Double Bass Fingerboard inlays

[crl0078]

Dear Talk Bass community,

At what intervals do players typically place pearl inlays in the fingerboard? Is there a standard? Is it the same or similar to what a guitar would have? I am just curious. Also open to suggestions of where to put them.

Chris

 

[Rebop]

It's not super common and the few that have done it tend to put them wherever their "favorite notes" are.
For me, since I typically use about three or four different uprights in rotation, if I were to get inlays they would be at the 15th and 17th position (under the G string) due to the slightly different feel between the different basses (especially with large jumps). Maybe the 5th or 7th but probably not both. It can be nice to have a landmark at times (I usually use a small dot of whiteout for a tricky thumb position spot when practicing something, and by the time it flakes off I don't need it anymore). I'm usually not looking at my left hand anyways unless I'm in thumb position.
I think it's all a matter of taste.
Why do you want an inlay?

 

[MikeCanada]

If you are asking as a player who's thinking about getting them, the answer is basically wherever you feel you want/need them. Occasionally you will see one or two below the first octave around the D on the G string, but typically there will be one at the octave and the second octave, possibly the third if you have a particularly long board, and then from there it depends on the player. If there is a note or position you reach for inconsistently, that might be where you want one.

If you are asking as a maker/repair person, it is up to your clients. I would offer it as an option instead of a standard feature as there are a lot of players that would not want them as a maker, and as a repair person I would ask the player if there are certain places they want them. Suggest the octave(s) and maybe a landmark or two in between. I have also seem them either centred on the board, or over between the top two strings especially in the higher positions.

If you are having trouble hitting a certain note or getting a particular passage under your fingers, strongly consider if this is a path you want to go down. Chances are you can overcome this particular challenge, and you might be asking yourself even a month from the operation "why did I ever think I needed that?" If it becomes a crutch that's not something a lot of people would encourage either, and not a lot of postures facilitate looking at the board while maintaining everything else where it should be.

 

[robobass]

It's not super common...

Quite an understatement

Chances are you can overcome this particular challenge, and you might be asking yourself even a month from the operation "why did I ever think I needed that?" If it becomes a crutch that's not something a lot of people would encourage either, and not a lot of postures facilitate looking at the board while maintaining everything else where it should be.

I had sticky dots on my bass for awhile a few years ago because I had some adult beginner students who were playing my bass in lessons. When I took the bass to rehearsals I found they really got in the way. Even though I didn't need them I couldn't help looking down at them and this meant taking my eyes off the conductor. If you're working on a tough solo there's no reason not to put a few temporary dots on the bass if it helps you, but permanent inlays seems like a really bad idea. You may decide later that you don't want them after all, and they will put off many potential buyers if you decide to sell the instrument.

 

[Jeremy Darrow]

A little off-topic, but I think markers are usually not made from pearl because pearl can't be planed down with the rest of board. Usually they're made from plastic or a contrasting wood. I've seen several basses with ebony markers that are nearly invisible from just a few feet away but perfectly visible to the player.

 

[Reiska]

Fluorescent ( this a correct word? ) material would make sense if you tend to play on dark stages. I thought about markes, and sometimes still do, but no not for me. I rather make absolutely sure that I will hear myself in every situation. If my intonation is off, then it will be and hopefully will not be after some shedding and rehearsing time and experience with DB on different live situations. Markers do help a lot at times but then I find myself staring my eyeballs out, instead of listening. Anyhow, IMO it`s about personal preference and who am I to say to anyone ( with Edgar Meyer included ) to not use them. I`m writing this because I`ve been thinking about the issue a lot lately, with a new and bigger bass. It`s been a challenge even when the bass is no-brainer easy to play when comparing to any of my ex-basses.

 

[drurb]

The case of Edgar Meyer is an exception, as I see it. As I understand it, for him, those are landmarks high up on the fingerboard. Beyond such use and the temporary use for absolute beginners, IMO, markers are a bad idea. Here's why. We don't tend to look at our hands when we play. As pointed out above and many times before around here, one can't really look at music and at one's hands. Even when reading music is not involved, as MikeCanada points out, it's not compatible with maintaining good posture. Finally, because DB bridges are typically not compensated, changes in string height can actually make the markers inaccurate in terms of intonation. Muscle memory and ears. IMO, that's the path to good intonation, although it sure remains a challenge for me.

 

[Reiska]

Like I said, I`ve been thinking about the issue a lot lately, and yes, as a beginner on DB. This comes with a bunch of caveats as I`m very much in the process at the moment and not writing in my first lanquage here. But, from all human observation vision makes 75%, hearing 13%, sense of touch 6%, sense of smell 3% and sense of taste 3%. We employ our sense of vision anyway while playing music on an instrument, in one form or another. Ergonomics come in the way if and when we overdo the visions part of the process, as MikeCanada pointed out, and it takes too much away from another aspects of the process, like when there`s notation and / or conductor to follow. I don`t need to read a lot in my musical reality but I very much wan`t to be involved in the collective side of playing, I wan`t to be able to look at my bandmates, audience, scenery from the window, whatever.

