Techniques to tame a fretless bass

SMILEYSIXX · #1 04-13-2011, 09:13 AM

I just got a fretless lined bass and am having some trouble getting my fingers to land just right. Are there any excercises or techniques to improve this. I had wanted to use it at a school concert where I'll be playing latin fusion and figured the fretless sound would go great, but I can't seem to get it right...

bassteban · #2 04-13-2011, 09:26 AM

Play along w/recorded music- you should be able to hear when you're off, and correct yourself. You can also play w/a tuner- this will tell you when you are out as well. Keep in mind that the lines are not the last word in pitch- they tell/show you approximately where to *fret* the note, but you will benefit hugely from training your ears & hands to quickly auto-correct. Lastly & obviously, practice a lot. Hope this helps.

Deathblade Eric · #3 04-13-2011, 12:16 PM

^^^ This.

Drag out your 'usual suspects' playlist of tunes you like to jam to - anything will do provided you already know it inside out.

It'll take a little while to adjust, but as you already know them, muscle memory will get you in the ballpark & your ears will get you the rest of the way.

I found it a real eye-opener as to just how sloppy frets make you - took me a couple of weeks to get it down.

P.

SMILEYSIXX · #4 04-13-2011, 12:43 PM

I'll try my regular jam songs. One of my favorites is Tom Sawyer and I was running through the solo, and it didn't even sound the same

JTE · #5 04-13-2011, 12:51 PM

Start with simple groove stuff, especially ones that have rather long held notes. That gives you plenty of time to compare your pitch to the recording and be sure that you are indeed in tune and not just close. More naked the track is, the better you'll hear your pitch.

Another thing is to practice basic arpeggios and the major scales, slowly. Sing what you're playing and listen carefully to get it all in tune. The ultimate goal is to make it so (other than obvious tonal differences) you can't tell you're playing fretless. What's the point of that you ask? Because you want the pitch bending to be at your command- you want it to happen because you hear the music that way, not because you have lousy command of the instrument and so don't have any other option EXCEPT to be out of tune.

Have fun! I think getting a fretless back in '87 was one of the most significant steps on my improvement as a musician, and a way of finding my voice on the bass.

John

bottomzone · #6 04-13-2011, 01:23 PM

Maybe this will help:

Fretless Bass with Yves Carbonne : Melodic Exercice for Intonation and Technique | Bass Musician Magazine [the face of bass]

A Groove is a Terrible Thing to Waste!

Skitch it! · #7 04-13-2011, 01:42 PM

Practising against open strings I find useful, a 5 is handy for this because of an extra open reference note. Spend some time all over the range of the neck, intonation within the first 4 frets is a different immediate visual position (slightly forward) fingertipwise compared to from the 12th fret onward where you tend to back off the lines a little.

Practise double-stop Octaves and double-stop 5th's, these are quite tricky to intone accurately all over the neck with the scale difference, develop the muscle memory in different areas.

**251** · #8 04-13-2011, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bottomzone

Maybe this will help:

Fretless Bass with Yves Carbonne : Melodic Exercice for Intonation and Technique | Bass Musician Magazine [the face of bass]

A Groove is a Terrible Thing to Waste!

Perfect. Thx. 8-)