Double Bass All in with 5ths tuning

[Huy Nguyen]

Welp it’s been a while.
Pandemic and career related stuff took a toll on my music and now I’m interested in getting back on the horse (esp now as a new father of a 9mo old I’ll find time to practice late night on the yammie).

I managed to maintain some amount of dexterity over the last 4 years but I’ve forgotten a lot of tunes but still remember some of my fav heads in 4ths tuning. Was dabbling with guitar a bit but just realized that I still want to do more comping on the bass. the private lesson I had with Francois Moutin years ago still entices me but the guy is an absolute beast and I can’t handle the dedication to do it with the same physical as he does. Since I have to relearn everything, why not in a separate tuning? I don’t really play jam sessions anymore and mainly interested in duo and trio gigs anyway.

Am waiting on not just one but TWO sets of 5ths tuning to arrive from good ol AllHailGollihur. One for each of my axes and happy to face snagged the last spiro weichs as they are now discontinued. In the meantime, I tuned up the Yammie in CDGA (it’s so tense it almost works ok) and started the journey.

i notice my frames of reference has to naturally change. Before I used to anchor mentally around the open strings and at the harmonics. Now it’s more about referencing the c scale starting in the g string (with the open C string s as a second reference point). 251s have a different feel and somehow better for money notes. I think in 4ths I tend to go up in pitch. Playing the 3rd of the scale is easier to shift to a lower string in 5ths (opposite in 4ths) and leads down more often.

just messing about for a few hours and realizing that I was more intimidated by it in the past than necessary.

Wish PDub was still around to tell him I’m finally doing it. Hope you are all well.

 

[Tom Lane]

It's about the journey. Break a leg!

 

[JBarz]

Welcome! I sometimes wish we had our own support group — errr, I mean ‘sub-forum’ — on TB for 5ths tuning. It’s a different world, for sure. ‘All-in’ is appropriate and advised. This is the way.

 

[Don Hergert]

... I sometimes wish we had our own support group — errr, I mean ‘sub-forum’ — on TB for 5ths tuning. ...

You could create your own "5ths tuning club" type of thread somewhere here in TB/DB. Sort of an old concept, but it does work.

 

[Sam Sherry]

Welp it’s been a while. . . (esp now as a new father of a 9mo old ).

CONGRATULATIONS are in order, Huy!

 

[Papageno]

In the meantime, I tuned up the Yammie in CDGA (it’s so tense it almost works ok) and started the journey.

I suspect you mean CGDA..., coz "CDGA" would be quite tense indeed...

 

[Huy Nguyen]

I suspect you mean CGDA..., coz "CDGA" would be quite tense indeed...

I’m still getting used to the new spellings lol

 

[Huy Nguyen]

CONGRATULATIONS are in order, Huy!

Thanks man. He’s a great kid. Introduced him to the fiddle yesterday. Up until now I’ve been humming jazz heads to him to sleep, and Sunny Side of the Street is a regular so I played it for him yesterday. He might not know how to walk or talk yet but he clapped at the end of my performance.

here he is from a few weeks ago.

 

[longfinger]

Welcome back.

Are you using cello etudes and method books to help learn the 5ths tuning fingerboard patterns?

 

[Huy Nguyen]

Nope. Gonna just use our savior Red Mitchell as my guiding light. I might break out Bach preludes at some point.

having spent the last 4-5 years learning neuroscience and how to coach I’m going to be applying my own bag to discovering how this works and gaining proficiency. Only interested in playing jazz.

also during my recent spell learning a bit of guitar, I’m inspired by the likes of Oz Noy who has a completely different but direct and authentic way of approaching his guitar. I’ll be stealing from his concept but also some of the speed exercises the jazz manouche (Gypsy jazz) guitarists use.

 

[Huy Nguyen]

I should say that it’s also how I learned 4ths running to I did start with a little bit of Simandl to get going. Once I understood the basic physical pattern I wanted to let topical jazz phrasing take over. I treat the heads as my études and chunk them into small bits and run the bits through 12 keys. Sounds simple but quite rigorous in practice. Multiple birds with one stone.

For me, it comes from a classical piano ethic that I got used to as a kid up until 21. Bird heads become my sonatas that I spend years trying to fully master.

 

[Huy Nguyen]

 

[Huy Nguyen]

Ok so it's been a little bit over a day with 5ths tuning and its weird. I have to let my brain relax and switch over to the new tuning mentally. There's like a mirror in my head where some of the finger movements are familiar but it's going in an opposite direction that I'm used to. So it's strangely familiar but not at the same time. If I relax enough, the body knows what to do and can gravitate to the right finger placements but still fighting to know cognitively which notes i'm hitting.

Found out tonight that taking an old standard I knew well (ex No Greater Love) and just playing 2-feel, walking 4s, then solooing over multiple keys seem to accelerate the process.

Some things I notice so far:
* Yes intonation is a little easier and I just have to let the notes look for the proper spacing on the strings
* In 4ths tuning, chord progressions naturally go up in pitch, in 5ths tuning you go down down down (duh).
* Extended lower register combined with the two points above make walking and soloing in the lower registers hella fun. Maybe more fun than going up into TP. Just sitting with that bottom ringing out is really really awesome.
* Reaching for the 3rd of the scale is obv harder but not too as bad as I initially thought.

