Mr. Seaton, I have a question reguarding intonation. My bass instructor unfortunately had to move to California and I'm having trouble finding a suitable one to replace him.
I am obviously forced to teach and practice myself for the time being. My question is, how does one work on intonation by himself? Currently I start doing scales while staring at an electronic tuner and trying to "learn" the notes. I'm not improving at all.
I'm very very close but not dead on. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks!

Hi Sippy,
Sorry you lost your teacher, but keep working on your own until you can find another. You may have to drive a ways to find one, but it would be worth it. You said you practice while "staring" ar an electronic tuner. Make sure you are not forgetting to use your ears. Having a concept of the pitch in your head before you play is very useful. With a metronome, play the first note of a scale or arpeggio for four beats, sing the next note for four beats, then play it for four beats etc. until you go through the whole thing. Do it again and sing it in your head only, making no audible sound with your mouth. Now play it singing while you play. Now again singing only in your head while you play. Be consistent with fingerings. Of course, it is important to use many different fingerings, but concentrate on one set at a time for a while. Make sure you are using the intended fingering through the repetitions. Later you can mix things up more quickly.
Part two: Pracitce scales and arps. with a pitch drone from a tuner. Practice with a chord from a keyboard. (I used to play a chord on the piano and hold the pedal down with my foot.) You also can put coins or weights on an electric keyboard. Use Band in the Box to create a sequence of chords to practice scales and arps. with. Practice scales and arps. with a play a long record like an Aebersold. Always have the pitch in mind. Notice any physical tendencies when you shift like always being sharp or flat on certain notes. Mentally tell yourself to change those things on the next repetition.
Over time, this should help you.

Wow thanks for the reply! That is some great information! I'll give that a shot. When it comes to the audible definition of a note I can identify if it's wrong but not if it's sharp or flat so I'm getting there.
I've been doing some ear training like mad but if I do it for an hour... by 20 minutes into it I am great at it... then I come back the next day and I'm terrible. I guess I just have to keep practicing. Also, do you buy into the "For intonation use a bow" stuff? Thanks!

Hi again,
Yes, I "buy into" the bow stuff for many things. It does present the fundamental of the pitch more than the other partials very well. Sometimes it is more painfully clear!!! I beleive in practicing with the bow and Pizzicato.
Lynn

Lynn,
Great presentation of playing along with a piano playing a chord on piano then holding down the sustain pedal with your foot while playing bass. Been doing that for years. I use a 3 foot length of 1x3 lumber with one end on the sustain pedal - it makes a great lever on the pedal. You can even fasten the board to pedal with duct tape but be carefull not to get adhesive on the top surface of the sustain pedal or the next time you sit and play at the piano you will find that you have turned into a cocktail pianist - ha ha.

In listening to the many hours of Bill Evans recordings Bill would often just play a standard 4th voicing for an e minor 11 in the middle register for the bass to tune to. E, A, D, G.

Win Hinkle

Hi Win,
I thought that was you on the other post, but this one you signed, so I know. I like to tune to a sus chord too. Then I can find the "cracks" in the pitch of a less than perfectly tuned piano.

I just had an idea from your response, Lynn. Whynot make a keyboard that would sustain forever whenever you played a chord!
it could be a switch that you set before playing. I just bought a cheap keyboard from a pawn shop for use on the bus while touring. Whne I get home with my soldering iron I'll try to rig such a circuit. That way you could really workout on a complex chord. I guess you could do the same with any keyboard that had a record and playback function. I maybe could add a simple digital recorder.

Win
On the road in CA

Hi Win,
Let us know how your "sustainus infinitus keyboard" works out.
Lynn

Hi Lynn and all of you. Great to have you here. I actually met you years ago in Barcelona (Where I'm from originally, I live in NY now) while you were playing at Jamboree. I still remember your song "Major's Grand Slam". Beautiful!

Now to the point:
I have been practicing with a computer for years now, and I can imput any crazy chords, scales, melodic progressions, tunes, meter changes, different tempos... But it's especially great for the intonation. I think that a synth piano sound has a lot less harmonic "richness" than an acoustic piano, the frequencies are more "pure" and therefore it's a little trickier to play in tune with it. That has made my intonation improve, and as Lynn points out I think that I can hear it much better just in general.
I also found out that if I get to sound "OK" playing along with the computer (for example walking or soloing over a specific tune) I will sound much better at it in a real performance context with human fellow musicians... Still trying to figure out why. Any ideas?

