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Cello Tuning. C-G-D-A

#61
If anyone is interested the Dennis Masuzzo book on the CGDA tuning for DB is back in stock at Invalid Link Removed You may also be able to get it directly from Dennis by emailing him. Dennis does have an example page from the book on his website. The vast majority of the book is just like the example page. It is a collection of exercises, etudes, and song snippets for you to practice on. The numbers over the notes are a tablature-like suggestion on how to finger the notes based on a common DB fingering method which may not be entirely suitable for BG players. I'm sure it works fine but our strings are easier to finger and our frets are closer together so we use four fingers to play notes where DB players tend to use three and only two as much as possible. Dennis has promised to send me some information on more bass-guitar-like fingerings and I will see if he will let me share it when he does. The book does have some introductory text as well but it is primarily practice material. So if you are looking for a long discussion of pros, cons, history, and details on technique you could be disappointed. If you are looking for some musical material to challenge and guide you as you learn the tuning I think you will be happy. I expect to be and I have no relationship with either Dennis or Lemur other than being a customer, for those who might wonder.

I went through a long process of trying to decide between retuning (BEAD or CGDA) and getting a five string. In the end I decided the only reasonable thing to do was to try both. I got an SR505 a few weeks ago and am trying to get comfortable enough with it to use it as my main bass as soon as possible. Once that happens I am going to retune my four string to CGDA and try that in parallel. I don't know if this will be too mind bending for a 60 year old to contemplate or not. Others tell me you can mix playing in fourths and fifths without a mental meltdown so hopefully I will be able to deal with it. Dennis himself does most of his DB playing in fifths but occasionally has to use an instrument in fourths and has not changed his BG to fifths yet either.

Ken
 
#62
I took the plunge! I ordered a custom set of GHS Precision Flats for my 4 string from BassStringsOnline. D'Addario and Circle K both publish string weight/length and tension information on their strings. Far as I can tell D'Addario doesn't sell individual flats and Circle K doesn't make flats. You can get individual GHS flats from BassStringsOnline however. So I averaged the weight data for several kinds of D'Addario and Circle K strings and used those numbers to estimate which GHS strings might give me close to 40 pounds tension when tuned CGDA. I came up with 0.128, 0.085, 0.055, and 0.040. A few light passes with a 0.125 round file with the bottom of the E string nut slot marked with a marker so I could tell when I had gone far enough opened it up for the C string. The other three fit right in the ADG slots. For some reason the D string was a particularly nice fit .... :D

The new strings play well and have a tension that suits me whether they are close to the 40 pound target or not. I have no way to measure string tension independently. I think my action is set just slightly too low but this is not new. I had put a HipShot bridge on this bass last December and this required me to do my first full setup. I put the string height near the low end of the Fender suggested range and I've thought it was a little low ever since. The CGDA strings are no worse than the EADG strings were. The bass is a Fender Deluxe Active Jazz if anyone cares to know.

The re-stringing was done Monday so I have just barely begun to adapt to the new tuning. The late jazz bassist Red Mitchel tuned his double bass CGDA, practiced for 9 days in seclusion at a beachfront rental house, and then started playing gigs that way on day 10 and forever after. I wish he had written a book on how he did that. I know it will take me longer than that to become "proficient" in the new tuning or as least as "proficient" as I am with EADG. ;) The Dennis Masuzzo book will be helpful once I get past the fooling around with the new toy stage. I've also found a Invalid Link Removed that seems like it will help get me familiar with the new fretboard. It uses an image of an actual cello (I guess, it could be a violin, etc) fingerboard and you press the strings in the right place to sound the notes displayed on a standard musical staff. The fingerboard image does not have frets of course though it does have tape fretlines that some teachers use to help beginning string players. It doesn't have position dots and there are only three of these tape lines in the span of the first seven "frets" so it is counter intuitive for a bass player to use. I took a piece of clear sheet protector material that I can overlay on my computer screen and then I used colored tape strips to put in all seven frets and the three position indicator dots. It works quite well that way. You do have to know how to read the notes off a standard bass clef staff to use it though. Either that or you learn both at the same time! :hyper:

So, the adventure has begun. I don't know if BEADG or CGDA will be the ultimate winner. If CGDA wins then I suppose BEADG could become CGDAE ....

Ken
 
#63
khutch,

Please continue to keep us updated as you progress!

I'll definitely be tuning my bass(es) in fifths as soon as possible. I am planning a custom build or two and do not currently have a bass guitar in my possession. Until then, I am actually tuning my guitar in fifths and love it.
 
#64
it isn't that hard to learn that tuning. You know the open strings ... you can figured out the rest easy. Also, reading music written for that tuning help (Bach's 6 suites for Cello)

and have fun !
 
#66
World renowned Canadian "classical" double bassist Joel Quarrington tunes in 5ths. (He has actually posted on the DB side of TB, how cool is that?) My recollection is that he originally tried it to increase the range on his 400 year old Maggini double bass, but then found that the sonority of the instrument changed. In the end it was the sonority that was the leading factor in his decision to stay with 5ths.

I am not really sure what drives the change in sonority, however I think it might have to do with the fact that the overtone series on a stringed instrument goes: root, octave, octave of 5th, double octave of root, ... So, in fourths tuning the octave of 5th overtone would resonate with the string below, whereas in 5ths tuning it would resonate with the string above. I could be completely wrong regarding the mechanism; but DB players who play in 5ths do comment on how the whole instrument comes alive in 5ths tuning. I am not sure if/how this applies to a BG.

It certainly makes sense to try 5ths tuning if you're intending to play pieces that were composed for a stringed instrument that is tuned in 5ths.