 

[Reiska]

In fifths the whole arrangement of the instrument is a mirror image of fourths. I`ve been messing around with a electric cello a bit lately and it has reminded me how in some strange way fiths tuning is more intuitive and logical for me than fourths is.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Huy - first off, congratulations on the new addition to your family! Not that you need me to tell you, but that’s the biggest paradigm shift happening here. We are empty nesters now, but raising my son comes out at the top of the list of “best and most fulfilling things I’ve ever done”. Enjoy the process!

About the new tuning system - it can be done if you are obsessed enough and develop the right practice habits. In the end, like in your theory thread, music is all really just a set of intervals - vertical for pitch, horizontal for time. In both cases, the process is twofold and essentially the same as 4ths tuning in the big picture: Hear what you are going for, then find it on the bass. Wash, rinse, repeat. If you hear it, the rest will come in time.

 

[Huy Nguyen]

Huy - first off, congratulations on the new addition to your family! Not that you need me to tell you, but that’s the biggest paradigm shift happening here. We are empty nesters now, but raising my son comes out at the top of the list of “best and most fulfilling things I’ve ever done”. Enjoy the process!

About the new tuning system - it can be done if you are obsessed enough and develop the right practice habits. In the end, like in your theory thread, music is all really just a set of intervals - vertical for pitch, horizontal for time. In both cases, the process is twofold and essentially the same as 4ths tuning in the big picture: Hear what you are going for, then find it on the bass. Wash, rinse, repeat. If you hear it, the rest will come in time.

Wait… *checks join date *
WTH? Your son grew up? Man has 20 years flown by since I joined and your cute kid is now fledged to a full adult? Wow. Congrats to you too my friend. I’m having my first at the last responsible age lol.

Yeah actually it was though a lot of advice from you and knowledge of WKs approach that this has been the way. Combined with Primacy of the Ear and Lee Konitz ultra slow tempo has had a potent effect. Though my coach training and exposure to neuroscience I can now explain why all of that works and how playing what you hear is actually a totally embodied approach that accesses the total intelligence of who we are. But we have to learn to trust it and allow or to learn the way it learns.

i picked up the axe briefly this morning and already using the same approaches above I’m kinda shocked at what I’m able to do. I will attempt to record an example at the end of the week to show where I am after a full week of moderate practice. I’m still no Red Mitchell (and will never be) but I think what I’m able to do is passable.

all these years I realize how much wisdom you and others have contributed to this forum, much of it needs to be compiled into a book or guide or something. The hive mind here is pretty epic.

 

[Huy Nguyen]

OK i'm a week into this and it's not bad. The intuitiveness is starting to show up but still not consistent with the iiVI movements - which makes me think i simply need to run those arps through12 keys. There's certain things I prefer about it. The surprisingly weird thing is that the bottom is a lot more fun to play as well as playing along the length of the string bc it's more in tune. The other weird thing is that i'm less interested in playing TP for some reason.

 

[Ludwig]

If I play an instrument, I usually stay inside 2 1/2 octaves. On a bass with 4th tuning, then at the end I am in thumb position. On a bass in 5th tuning, the highest notes are still on the neck.
With soloist: they usually neglect to play the lowest notes on their instrument and therefore are in thumb position at the highest notes even in 5th tuning.
There are lots of instruments with only a range of 2 1/2 octaves or less or were notes above are only playable for virtuousi.
==> if you play your bass starting at the low end, makes sense that you do not miss / need the thumb position....

 

[Huy Nguyen]

@Ludwig or anybody else playing 5ths, do you find that the strings are less tense on your basses as compared to 4ths tuning? I put an RM set on my carved Cleveland and they were hella loud. So loud that now I’m considering jacking up the string heights even further and chasing after playing ampless.

Tonight I raised the heights up 2 full turns on my Yamaha EUB that the fundamental was shaking the floor. It’s gonna take building up some muscle again but it seems easier than before.
Thoughts?

in terms of getting used to the tuning , going back to Ed’s “Really Learning A Tune “ is a good way to acclimate. Need to do more work with this but having a lot of fun with this. Isn’t this what it’s all about?

 

[JBarz]

The most helpful thing for my brain (granted, we’re all different, of course) has been working on tunes heavy in 4ths movement (All the Things, Autumn Leaves, et all). Once the ‘opposite direction of my muscle memory’ thing clicked for me, my brain started seeing my 5-string (high E on top) as an upside and backwards guitar and that unlocked ‘all the notes’ as it were, conceptually.

Also, My NS La Scala LOVES RM Spiro 5ths tuning, too. It’s like ‘is anyone else hearing this…” kind of situation because the New Standard instruments are already so max’d out for tone and volume that when you open them up in 5ths, it really makes all those elements that make them great that much more apparent (in my experience, IMHO). That low C on the La Scala has some serious girth for such a small bodied axe….