Cheers all

Alexis

Hi Alexis,
Some thoughts on why you sound better with real people after practice with the computer:
Obviously, just the fact that you are practicing music in the context of a tune helps! Practicing fundamentals (scales, arpeggios etc.) is important, but so is practicing the act of improvisation in real time by walking and soloing.
It is a fixed pitch to reference your intonation.
The tempo is constant so when you refine your time where the groove is there without any concerns about where you place the beat and don't stray from the time, you can make others comfortable with your groove. This is also helped by metronome practice.
If you are listening to the voicings on the computer, you can hear how your walking lines contribute or hinder the harmony.
All of this all can also work with play a longs (like Aebersold).
The main thing to remember is that there is no interaction, so don't get into the practice of treating live people like a play a long by turning off your ears. When there are people to interact with, do so!

Thanks for your answer Lynn

Just in case someone else might be interested in this, I'd like to add that if I practice over a tune, I'll spend some time at the keyboard looking for nice voicings with voice leading, different dominant alterations and all, then I'll put it in the computer, I'll try real time input as much as possible... That helps me to understand much better how the tune works, and hear it (as you were suggesting). I use just either Finale or Protools for that, just the comping, no drums (better for my time!). Protools is good because then you can record yourself with the comping and listen.

Cheers

Alexis

If anybody isn't familiar with Alex's playing, I highly recommend visiting his website and checking out the sound files. He's a great cat and a wonderful player and composer.

He's also recently begun a collective of musicians in Brooklyn who have been promoting music in a variety of venues and media; I'm sure with a littel encouragement we could not only get him to talk a little bit about that here (maybe as an article?) and if you're trying to get things going in your area, may be able to give some helpful hints....

That article would be a wonderful addition to this site. Alexis, I hope you will write something about your experiences.

Hi guys

Ed, thanks for the kind words. As a matter of fact I wrote an article about the incepton, goals and functionins of the BJU collective for the January's issue of Allaboutjazz. Here's the link http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=24297

You can also check out the BJU website at http://www.brooklynjazz.org. It has profiles, music and news of all the members. I am producing a series of podcasts about each BJU bandleader. Next one will be my own profile... will let you know about that.

Hope you guys find it interesting

Alexis

I just had an idea from your response, Lynn. Whynot make a keyboard that would sustain forever whenever you played a chord!
it could be a switch that you set before playing. I just bought a cheap keyboard from a pawn shop for use on the bus while touring. Whne I get home with my soldering iron I'll try to rig such a circuit. That way you could really workout on a complex chord.

I've had a keyboard that will do this for the last 10 years or so!

So my cheap Roland keyboard has a foot pedal socket - when I play and hit the foot pedal, the chord will sustain indefinitely until I put my foot on it again.

I have used this a lot to practice playing over unusual chords!

Most fun is to construct chords using 4ths rather than 3rds - a la Scriabin!! :p

Having a concept of the pitch in your head before you play is very useful. With a metronome, play the first note of a scale or arpeggio for four beats, sing the next note for four beats, then play it for four beats etc. until you go through the whole thing. Do it again and sing it in your head only, making no audible sound with your mouth. Now play it singing while you play. Now again singing only in your head while you play. Be consistent with fingerings.

Lynn are you suggesting you develop a sense of perfect pitch? I always thought that this is something that you either have or don't have. Determining whether a note is out of tune relative to something else (thats in tune) I would find doable. But relative to a note remembered(created??) in my head would seem to be something I'd find difficult to have much success with if any

No, I think Lynn is talking more about an expectation of pitch, that is, before you play a note, you have an idea of what the sound is going to be like before you play it. It's not grabbing notes out of the air, but once I play the root of a scale or phrase or whatever, I should have the sound of the rest of the notes in my ear/head. And what my hands are doing is NOT trying to play a geographic spot on the fingerboard, but make the sound in my head come out on my instrument.

Clearer?

Clearer?

