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Double Bass All in with 5ths tuning

#41
Lee Moses said:
I'm not a 5ths player . . . but if I were remotely serious about it, I'd get shedding 5ths ASAP. Maybe you should shelve the strings for a couple of years. They'll be fine sitting for a good while, but your 5ths technique needs developing now.
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Thanks for encouragement. Honestly, I see 5ths as another flavour or colour pallet. I'm sure there's plenty of work I could do on my playing that would benefit 4ths or 5ths playing. For now, I think I'll shelve it. I can't see a great benefit in swapping at this time. I can always come back to it. What's really cool is the huge number of options we have as player these days. Strings, amps, setups, etc. And then there's the online wisdom that easily available. It's all such a blessing. I wish we had it when I was learning 30 years ago!
 
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#42
I made the mistake of playing a 4ths bass for about 20 minutes about two months ago and had all these tunes and lines under my fingers muscle memory autopilot, it was awesome. When I came home to my 5ths basses, by brain was properly confused and I’m still trying to recover, tbh. Every once in a while I’ll be thinking about grabbing a low F and accidentally lay down a fat C# or something similar. I thought at one point I could juggle both tunings, but no…
 
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#43
When I was in 5ths, I still played electric in 4ths. I would occasionally get confused and play the wrong note, but it didn't happen very often. There's no way I'd be able to switch between 4ths and 5ths on upright wthout getting confused, it has to be one or the other. Even for tunes I knew well in 4ths, if I played them in 5ths without shedding first, it would be a mess. I needed to relearn most of my repertoire. And then relearn a lot again when I went back to 4ths.
 
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#44
reverendrally said:
Hmm, I only just had these strings put on recently. And I REALLY love them for 4ths playing. Maybe I should shelve this for a couple of years til I need a string change.
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Getting the right syringe makes a big diff. I now have my Squier PJ bass in 5ths to start doing some experimenting with double stops and not have to worry about intonation and learn the fingerboard.

Life has intruded so my practicing time has gone down but I’m in this limbo between the two systems but now I’m starting to find it hard to play in 4ths when I go back to it on my fretless eb.

This will be a longer investment but I’m thinking that for jazz, 5ths is superior from the perspective of an accompanist. So much easier to go after money notes in the lower register and stay there. Note I’m starting to feel naked when I can’t go below E in the 4ths tunings. It takes a while for the ear to adjust to play that low. Soloing hasn’t been a big issue as I can play the mental diagonal playing trick to use a lot of lines I developed in 4ths tuning. Right now it’s more struggling to be accurate with more choices when walking or 2 feel. To play exactly what I hear.
 
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#45
kk been doing this for a minute now. There's no way I'm going back to tuning in 4ths. no way. There is one major (or minor!) fundamental difference.

It is nearly physically impossible to play the 1st inversion of any minor chord in 4ths tuning. Major 3rd a hell of a stretch and you won't have the fluidity that a guitarist might unless.... you're in 5ths tuning. It's basically the ability to play a 6th with a melody note on top but what matters is playing with the 3rd of the chord on the bottom. Because wider distances are easier in 5ths, you can play pretty much any chord tone with the root on top.

I kinda come from a guitar background - always wanted to do voice leading/chord melody type playing and it always seemed impossible with 4ths tuning and now i know why. Even on guitar, doing such a thing is stretching across 4 frets and a bit of a stretch. 5 frets to get to b3 of the chord but you have the ability to hit some of the other strings since there are 6 of them.

What is hard in 4ths is easy in 5ths tuning. Nailing the 3rd is either 1-2 "frets". For me it's a sort of game changer since that's how I hear music with the 3rd as the main guide tone.

Sidenote: I did also change my strings for my EB (a PBass) to match to help me learn a little easier and not worry about intonation.
 
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#46
Glad you’re ‘committed’… I agree, once you relate it to guitar fingerboard it opens lot of conceptual doors. You should consider the five string tuning with high e on top some day - it’s a trip in part for this very reason.

I played a gig the other night that made me very aware I need to spend some time shedding a couple dozen paths through ii-V7 in all keys at tempo, though. I’ve mostly been playing solo material and chordal stuff, but functional bass playing needs to be retrained from scratch. I’ll be all the better for it, but it’s time to get to work.
 
