• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Cello Player Trying Electric Bass

#21
Welcome to TalkBass!

I would learn bass tuned EADG. With your hand mechanics already good to go it will still be easier than starting bass from no experience at all. But common patterns in modern music will cease to exist in 5ths tuning. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it wouldn't be as "fluid" as playing in standard tuning. You'll get it. Just be patient.

Good luck with it!
 
#22
Max Marsh said:
To everyone: when you play do you actually think of the notes or just the pattern? I regret that I learned positions and not notes so should I focus on learning the notes themselves or just the tab (if I got that term wrong sorry).

And I am able to read the notes it just does not come naturally
Click to expand...
Ah yes, sounds like you're coming from a formal/classical environment.

Rock is very different; it's very much a form that would best be described as improvised, but within a very specific structure.

You can get sheet music for any song out there, but I will guarantee you that 99.99% of rock music was created using 0% sheet music.

I'd say the best approach will be to learn the patterns/shapes of major and minor scales, while at the same learn some easy songs by ear so you can start to recognize how these fit together.

If your plan is to eventually get out and play in the popular/rock genre, you've got to learn to play by ear. Your existing musical background is still a huge plus here - it might not seem like it right away, but after a bit it'll come together for you.
 
  • Like
Reactions: AztecViking and Orion1985
#23
BruceWane said:
Hmmm... as an experienced player, it's kind of easy to forget how much time and effort went in to just playing notes without buzzing, getting your right and left hands really synchronized, etc. Don't discount that.

Coming from cello, there's a lot of mechanics that will transfer, especially if you've got good pizzicato skills.

Due to tuning (4ths versus 5ths), you'll have less range in a given position, so you'll be moving around the neck a bit more.
Click to expand...
You are right of course. I was simply responding to things like tunings and the search for written music. I think as a bass player we tend to find that much of the sheet music for rock songs is transcribed by someone sitting at a piano and misses much of the nuance of the bass parts. More to the point, learning by ear and memorizing songs is probably something more common on bass than for a cellist.
 
#24
Some years ago, I played in a band with a cellist. He played an electric 5 string cello in this particular band, but he was a traditionally trained classical cellist and played the normal instrument in various orchestras in the area. He was also a pretty competent keyboard player (he also wrote extensively on the subject of electronic keyboards and synths).

He played bass just fine and I don't think he had too much trouble moving from one instrument to the other.
As BruceWane, mentions above, you are already a musician in the sense that you know scales, rhythm, the idea of technique, and how to develop it (on one instrument at least), so I would just think of it as another instrument and learn it on its own terms .. normal bass tuning, and reading bass clef.

I would also point out that while sight reading is a very valuable skill; for pop music, the ability to read a chord chart and understand the basics of the music you are playing (groove, style etc. ..) are probably just as valuable, unless you want to become a working pro and expect fully notated charts to be available on sessions. In 45+ years of playing, the only places I ever saw fully notated parts were on Big Band gigs with a book, a small handful of recording dates and a few fusion gigs where the song writer had mad orchestration/charting chops. Sight reading for stabs and specific figures, and the ability to execute directions like "straight 8ths rock groove" over a chord chart, and a good working knowledge of structure directives (repeats, DS, DC, DC al coda etc ..) would be more practically useful. Again, thats IMO/IME.

but most importantly
enjoy!
 
  • Like
Reactions: s0707 and Max Marsh
#27
Max Marsh said:
I have been playing classical cello for over 8 years and have wanted to try and pick up an electric bass. I have toyed around on it before with small riffs and am wondering if any cello players have found it easy to switch between the 2 instruments. Would it also be beneficial to tune the bass to an ADGC pattern to read bass clef or keep the bass as it is and learn frets? I have an amp in my house and I could play alongside someone with electric guitar. I would still continue cello but i was wondering if it would be cost effective to pick up a 75$ bass and play around with it occasionally.
Click to expand...