Another issue is the muscle memory, which I feel is emphasized a lot by players who are technically Simandl / position / hand shape-oriented. Then you see someone like Joel Quarrington, who pretty much relys completely on their ear and throwing the idea of hand shape out of the window, as too unreliable approach in terms of intonation. Joel Quarrington, if anyone, plays the DB in tune. ( Edit: And so does Edgar Meyer, with the dots on his fingerboard )

I`m not about trolling or trying to open any cans of worms here, just explaining my own process of thinking and learning. Sorry if this is way off-topic.

 

[drurb]

Like I said, I`ve been thinking about the issue a lot lately, and yes, as a beginner on DB. This comes with a bunch of caveats as I`m very much in the process at the moment and not writing in my first lanquage here. But, from all human observation vision makes 75%, hearing 13%, sense of touch 6%, sense of smell 3% and sense of taste 3%. We employ our sense of vision anyway while playing music on an instrument, in one form or another. Ergonomics come in the way if and when we overdo the visions part of the process, as MikeCanada pointed out, and it takes too much away from another aspects of the process, like when there`s notation and / or conductor to follow. I don`t need to read a lot in my musical reality but I very much wan`t to be involved in the collective side of playing, I wan`t to be able to look at my bandmates, audience, scenery from the window, whatever.

Another issue is the muscle memory, which I feel is emphasized a lot by players who are technically Simandl / position / hand shape-oriented. Then you see someone like Joel Quarrington, who pretty much relys completely on their ear and throwing the idea of hand shape out of the window, as too unreliable approach in terms of intonation. Joel Quarrington, if anyone, plays the DB in tune. ( Edit: And so does Edgar Meyer, with the dots on his fingerboard )

I`m not about trolling or trying to open any cans of worms here, just explaining my own process of thinking and learning. Sorry if this is way off-topic.

I think there are several misunderstandings here. I don't know where you got those percentages for sensory modalities but, as one who studies such things, I can tell you that it's quite task-dependent. Those estimates sure don't apply to playing music on the DB. I can close my eyes and play just fine (except for reading music and seeing the conductor). I'd be lost without audition. Ray Charles would have been as well. You seem to have acknowledged this by noting that you'd like to use vision to look at bandmates, etc. while playing. That is, you seem to agree we sure don't need vision to actually play the instrument. It is not the case, however, that when playing the DB that ergonomics only come into play when vision is overloaded.

As for muscle memory, the bulk of what that term refers to is not "hand shape." It is much more global or macro. Joel Quarrington has a proprioceptive "memory" for where things are on the instrument regardless of the shape of his left hand. Edgar Meyer certainly does as well! So, I still believe that intonation does rely, primarily, on the ear and on proprioceptive memory ("muscle memory"). One can play the bass in the dark. With ears plugged, I'm confident intonation would suffer badly. Dots wouldn't even help all that much.

 

[Tom Lane]

It seems to me that markers come up every few months and the conversation generally goes like this:

OP: I think I want to have markers put on my bass.
experienced URB players: Not a good idea because it's not necessary, doesn't promote and potentially regresses good technique, and can lead to false confidence.
inexperienced URB players and BG players: Dots can be useful and a few great URB players have them.
experienced URB players: What I said before is still true.

What's not usually said is that the fact that there are some great URB players who have dots doesn't invalidate the experienced URB players comment. As DrURB said, experienced URB players can and do play in the dark with no intonation issues, which means, that they use their ears and their physical relationship with the instrument to help them intonate well. It's not "muscle memory" it's a quick and accurate ear. I had a teacher demonstrate that he could intonate well while lying on the floor with his bass on top of him. He wasn't looking at the fingerboard.

Dots aren't useful for learning to intonate well. The one occasion when a pencil mark on the fingerboard makes sense is when I need to make a leap that I haven't practiced often enough to nail every time. But if you learn to play two or three octave arpeggios well, it's hard for me to imagine a leap that would require it any longer.

There's no easy way to learn to intonate well. There's no way around thousands of hours training your ear and your hands.

 

[Martin Beer]

I've used pencil marks when I needed to nail a tricky shift on a recording session for a friend's band while the clock was ticking and other musicians were waiting to overdub their parts. Yes, it's probably a crutch but in that situation anything that helped me to get the part down in fewer takes was worth doing. Longer term I've tried to avoid using them, though the idea of a dot at the octave can seem alluring sometimes.

 

[drurb]

It seems to me that markers come up every few months and the conversation generally goes like this:

OP: I think I want to have markers put on my bass.
experienced URB players: Not a good idea because it's not necessary, doesn't promote and potentially regresses good technique, and can lead to false confidence.
inexperienced URB players and BG players: Dots can be useful and a few great URB players have them.
experienced URB players: What I said before is still true.