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#47
JBarz said:
Glad you’re ‘committed’… I agree, once you relate it to guitar fingerboard it opens lot of conceptual doors. You should consider the five string tuning with high e on top some day - it’s a trip in part for this very reason.

I played a gig the other night that made me very aware I need to spend some time shedding a couple dozen paths through ii-V7 in all keys at tempo, though. I’ve mostly been playing solo material and chordal stuff, but functional bass playing needs to be retrained from scratch. I’ll be all the better for it, but it’s time to get to work.
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Oh yeah I’m thinking about it. I have a 5 string fretless Ibanez as my single 4ths tuning hold out just in case I want to revisit and compare. I’ll let you know if I ever pull that trigger.

Same here, the functional stuff needs shedding.
 
#48
Btw if I ever did the 5 string thing, it’ll likely be a fretted EB. Ebs sounds great in 5ths and very pianistic. The other crazy thing I’ve been considering is a second A string. Yeah two A strings, crazy, no?

Why? Because then I can play 2nds and hit some of Monk’s voicings that use a 9b or 9.
 
#49
Huy Nguyen said:
Oh yeah I’m thinking about it. I have a 5 string fretless Ibanez as my single 4ths tuning hold out just in case I want to revisit and compare. I’ll let you know if I ever pull that trigger.

Same here, the functional stuff needs shedding.
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Octave4plus.com guy, Garry, knows how to produce the set for EB when you’re ready.
 
#50
So I decided to get a little bit more serious with my piano skills (it's been ages since I did anything seriously with it) and started to figure out that some of the new relationships in 5ths would work better if I got a little more piano chops down. I got a membership with OpenStudio and working through their beginning piano material (I was getting rusty anyway) and while learning piano, seeing how to translate some of that over to 5ths tuning.

It's an effing blast. Haven't had this much fun learning in a long time and finding new ways to apply it to bass. I'm finding just doing it for a couple days this week has also really improved my intonation since now i'm playing against something an instrument that is in tune.

Shell voicings in 5ths is a hoot and combining that with the 6ths(3rds) practicing it really opens up the pallette in massive ways. Like being able to alternative single note lines with double stops and sounds a little more pianistic. The melodies sound so much better this way. It's too much if the whole melody is all double stops, but interleaving things does wonders. I really thinkingg people should give this a try: learning both 5ths and jazz piano at the same time.
 
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#51
Ok i'm like 5 months into this mofo and still loving it. I'm still in the process of dusting off the cobwebs.

Couple additional notes:
* I'm starting to get the hang of playing heads in 5ths. It's not terrible and intonation seems easier (you can be the judge). My old bebop stuff is coming back and not as much of a struggle anymore. Some shifting and rethinking involved.
* The main reason for me is that LOVE to play the 3rd of the scale/chord for w/e reason but dropping into the lower (essentially it's a 6th) but so part of what i hear.
* For some reason, doing 8th note runs seem easier now but not if it's because of the new tuning or not.
* I particularly find sight-reading in 5ths to be EASIER. Why? Because a 5th is two lines above the current line (or two blank spaces). There's a physical correspondance on the instrument.
* You can see that I'm a wannabe pianist a little bit. I'm having fun and it's quiet a different way to play double stops. For w/e reason when it's on the next string it seems SO MUCH EASIER. I keep hearing Wes Montgomery's octave soloing in my head when I'm playing a longer phrase in double stops.
* I"m seriously enjoying the yammie. It's not the big woody Cleveland but it's fun in it's own right. I dunno. If I short on cash I can totally see getting by on this alone. I've had times where I wasn't so into but for the last year or more it's been a godsend.

So this was recorded just for kicks as part of Open Studio's Monthly Jam Session Challenge (and since I got a kid I ain't going to no live jams anytime soon! This is the closest I'll get). Man I'm a bit rusty and apologies on the sound quality - surprisingly ok given it was straight out of the iphone and recording the speaker output. This is on my Yammie SLB 200 using a KNA DB-1 pickup. Seriously looking at the Wilson K Pickup threads and gonna plunge on that pickup for this bass.