Jim
 
#67
jsbarber said:
World renowned Canadian "classical" double bassist Joel Quarrington tunes in 5ths. (He has actually posted on the DB side of TB, how cool is that?) My recollection is that he originally tried it to increase the range on his 400 year old Maggini double bass, but then found that the sonority of the instrument changed. In the end it was the sonority that was the leading factor in his decision to stay with 5ths.
Click to expand...

You can't read much about tuning a DB in fifths without running across the name Joel Quarrington! I think it was Dennis Masuzzo who had a mathematician friend do an analysis of the harmonics of strings tuned in fifths and she concluded that there was more interaction between the open strings when they were tuned in fifths. An acoustic instrument has an appreciable amount of mechanical motion in its various parts, that is how the sound is coupled to the air after all, compared to a solid body bass guitar and that means more acoustic energy can be coupled to open strings. If the harmonics of the open (not fretted/fingered) strings match those of the string being played they will vibrate some as well and she said this happens more often when they are tuned in fifths. Most DB players hear this effect when they tune in fifths although it may not be noticeable to the audience. Getting more range from the DB is also a plus. Not having to deal with five strings is a plus. Playing a tuning that is the same as the rest of the string section uses is also a plus. A fifths tuning brings a lot to the party for a DB player. People who want to play string parts on their BG will see more of these advantages that those of us who are using a BG for traditional BG music. The tonal change may apply to acoustic BGs tuned in fifths but it is less likely to apply to solid BGs. I don't hear any on mine but mine isn't made from tone wood! :D For the most part I think the only draw for a BG player is making four do the work of five, although that is draw enough for some of us.

After an hour or two on the cello trainer online and a little noodling around on my retuned bass I tried playing some praise and worship music I've been practicing for my church, what you might call gospel I suppose. I was surprised to find that I could play simple bass lines fairly well after only minimal training on the new tuning. I've also tried playing some more intricate four string lines and patterns that I know well with less happy results. Some work well, others require fairly large jumps up and down the neck because a fourths tuning gives fairly compact patterns compared to any other. They all require considerable rethinking to find the notes that are no longer where the fingers expect them to be. In some cases I may just have to work out better fingerings to make them work well. In some cases you might just have to come up with a new line that works well in fifths rather than one that was written around fourths. I think this is what Dennis meant when he told me to play the tuning, not transpose.

The thing I find most attractive about tuning in fifths is getting a five string's range without the bother of a fifth string, and I am finding string 5 more bothersome than some do. It's too early to tell which I will like best. There are signs that fifths will work quite well but also some signs it may require changes in lines that I may or may not end up liking. It's a work in progress....

Ken
 
#69
I don't do this often and it is officially or unofficially discouraged but I am repeating (with a little extra comment) a post I just made in the "strings" section of TB/BG because I thought it worthwhile to keep it attached to this thread as well. I was commenting on a question about string tension and mentioned that I had done tension calculations recently to pick a good set of strings for tuning CGDA. Someone then asked how the CGDA tuning was working for me and here are my latest thoughts:

I'm undecided at the moment. I love the fact that I can get the extra range from a familiar, comfortable 4 string. I have a 5 string too and really don't like dealing with the extra string, or maybe I just need a different fiver? It took me only about ten days of playing around with the CGDA tuning to be able to play simple stuff on it and even sight read music well enough to get started with new songs, which is something I have to do frequently as a beginning worship band bassist -- all the tunes are new to me. I'm not a great bassist in any tuning but I still have a ways to go to play as well in fifths as I do in fourths when it comes to improvising, another skill that I need for worship music since we mostly work from chord charts rather than written out parts. Riffs and patterns that BG players use a lot tend to be spread out over more frets when you tune in fifths instead of fourths. No surprise, the BG "literature" was developed around the standard tuning over many years and our habits are optimized for that tuning as a result. A fifths tuning may encourage you to approach music differently which can be good, unless your goal is to "cover" other performer's EADG bass lines in which case you may find the fret spread annoying -- or worse. On the other hand, if you want to play cello music the very, very little I have done with that so far suggests that it plays very naturally on a bass tuned in fifths, as others have said, and again no surpise.

At this point I am kinda thinking that I should ditch the fiver, keep the CGDA bass, and maybe get a second four to tune BEAD. I think that fivers, sixers, etc excel at playing wide ranging melodic lines and that is just not something I do. The low notes are great for the music I play but I seldom use much of the G string on either the fiver or on a standard tuned four and the one time so far that I used the A string on the CGDA bass it actually flowed better with the rest of the song to play those notes on the D string instead(!), so I think that moving up the neck on a BEAD bass to get the occasional high note will be an entirely satisfactory compromise for me.

At the moment I am both very excited about the possibilities of the fifths tuning and very nostalgic about the easy familiarity of the fourths tuning. The five string solution is starting to fall by the wayside in my thoughts and emotions although my opinions on the whole thing change several times a day so the jury is still out.

What I didn't mention to them was that I made the switch to CGDA as I was coming up to speed with the church worship band community (there are several instrumental teams that play in rotation). I can't say that I like the fiver but I switched my four to CGDA as soon as I was comfortable enough on the fiver to play it if need be. I was very much an apprentice and then last week I showed up at practice with my CGDA bass only to find that there was no other bassist available for that team and I was going to be playing for real last Sunday. Trouble was that I had done all my practicing in CGDA just as an experiment not knowing that I might be "on" that week, didn't have the fiver along with me, and didn't feel that I had enough time left before Sunday to pick all the music up on the fiver at that point. So it happened that I played my first worship assignment in CGDA and other than nervousness induced mistakes (I could play all the music error free at home by Saturday night) it went very well. I am honestly surprised that a 60 year old could jump into CGDA and be reasonably comfortable with it that fast, I assumed it would take months and might not be possible at all.

Ken
 

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