beefier sound.
It’s doable on a lot of jazz tunes because you’re thumping out quarter note walking bass lines, so speed isn’t the focus. The focus is on giant, perfectly placed, bassy-bass notes for everyone to swing around.
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It was on electric! But maybe she also played upright. I like how it feels!
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I thought you were talking about a double stop… is that what that’s called? Anyway, thought you were talking about that for a second until I read Gio’s post.
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A double stop is playing two (usually fretted) strings at once.
Maybe we can name the two-fingers-on-one-string technique
Fat fingers
Two-for-one
Two-tone
… 
Is there a difference between this and a 2 note chord?
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I play one or two classical pieces on my bass and do that a lot. Didn’t know there was a special name for it; I just revert to my old finger picking guitar style hitting the E with my thumb and the others with first and second fingers.
No, not to my knowledge. The term chord is not really set into stone, it’s more a convention that you talk of a chord when it’s three or more notes.
On bowed instruments (violin, cello), you’d have trouble sounding more than two strings at once.
I guess that’s why double stops have their own name, similar to power chords (which might be said to have the added feature that there’s no thirds… usually).
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Technically, a double stop is a dyad, or a two-note chord fragment, rather than a full chord; with a full chord being comprised of three or more notes.
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There’s no thirds in either power chords or bass guitar dyads on the same string (which is a perfect fourth).
FWIW I never learned (for either keyboards or bass) that a chord required a triad or more notes, and have always heard dyads referred to as chords - but I could easily be wrong there as much of my theory learning was informal self study (and all of my fundamental music education was on a monophonic instrument).
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While a dyad is sometimes loosely called a “two-note chord,” strict music theory defines a chord as having at least three distinct notes (a triad), making dyads (two notes played simultaneousl, often called double-stops) fragments that imply a larger chord.
Excerpt from Rutgers Journal Article: Definitions of “Chord” in the Teaching of Tonal Harmony
In most classical tonal harmony the term ‘chord’ is usually restricted to triadic structures. To give just one instance, Laitz says: The combination of three or more different pitches creates a harmony, or chord.
There is an important distinction between just any combination of pitches and combinations that are found in tonal music. In tonal music, while we will see chords composed of many intervals, it is the third that plays a generative role. There are two types of chords in tonal music: (1) triads, or chords that comprise three distinct pitches stacked in thirds, and (2) seventh chords, or chords that have four distinct pitches stacked in thirds. (Laitz 2003: 71 [original emphasis])
The article goes way deeper into chord alternatives distinctions from that point.
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Interesting and in retrospect I think this is right - The stacked relative thirds aspect is actually the most compelling bit and obviously not all dyads are (including the perfect fourth dyad we just discussed, though of course a power chord is.)
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It’s the definition of a chord that was beaten into my skull in my college music major days. 
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Correct me if I’m looking at it the wrong way, but a double stop is more like a technique concept - play two notes simultaneously on two different strings. It’s not a theory concept, as it doesn’t imply which two notes are being played nor how they relate to one another.
Could be a 5th and you get a nice power-chord dyad. Or octaves. Or it could be unison, or just a minor second interval or… or any two notes really.
Play a double stop on a fretless and there are infinite frequency combinations possible, even.
It is a music theory precept that two simultaneously played notes (a dyad) do not a chord make.
In tonal music, a chord is defined as a series of stacked thirds. Even if an interval in a dyad is a third, it can only imply a chord; it doesn’t constitute one. At least, by classical tonal music theory definition.
I’m in violent agreement with you there, that’s just fact.
What I’m saying is the concept of “playing a double stop” in and of itself is no more music theory than “hammer-on”, “use a pick”, or “mute with your palm”.
It describes a technique that requires playing two notes simultaneously on two different strings. It says nothing about which two notes are being played or what their relationship is to one another, just that there are two notes played simultaneously.
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You’re right. Playing a double-stop on any polytonal instrument (keys, stringed, pitched percussion) is the act of playing two notes simultaneously. And that physical act definitely requires some degree of technical proficiency to play.
But what previous comments were about was what the two notes (dyad) played in any double-stop actually is (a chord?), or is not (not a chord?), in the context of tonal music theory.
Technique is the physical act of playing music. Theory is what is actually being played while playing music, in context.
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