If you have the ear to play cello you will pick up bass in no time and be better than 90% of us here in no time. Keep it in standard bass tuning. Work on jazz, funk, soul to develop your non-classical groovability.
 
#29
A few years ago, I started playing in an Alt Country/Americana type band (still do). I decided to pick up mandolin - for the band, and just for my own amusement.
It was very challenging to move from bass to such a small sized instrument (also tuned in 5ths), tiny doubled strings and picked rather than finger style.
Now, I am not going to give Chris Thile or David Grisman any worries, but after a year or so, I could definitely hang in there on a gig just fine.
I also think it helped my bass playing out too, as it made me rethink some things as far as my ear, and left and right hand techniques. I know I definitely became a better pick player on bass (traditionally I have been primarily a fingerstyle player).
 
  • Like
Reactions: Max Marsh
#30
You can buy a Squier fretless Precision for less than 300 new, shipped to your door. I think it might be easier for you to start with a fretless, since you are used to doing it the hard way. I found it difficult to switch from fretless Fender(40 years) to fretted Fender. Kinda like walking on railroad tracks where your feet just want to fall in the wrong places
 
#31
Stewie said:
You can buy a Squier fretless Precision for less than 300 new, shipped to your door. I think it might be easier for you to start with a fretless, since you are used to doing it the hard way. I found it difficult to switch from fretless Fender(40 years) to fretted Fender. Kinda like walking on railroad tracks where your feet just want to fall in the wrong places
Click to expand...
I've noticed that the frets are very large and I can barely get my fingers along the neck for one string (I tried money by Pink Floyd). Is the fret less spaced that far apart or are the note gaps more like a cello?
 
#33
Max - I was a cellist through middle and high school and initially registered for college as a music performance major on cello. I had begun to play bass as well in high school and by the time I hit the summer after my senior year, I knew I was bound to be a bassist.

Luckily for me, the University of Texas needed bass players more than it needed cellists at that point. Especially in the jazz program. I hit the woodshed hard and did an audition to switch my scholarship - and amazingly, it worked. I kept a cello for a while in college but quickly because a bass player because of the dramatically more and varied opportunities to play.

SO - it's not too hard to switch. It's fourths and not fifths obviously, and the whole ethos of the instrument and the role it plays is different. If you work at it, and in particular if you create opportunities to play bass in groups with other humans, you can absolutely make the transition. Don't bother with alternate tunings, IMO. Just learn the bass.
 
  • Like
Reactions: DrummerwStrings
#34
Same intervals - but learn standard tuning - makes like LOTS easier when your instrument is not the unique on in the pile.

But I would start with a decent instrument - if you have played cello you probably can feel the difference in a good instrument. I would try fretless and fretted, and see what works best for you. Playing fretless would give you more options for different types of music, and any fretless player can more to fretted easily (more easily than the other way around).

Welcome to the madness.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Max Marsh
#36
I went from bass (fretless) to cello a few years back, not really a problem apart from the bowing but then I was already used to 5ths tuning from mandolin. The only issue I find these days - apart from finding time to practice cello - is reading bass clef for bass and being more recently used to reading for cello so my fingers think they are in CGDA. No problem if playing by ear or from memory.
 
#37
Spirit of Ox said:
Interesting topic and welcome to Talk Bass! I was thinking about learning Cello. They don't take up too much room like a double bass and being close to Berkley School of music, they are readily available and inexpensive (at least entry models). I never knew they were tuned in 5ths.
Click to expand...

You can get cello string sets for 4ths tuning these days, I haven't tried it as I"m used to 5ths now...
 
#39
Max Marsh said:
I've noticed that the frets are very large and I can barely get my fingers along the neck for one string (I tried money by Pink Floyd). Is the fret less spaced that far apart or are the note gaps more like a cello?
Click to expand...

A "standard" bass has a 34" scale, fretted or fretless (I have one of each). A cello is (according to the Internet) 27.5", or shorter than even most short-scale bass guitars. You'll have to get used to large note spacings.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back