My Cleveland barely gets any playtime anymore since all my practicing starts around 11pm - 2pm (sometimes to 4pm). The pickup output goes directly into a Yamaha THR-30ii guitar pickup (it's a little wonder tbh). It has a mode for modeling bass and I just put a little bit of reverb on it.

Any feedback/comments welcome.

 
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#52
I posted in the Misc forum but here's a MuseScore file I'm using to practice working out 10ths on the D&A strings. You can obviously use this on other strings but it makes for some amazing string crossing workouts with the bow.

The idea with the Musescore file is to control playback with various tempii, as well as later on transposing it into different keys.


I'm focusing on 10ths to experiment with basically comping in 5ths tuning like a pianist would. Red Mitchell would do some of this in small doses in his recordings as well as part of soloing and two-feel comping. I suppose you can use the same exercise for working out double stops in 4ths tuning as well.
 
#53
Hey @JBarz do you get really strong sympathetic resonance on your lower string when you play? For instance, when I hit the G on my D string, it really causes the open C string to ring - kinda like a wolf tone? Basically anytime I play a note where the open unplayed string is a 5th of that note. Very noticeable with the G on the D string.
I think I have to adjust my fingering hand to mute. Or is this just me?

It's maybe too resonant lol
 
#54
i think sympathetic vibes are kind of par for the course to a certain degree. I’ve got 4 5-string 5ths basses all setup a little differently, but none have any issues with too much resonance - thank goodness. I am very OCD about after-length pitch, though, and that might have something to do with my luck. Are you getting perfect 4ths or 5ths in your afterlength tuning once your strings settle?
 
#55
I messed around with the afterlengths and used an eliminator but it didn’t do that much. I’m just not used to the own strings tuning out so loudly so it throws me off when I’m playing a G arpeggio and the open C starts sounding. Went on YouTube and looked at a vid about wolf tones and I just tracked it up to be last for the course as the cellists just manual deal with it through muting. I recorded myself playing and I think it’s just one of those things we notice more than say someone in the audience. It didn’t really show up in the recording.

If anything I might use a scrunchie like the EB guys do. Otherwise I don’t think it’s going away.
 
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#56
Ok about 7 months into this thing now and I'm finally feeling comfortable with the tuning. I'm not shedding super hard, just a few hours each night when the kiddo's in bed. Am able to play some bebop. For whatever reason, I feel like I know the notes on the fingerboard better in 5ths than in 4ths. odd. The intonation is a lot easier and is the biggest standout benefit. Arco in 5ths is a lot of fun too. I find myself relying on open strings more strangely.

I haven't work out all the tricks in double stops just yet but obv @JBarz is already playing chords with it. Seems like there's so much possibilities with double stops and triads. To anybody thinking about making the switch - I'd say do it. It's not as bad as i thought but it helps to go cold turkey if you can.
 
#57
Now I'm starting to have fun. Not even thinking about 4ths anymore and starting to break free of the old habits in 4ths. I spent the last few weeks working on my time feel during soloing and getting better but still needs work. I'm also finding a lot of Red Mitchell albums now where he's playing melody and also comping more chords on bass. Good inspiration.

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You get used to the big shifts after a while. One thing I've been noticing lately is that I know where the notes sit better bc the intonation can be heard easier. C on the G-string (A string in 4ths tuning) is much further up on the neck than i remember so now it's about locking that feeling of that note and gripping it into place.
 
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#60
Fun with double stops. Only about a month or so of working through Olivier Babaz's material on Discover Double Bass. Somewhere along the line just today I start noticing that my LH fingering using the 3rd finger is creeping in with the lower positions. I don't know where that started.


Cmmcm12345 said:
Joel Quarrington.s website includes a thesis by a student covering Fifths Tuning in Jazz... Very interesting!!!
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Yeah it's been around for a while and you prompted me to read it again. IMO there are yet to be discovered things. I'm assuming you're referring to the analysis of Red's playing. There are more recently publised online recordings of him playing arco with tremendous amount of skill. I think the role of acro in his ability to adapt is understated.
 
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