ex-guitarists who moved to E-C strung bass?

[nostatic]

I've recently gotten into doing comping and other stuff on 4-string bass and am starting to work up some arrangements for various tunes. I pulled my old acoustic out but I've been struck by some of the really nice work that guys do just on bass. While I can get some of the voicings in my head out on my 24'fret 4-string, I can see that having an extra high string would help a lot. But with 40+ years of playing a guitar rattling around in my brain I'm wondering about adding a high C to the mix (on a 5-string strung E-C). To be honest chords make a lot more sense to me on bass with constant 4ths tuning. I never really "got" jazz guitar voicings and in fact when I wanted to start playing jazz some 25 years ago I changed instruments from guitar to bass.

Anyone else with a lot of years on guitar move to E-C tuning and if so any issues?

[thewildest]

I am an ex-guitar player that not long ago discovered that was a bassist.... I guess, i've always been one, i've just "came out of the Marshall and now I dig the Ampeg". :^). In my case, I got into a Yamaha trb-6ii (BEADGC) and a Conklin BDGT (BEADGCF). I have to admit that at first i was temped to tune the basses as guitars are when using standard tuning, but perfect forths across the instrument brings a lot of peace to your brain, as you do not have to decode this crazy minor third right in the middle of the instrument. It may take some effort to adapt your chord voicings but at the time of improvising the instrument makes way more sense than the guitar....

[eightyearsapril]

I guess I'm an ex-guitarist (I switched from guitar to bass about 25 years ago, when I was in high school). I have three basses, two four strings and one five strings. The four string models are tuned EADG, whereas the five is tuned C#ADGC (the low E string is tuned down to C#).

[bassbenj]

Originally Posted by thewildest

I am an ex-guitar player that not long ago discovered that was a bassist.... I guess, i've always been one, i've just "came out of the Marshall and now I dig the Ampeg". :^). In my case, I got into a Yamaha trb-6ii (BEADGC) and a Conklin BDGT (BEADGCF). I have to admit that at first i was temped to tune the basses as guitars are when using standard tuning, but perfect forths across the instrument brings a lot of peace to your brain, as you do not have to decode this crazy minor third right in the middle of the instrument. It may take some effort to adapt your chord voicings but at the time of improvising the instrument makes way more sense than the guitar....

Actually I still play guitar (usually to accompany my singing) And for chords on bass I tend to prefer a 6 string although I do own a conklin 7 string (BEADGCF) but I still need some learning on the 7 string chords. And since (like B.B. King) I "never was much for chords" on the guitar I never had a big impetus to transfer my meager guitar chord knowledge to bass. Hence I've all ways played tuned in perfect 4ths using the advantage that you can move all patterns around up and down and left and right.

And as to the question of E-C, I have a Carvin AC50 5 string semi-hollow body (don't come in a 6er) that I was using for blues a lot and I wanted to have more upper range for solos. So I strung it E-C. Worked out just great! Currently it's back B-G because it's easier for transposing into different keys, but for solos and chords the E-C stringing seemed to work out very nicely for me.

[LeonD]

I started on guitar and added bass. Now I mostly play bass. Every five string I've ever owned has been strung E - C. I agree that chords make more sense when the instrument is strung in fourths.

One thing I've done is throw all my guitar chords out the window. I've learned three note chords using the root, third and seventh. On the right bass, they sound pretty sweet. I'm sure at some point I'll add some four note chords but these are working for now.