Bass guitar vs. upright bass

[GIBrat51]

Are they the same thing?
If you can play bass guitar, can you play upright bass?
Or are they as different as night and day?

I have a friend with an upright bass for sale for $2k. It even has an EM pickup in it, even though it's an acoustic bass.
What do I do? Grab it in the hopes of playing it someday?
Or is it so different that I'll never learn it?

Well...
First of all; I'm sort of adverse to telling people what to do. Or, what to buy. However, here's what I think about the subject - in general terms;
- If you can play a bass guitar, can you play an upright bass? Some people can; some people need lots of practice. And, some people can't do it at all. Personally? I can't play an upright bass - for several reasons. And, yes; I have tried - a couple 3 times... it did not end well...
- Are they as different as night and day? Well... IMO? Not quite. Leo Fender developed his electric bass guitar as a handy, compact substitute for the upright bass, and the first people to use them were, indeed, upright bass players. Who, apparently, had little trouble switching from one to the other. But... yes, the way they're played is quite different. But, not different enough that most people can - and do - adapt...
The main difference is that upright basses are fretless. And, most electric guitars are fretted. But, there are a good selection of fretless bass guitars, both lined, and unlined. Which brings me to -
- Learning to play a fretless bass. It takes 2 things to play an unlined fretless bass; a good sense of pitch, and lots of practice. I have 4 fretless electric basses in my "Herd" - but, they're all lined. There's a thin line of contrasting material where the frets would be; so, playing one of them is pretty much like playing a fretted electric bass. I need the lines, because I'm pretty much tone deaf; I can't really tell - by ear - what note I'm playing. Which, to play an unlined fretless bass - upright or electric - you sort of need to do. And, to do it? Takes lots of practice...
So... what should you do? I'm not going to tell you what to do - other than "please yourself". If you have a decent ear for pitch, and you want to give it a try? Go ahead. My main problems with an upright bass - aside from not having a lined fingerboard - are that I'm very left handed; and very, very few upright basses are leftys. Plus, I have a badly damaged left shoulder, and putting that arm in the position it need to be in to pluck an upright's strings, is very painful after a couple of minutes. So... I, personally, cannot play an upright bass. However... that doesn't mean that you can't play one. Try your friend's upright, and decide for yourself...

 

[turf3]

Well, "tried three times to play upright" isn't actually the way you go about it, at least not for the vast majority of people. All the violin family instruments are far easier to gain skill if you have a qualified instructor and follow a standard course of instruction. These things have been played for many hundreds of years and the standard pedagogy is pretty well established, as the most effective way to get people playing accurately with an efficient use of time and effort. Thinking you can go it alone almost always ( but not always always, so spare us all the recitation of the six prominent players who taught themselves how to play upright bass at a professional level) - almost always results in weak sound, poor intonation, bad timing, and early abandonment of the project.

By contrast, the bass guitar's only been around some 70 years and it's only been seriously studied as an instrument in itself for about 50. Pedagogy is far less established. Plus, there are two things you don't have to master - the frets give you your tuning, and the pickups and amplifier give you the sound. Sure, the way you play the strings has AN effect on the sound, but on upright it IS the sound. So "pick it up by myself" leads to pleasing results far sooner on electric bass than on upright.

That's just the way it is.

So technique wise, not all that much really transfers over other than the notes are in analogous places.

Musically, I don't think all that much transfers over either. It's very easy usually for me to detect an amateur musician who's started out on bass guitar and has recently taken up upright - aside from technique shortcomings, they play TOO DAMN MUCH. The ease of executing technical patterns on electric bass means that electric-bass-characteristic musical patterns and playing styles are really quite different than upright bass-characteristic ones.

So, sure, you're playing the bass role, but things that sound good on electric, often don't sound good on upright.

