Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
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.
Finding Fret-board Notes Without Looking: How to do it - and - How long does it take?
- Thread starter Lamphun_Lamyai
- Start date
I'd say "practicing not to look" is maybe one of the silliest things to explicitly focus on, it's just muscle memory and comes for free after practicing all the regular stuff enough. Once you start playing with others, you'll notice that if it's not the fretboard you're looking at, you're looking at the drummer, or the conductor, or some of the other players, because you need to communicate. And if you ever get to gig, preferably the band feels tight, you got the songs memorized in your head and muscles, and then you can check out the chicks in the audience. And that's what it's all about, right?
This really speaks for the importance of sticking to one particular bass, that you learn to navigate on like as it was an extension of your own body, rather than swapping basses every other day.
You simply won't play as optimal on an instrument you are not at 100% at home with.
All my basses are 34" and 21 or 22 frets so the 12th fret is always right under the top horn strap button.
If I'm changing position very quickly, I'll look but once in position, for example on the 7th fret, everything just falls under the fingers.
If I'm changing position very quickly, I'll look but once in position, for example on the 7th fret, everything just falls under the fingers.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting this. What I'm saying is that if you have to look, then look, and don't get down on yourself if you need to every once in a while. My original snarky comment was obvi not the hot take I thought - in some situations, clearly, yes, it matters.
Lol, I can't disagree with this more.
We all got our things and I'm not here to tell you you're wrong in your choices, but I think I'm way better for mixing it up. I definitely have a 'home bass' that I always come back to, but there's also something great about getting a different feel and pushing out into things you might not think (or feel) to try with your go-to.
To each their own, I guess.
Pretty sure this is closer to the truth:
Supposedly there are two separate kinaesthetic senses. One senses limb position and the other senses limb movement. If you practice without constantly looking at the fretboard, your brain will create new connections related to the kinaesthetic senses that become stronger with practice. If you always rely heavily on vision, rather than focusing more on muscle memory, the kinaesthetic connections will be fewer and weaker. The desired kinaesthetic connections are simply not as important when vision plays a prominent role.
That does not mean vision is not useful for developing kinaesthetic senses. You look and use mental visualization to gauge how much you should move. Then you look away and practice. When you first start, your visual reference fades quickly, so you have to look again. Over the long-term and multiple practice sessions, your kinaesthetic senses become more finely tuned and sophisticated; so it is becomes less necessary to draw on visual references. Most people will still need to look on occasion, even after they become proficient players.
Ref: Invalid Link Removed
Last edited:
Which in reality, is why I attempt to practice both. Lot of good comments and suggestion and observations here. Good stuff.
My first instrument was cello. You can't look at the fingerboard, because it's behind you. Upright bass is kinda that way too, depending on how you play it.
Amplifying on what @AGCurry suggested, scales and etudes are practically designed for the purpose of teaching you your way around the instrument. They tend to be "graded" meaning they start out easy. For 5-stringers, you could use cello etudes, which go down to low C.
Of course this is a departure from learning patterns, but I think if you master etudes, you'll discover that you can figure out patterns yourself, possibly without even thinking about it.
When I got an electric bass in middle school, I brought myself up to speed by getting out my cello etude books and starting at square one.
Whether you can manage different scale lengths is entirely personal, and there's no predicting. If it's an obstacle, focus on just one bass for a while until it's really intuitive, then try the other scales again.
Amplifying on what @AGCurry suggested, scales and etudes are practically designed for the purpose of teaching you your way around the instrument. They tend to be "graded" meaning they start out easy. For 5-stringers, you could use cello etudes, which go down to low C.
Of course this is a departure from learning patterns, but I think if you master etudes, you'll discover that you can figure out patterns yourself, possibly without even thinking about it.
When I got an electric bass in middle school, I brought myself up to speed by getting out my cello etude books and starting at square one.
Whether you can manage different scale lengths is entirely personal, and there's no predicting. If it's an obstacle, focus on just one bass for a while until it's really intuitive, then try the other scales again.
This!The more complicated,difficult the music is,the more you have to look.
There is no trick. There is no secret. There is only practice.
Well, practicing playing without looking (best done by closing your eyes) helps strengthening your ears (because that's all you can rely upon when doing this), as well as your "muscle memory".
When performing, of course, you would make full use of all your sense, including vision.
Sorry but that’s not good advice at all.
First off, closing your eyes is pointless and can be dangerous when all you have to do is look elsewhere.
Second, ear training is done to improve hearing the relationships between intervals and identifying chords and chord changes in songs, and is something you should work on constantly no matter what you’re doing. Every time you listen to music or attempt to play it, you should be listening with that goal in mind, and denying yourself eyesight while doing it is pointless and may actually set you back.
Third, being able to play without looking isn’t something that happens quickly, but it will happen to a certain degree over time if you stick with playing and practice diligently. And rather than looking at that as a goal by itself, it should be looked at as an extra benefit from learning how to play music.
Jimmy’s right: Closing your eyes is, um, counter-productive. For me, anyway, the point of not looking at the fretboard is so you can have eye contact with your band and with your audience. And, as mentioned, if you play for long enough, you probably don’t have to look anyway.
Maybe I did not express myself clearly.
Yes, when performing (or rehearsing with the band), I find it important to use my eyes to communicate with band mates, with the audience, to look at some sheet music, and, yes, also to help my left hand finding the notes on the fingerboard. So we agree on this, I believe.
The point I was trying to make is something quite different. It is about practicing alone by myself. This is a situation where there is no need to use my eyes for communication. Also, since I play fretless instruments (mostly double bass, but also fretless acoustic BG), (a) there is much to look at on the (unlined) neck, and (b) good intonation is a never ending challenge. In this circumstances, I find (and I could well understand that it would work differently for someone else) that closing my eyes intensifies the clarity of my hearing (somehow like how vision improves when some fog disappears). This pertains both to intonation accuracy, as well to the connection with musical ideas I pre-hear in my head. It also helps constructing a mental map of where the notes are located on the fingerboard.