Indeed it is. What your talking about is still relative pitch but really well developed. Ed your knowledge knows no bounds

All I'm doing is coughing up stuff I've been working on with my teacher for the last ten years or so. Joe's the greatest.

Ed,
Thank you for your additions to this forum. You have wise words to offer! Yes, the expectation of pitch is a great way to describe it. Shadow said "relative to a note remembered(created??) in my head would seem to be something I'd find difficult to have much success with if any" To this I suggest giving the process a try. It has helped people in the past, and may help you. Wycliff Gordon talks about how useful the ability to sing everything one plays. This is in line with Ed's wonderful point: " what my hands are doing is NOT trying to play a geographic spot on the fingerboard, but make the sound in my head come out on my instrument."

Wycliff Gordon talks about how useful the ability to sing everything one plays. This is in line with Ed's wonderful point: " what my hands are doing is NOT trying to play a geographic spot on the fingerboard, but make the sound in my head come out on my instrument."

That's what it's all about. My own personal rule is, "If I can't sing it, I shouldn't try to play it until I can." When something is heard before it hits the hands, it tends to come out sounding like music. When it's only heard after it's played on the instrument, it tends to sound like typing to me. Pianists are especially guilty of this, but I see plenty of bassists fall prey to this mode of playing as well, and it's much worse when a bassist does it because it tends to wreak havoc with intonation.

That's what it's all about. My own personal rule is, "If I can't sing it, I shouldn't try to play it until I can." When something is heard before it hits the hands, it tends to come out sounding like music. When it's only heard after it's played on the instrument, it tends to sound like typing to me. Pianists are especially guilty of this, but I see plenty of bassists fall prey to this mode of playing as well, and it's much worse when a bassist does it because it tends to wreak havoc with intonation.

- This is an old one, it certainly works but there are limits. I limit this approach to to lines that sing, if I have a student working on a Vivaldi sonata or anything that seems to be for a vocal tradition, I have them sing along.
For sure if a person wants play melodic lines like Chris it you need to work on singing them.
The other side of this coin is that if I could sing everything I want to play I wouldn't lug the bass around!
Part of playing an instrument is to get beyond what you can do without one.
Also, part of improvising with others is getting beyond the self and the limits of your own imagination.

Unfortunately there is no one catch all phrase, adadge or approach to get this beast of an instrument together!
We need the ear, the abilty to sing some of what we play, knowledge of the fingerboard, muscle memory, solid positions, etc.
We need to have a variety of resources available so that if any one approach is not working for a particular situation you have others that will.

Ed,
Thank you for your additions to this forum. You have wise words to offer! Yes, the expectation of pitch is a great way to describe it. Shadow said "relative to a note remembered(created??) in my head would seem to be something I'd find difficult to have much success with if any" To this I suggest giving the process a try. It has helped people in the past, and may help you. Wycliff Gordon talks about how useful the ability to sing everything one plays. This is in line with Ed's wonderful point: " what my hands are doing is NOT trying to play a geographic spot on the fingerboard, but make the sound in my head come out on my instrument."
You guys keep it up, I'm gonna get the BigEgoHead!

Siriusly, I'm struggling with this stuff the way everybody else is and I'm glad that I can pass along anything I've managed to kludge together over the last 30 years or so.

Vis a vis the whole "expectation of pitch" thang, there's a nice article in an old DOUBLE BASSIST that talks about that very thing, albeit with an approach for teaching very young players....

Hi Lynn and company,

Just a note to say I'm "lurking". Interesting, timeless topics you're investigating. I like the "sing it first" idea. I also use that in my instruction. I think that singing in general generates a more vocal approach to playing. I'm always glad to see my students singing in choral groups or solo or whatever.

JF

This lively discussion is wonderful. Let's all remember there are a lot of ways to play the bass. It is indeed important to have a large pallette of musical ideas and techniques from which to draw so we can make choices. Ideally, our choices are not dictated by our musical knowledge or technical ability. Great music can be made by some people with out much knowledge or ability. The same is true for some with a lot of both. Conversely, bad music can be made by both types of parties and everything in between. What works for some does not work for all. If we were all the same, how boring that would be!! This forum is a place to share ideas. Thank you all for sharing.