It seems that most of the people we're hearing from here who fiddled around with an upright bass and then gave up because "it's too hard" or some other reason, did just that - fooled around with one lying around the band hall, then found that you don't just get notes out of it, and gave up. Which is fine, but it's not characteristic of the experience of people who actually take lessons, in a standard method, from a qualified instructor, and practice. Just like you wouldn't expect to be able to "pick up" the violin, or be able to buy a set of golf clubs, mess around a bit in your back yard, and go shoot an 85 on the local course, or read a book on swimming and jump into the pool and win the big race.

 

[Jason Sypher]

Well, "tried three times to play upright" isn't actually the way you go about it, at least not for the vast majority of people. All the violin family instruments are far easier to gain skill if you have a qualified instructor and follow a standard course of instruction. These things have been played for many hundreds of years and the standard pedagogy is pretty well established, as the most effective way to get people playing accurately with an efficient use of time and effort. Thinking you can go it alone almost always ( but not always always, so spare us all the recitation of the six prominent players who taught themselves how to play upright bass at a professional level) - almost always results in weak sound, poor intonation, bad timing, and early abandonment of the project.

By contrast, the bass guitar's only been around some 70 years and it's only been seriously studied as an instrument in itself for about 50. Pedagogy is far less established. Plus, there are two things you don't have to master - the frets give you your tuning, and the pickups and amplifier give you the sound. Sure, the way you play the strings has AN effect on the sound, but on upright it IS the sound. So "pick it up by myself" leads to pleasing results far sooner on electric bass than on upright.

That's just the way it is.

So technique wise, not all that much really transfers over other than the notes are in analogous places.

Musically, I don't think all that much transfers over either. It's very easy usually for me to detect an amateur musician who's started out on bass guitar and has recently taken up upright - aside from technique shortcomings, they play TOO DAMN MUCH. The ease of executing technical patterns on electric bass means that electric-bass-characteristic musical patterns and playing styles are really quite different than upright bass-characteristic ones.

So, sure, you're playing the bass role, but things that sound good on electric, often don't sound good on upright.

It seems that most of the people we're hearing from here who fiddled around with an upright bass and then gave up because "it's too hard" or some other reason, did just that - fooled around with one lying around the band hall, then found that you don't just get notes out of it, and gave up. Which is fine, but it's not characteristic of the experience of people who actually take lessons, in a standard method, from a qualified instructor, and practice. Just like you wouldn't expect to be able to "pick up" the violin, or be able to buy a set of golf clubs, mess around a bit in your back yard, and go shoot an 85 on the local course, or read a book on swimming and jump into the pool and win the big race.

Yeah. I took a few lessons and then taught myself and I still regret it. Although I can do many things, I always have to approach things backwards solving physical problems before music ones. If I had a more solid foundation, all over the bass, in the first place I could have gotten to a lot more music.

 

[Kubicki Fan]

Outstanding advice! From J_Bass:

Upright bass?.............lessons!!!!!!!!!!!

"Upright, completely different." "Much more difficult to play the double bass."

I used to have an upright. Love the sound! Upright is the true bass!

I said, "used to have an upright". Was way, way, way too hard for me to play! But, my wife thought that it was excellent living room décor! ha ha ha Sold it after about 15 yrs.

View attachment 7438146

Jaco didn't need no teacher

 

[tvbop]

I went from decades of playing electric bass to having a go at Cello. It damn near nearly killed me and that was just tuning the thing!. Four years in and Im doing ok now and loving it....What Im saying is as mentioned above you gotta commmit 100% plus serious study to a stringed instrument. In fact I tried a double basss and it actually felt harder than the cello.

 

[Danny O Danny]

I love the sound of upright bass but lack the experience/training, and went through a similar decision process of whether or not I wanted to allocate the time, effort, money, tuition, maintenance costs, physical space, transport hassles, etc. to undertake upright bass later in life (after playing bass guitars for nearly 50 years). I ultimately came to a decision that I'd be satisfied approximating an upright bass using a Rob Allen. It's worked out well for me.

On the other hand, a friend of mine, with no upright experience, went the other route and bought a really nice upright from a friend of his who had retired from playing (due to physical ailments). My friend has, over the last couple of years, invested the time and effort and money for proper lessons, practice, etc., and has been very happy with the results, to the point that he has decided to focus his attention primarily on upright bass instead of bass guitar, and to gig primarily on upright.

