• 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.

does this bother anybody else?

R

remainthesame

Sep 24, 2008
818
48
#1
Before I start off, I'm NOT a virtuoso by any means. I am NOT an expert on everything music related. I am NOT a know it all.

But I can't tell you how many times somebody has told me they use a drop tuning when they are using a standard tuning. Ill get an audition, and Ill be given a few songs to learn. when I ask for the tuning they say "drop C" (just for example) so ill tune my bass to drop C and learn the songs. Then I show up to the audition and everything is completely off because they are actually in C standard.

Again, I'm not an expert. And I know that people make mistakes. But this is becoming such a regular thing that I had to make a post about it. does anybody else go though this? How do you usually handle it?
 
#2
I don't drop anything. I play in the recorded key or the one we need to change to for the frontman. Guitar player drop tunes all over the place, so much so that we have to arrange sets around his changing guitars for a drop tune. Crazy.
 
#5
DiabolicLow B said:
For the vast majority of songs I don't see the need for any drop tuning, I find it easier to transpose to the needed key.
Click to expand...

That's one of the beauties of having a five string. I had this one guy in a stoner/doom project scratching his head as to why I wouldn't tune to drop D flat like he and the other guitarist were tuned. My response was that I didn't have to.

EDITED FOR CLARITY: The guitarists in question were tuned to E flat standard, but with their sixth strings in D flat, so it was technically a "drop tuning".
 
#6
i love how in drop tuning, you become a transposing instrument..

but the people who do it (in my experience, literally) never give a straight answer when you ask what key they're in or what chord that is or what is top note of that chord or whatever else

if your going to do it, be able to understand what your concert pitch is!
 
#7
Yep! go 5 string if you're getting a bunch of the Drop tuning gigs. I'm lucky to get by with a 4 string now but played 5 string for 5 years straight. My guitarist had 5 guitars on stage all tuned differently and he used them all. He was able to watch my left hand and get in the right key every time. He had little notes on the set list as to which guitar to use for each song. In some ways he was the best guitarist I ever played with.
 
#8
DiabolicLow B said:
For the vast majority of songs I don't see the need for any drop tuning, I find it easier to transpose to the needed key.
Click to expand...
^^This^^

I play bass. In the genres that I play, I play notes; not chords. I have yet to find a need to change my tuning to anything other than standard. With 5 strings, 24 frets, and 12 notes to chose from--if I can't find the right note to play, it doesn't exist.
 
#11
Yes, it drives me nuts too. I can't tell you how many times someone has come onto this very site asking about Drop this or Drop that, only to find out that they're not talking about a Drop tuning at all.

They seem to think that since they are "dropping" their tuning (down tuning) it's a Drop tuning.
 
#12
I am far too lazy to deal with drop tunings and screwing up the symmetry of my bass, as in being able to play the same pattern the exact same way anywhere on the neck. I do play in D standard though, something I picked up in my last band with my 4 string and carried over to my 6. I just like the feeling of the lower tension mostly.
 
#13
I do mostly originals so I won't drop tune. I also won't change key just because the front man can't sing it. My philosophy is either do it in the original key so people hear the song the way they are used to hearing it or don't play it at all.
 
#18
remainthesame said:
But I can't tell you how many times somebody has told me they use a drop tuning when they are using a standard tuning. Ill get an audition, and Ill be given a few songs to learn. when I ask for the tuning they say "drop C" (just for example) so ill tune my bass to drop C and learn the songs. Then I show up to the audition and everything is completely off because they are actually in C standard.
Click to expand...

As long as you learned how to play the song correctly, why would it throw anything off if you are in drop C and they are in C standard?
 
#19
it throws me off because IMO a musician should know what tuning they are in, its a very basic and fundamental thing. if you have progressed to the point where youre rocking a peavey 5150, you should know what tuning you are in.

if this was just some kid at guitar center i would have just shrugged it off. but this happens to me quite often in a world of "serious" musicians
 
#20
Febs said:
As long as you learned how to play the song correctly, why would it throw anything off if you are in drop C and they are in C standard?
Click to expand...

Yeah I don,t get it too ... if the OP did learn the song and you play the right thing at the right time ... does-it really matter in which tuning you're in ?

I could do a cover of Fade To Black by Metallica and tune my bass AEBF#C# and play it correctly exacly like the recording but my tuning may turn thing way more difficult that it should be but still I can play it anyway ...

also many so called pro don,t what they are doing anyway
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back