 

[GypsyBilly]

I dunno, maybe you think they're the same?

I don't know about you, but watching that upright player causes two reactions in me: (1) laughing out loud at the impossibility of ever coming close to that; (2) glad I don't play bass for Oscar Peterson, or anyone of that caliber, or uptempo jazz in general... LOL

I love listening to it, but just thinking about attempting to play that exhausts me. There aren't enough years in my life to develop skills like that.

 

[bass player 53]

I don't know about you, but watching that upright player causes two reactions in me: (1) laughing out loud at the impossibility of ever coming close to that; (2) glad I don't play bass for Oscar Peterson, or anyone of that caliber, or uptempo jazz in general... LOL

I love listening to it, but just thinking about attempting to play that exhausts me. There aren't enough years in my life to develop skills like that.

You and me both! NHOP was a child prodigy, who turned pro at 15. He had total command of the jazz language, soloed like the very best horn player, and had unequaled technique. Oscar Peterson with Ray Brown was fantastic, then the 'chops' era took over with NHOP and Joe Pass. Totally amazing facility and fluidity by all, with tremendous swing.

 

[Jason Sypher]

I love the sound of upright bass but lack the experience/training, and went through a similar decision process of whether or not I wanted to allocate the time, effort, money, tuition, maintenance costs, physical space, transport hassles, etc. to undertake upright bass later in life (after playing bass guitars for nearly 50 years). I ultimately came to a decision that I'd be satisfied approximating an upright bass using a Rob Allen. It's worked out well for me.

View attachment 7439725

On the other hand, a friend of mine, with no upright experience, went the other route and bought a really nice upright from a friend of his who had retired from playing (due to physical ailments). My friend has, over the last couple of years, invested the time and effort and money for proper lessons, practice, etc., and has been very happy with the results, to the point that he has decided to focus his attention primarily on upright bass instead of bass guitar, and to gig primarily on upright.

I was referring to this earlier but I couldn't remember the name. I thought it sounded pretty great for a substitute for upright. Gets you a sound and you can still play what you might normally play on electric.

 

[Lionel Albert]

Well, I said... Indifferent...
I'd been playing the bass guitar for 15 years with kind of Simandl fingering.
When I switched to double bass two years ago, everything came easily... And now since I don't really go back to the bass guitar, when I pick a bass guitar I tend to play more in a polyphonic way, the same way I'm comping on a guitar (bass lines + 3rd & 7th) or I'm more into one finger per fret.
I has opened something.
By the way if I had never played the bass guitar before, I wouldn't be a double bass player now. I don't say I'm a double bass player, they do say I am. So I should accept it now.
I have never played with another double bass player, so I'm not very aware of my playing.
Nobody asks me anymore the way I learnt, they don't care anymore.
They've got their double bass player and it's me.
So... In a social context, double bass can be very different, even if a bass guitar can really make the job, people love listening with their eyes.
In a certain way, double bass is different.

Oh yes ! I forgot ! Bowing, feeling the sound in the body, thumb position, sustain, vibrato, soloing...
Double bass is so fun to play ! It's spicy !

 

[jdjk7]

Are they the same thing?
If you can play bass guitar, can you play upright bass?
Or are they as different as night and day?

I have a friend with an upright bass for sale for $2k. It even has an EM pickup in it, even though it's an acoustic bass.
What do I do? Grab it in the hopes of playing it someday?
Or is it so different that I'll never learn it?

No, they're not the same. But I will say that having years playing fretless bass before picking up an upright made the transition significantly easier.

 

[Jason Sypher]

No, they're not the same. But I will say that having years playing fretless bass before picking up an upright made the transition significantly easier.

This makes sense. Understanding intonation. There's a lot of information in fretless that transfers.

 

[jdjk7]

This makes sense. Understanding intonation. There's a lot of information in fretless that transfers.

This, but also more specifically the muscle memory of having to hit a precise spot on the string, particularly when you're not looking at it.