What's not usually said is that the fact that there are some great URB players who have dots doesn't invalidate the experienced URB players comment. As DrURB said, experienced URB players can and do play in the dark with no intonation issues, which means, that they use their ears and their physical relationship with the instrument to help them intonate well. It's not "muscle memory" it's a quick and accurate ear. I had a teacher demonstrate that he could intonate well while lying on the floor with his bass on top of him. He wasn't looking at the fingerboard.

Dots aren't useful for learning to intonate well. The one occasion when a pencil mark on the fingerboard makes sense is when I need to make a leap that I haven't practiced often enough to nail every time. But if you learn to play two or three octave arpeggios well, it's hard for me to imagine a leap that would require it any longer.

There's no easy way to learn to intonate well. There's no way around thousands of hours training your ear and your hands.

Nice summary. For the most part, I agree. With regard to "muscle memory," while it's the ear that really is most important in terms of the precision of intonation, it's the proprioceptive training that allows us to make the ballistic movements that get us squarely into the ballpark. I don't think that aspect should be overlooked or discounted.

 

[Reiska]

I think there are several misunderstandings here. I don't know where you got those percentages for sensory modalities but, as one who studies such things, I can tell you that it's quite task-dependent. Those estimates sure don't apply to playing music on the DB. I can close my eyes and play just fine (except for reading music and seeing the conductor). I'd be lost without audition. Ray Charles would have been as well. You seem to have acknowledged this by noting that you'd like to use vision to look at bandmates, etc. while playing. That is, you seem to agree we sure don't need vision to actually play the instrument. It is not the case, however, that when playing the DB that ergonomics only come into play when vision is overloaded.

As for muscle memory, the bulk of what that term refers to is not "hand shape." It is much more global or macro. Joel Quarrington has a proprioceptive "memory" for where things are on the instrument regardless of the shape of his left hand. Edgar Meyer certainly does as well! So, I still believe that intonation does rely, primarily, on the ear and on proprioceptive memory ("muscle memory"). One can play the bass in the dark. With ears plugged, I'm confident intonation would suffer badly. Dots wouldn't even help all that much.

Dear drurb, I got the percents from psychology lectures I`m going to at the moment. However, I don`t see myself, or claim to be an expert of any kind on this science! But that was not my point either, what I`m trying to say is that if we do have these " tools " in our box, so why not use any and every of them in the process of learning and playing the instrument. But yes, I do agree that we don`t absolutely need the vision to play DB, and I`m heading to this direction myself: I wan`t to be able to play without looking.

I don`t know, but I still quess that learning curve to mastering the instrument and the process of playing it with other people would be quite different for a blind person?

As I said, I`m very much in the process of thinking about and toying with the issue and these ideas.

 

[james condino]

Well....one of my double basses has them and two of the others do not. One has steel strings, one gut, one hybrid. One has a D neck, one has an E flat neck, and one has an honest F neck. Give that to enough players and someone will always tell you that every one of those has some limitations and someone else will tell you that is the best ever.

You can add position markers to a guitar or electric bass or smaller instrument and they will work with no issues, so it is nice to have an attractive material like shell or such. On a double bass, the thing is so large that you will get the markers in the perfect position and then later change strings and the overall setup or string height and they can potentially be off by a significant distance....so use something non-permanent like a whiteout pen that allows simple removal and adjustment if needed.

j.
condino.com
kaybassrepair.com

 

[misterbadger]

I'm loving the Gollihur sticky dots - more professional-looking than my previous 1/4" green file folder marker dots, easy to remove. Cheap. What's not to like?

 

[rolandm]

In all honesty, when you're playing with a loud band, and you may have difficulty hearing and verifying your intonation, dots can be a godsend. I'm no John Clayton, so make of that what you will. But having played fretless bass in rock bands for years, I can tell you, if it weren't for the lines, there are times I'd have been off enough to be noticeable. And if Juan Alderete (among other guys) finds them useful, why shouldn't I?

So transitioning to upright, I was concerned that I'd have intonation issues. However, my used Chadwick came with F# through A Gollihur dots on the neck, and they do give me a sense of reassurance if we're performing with the full 6-piece band of two keys, two horns, drummer, guitar (yeah, it gets loud).

So while I don't spend a lot of time looking at my neck, I do like the comfort of knowing that if I'm unable to clearly discern what my intonation is like, I can take a quick glance and know more accurately.

 

[Octavian]

I'm with rolandm on this one. Temporary dots/markings can be extremely helpful in gig situations where you can't always hear yourself to catch intonation issues. I recently had that experience until the sound guy worked out the issues with monitor levels...halfway through the 3-week run. My upright was buried in the stage mix. I also learned that my white watercolor pencil marks were invisible in low light so my reference points went out the door during a very exposed ballad in the upper register. Great fun. LOL.

My solution? I dropped that passsage an octave which gave me two open strings to work with.

Is that proper? No. I continued to work on the muscle memory to play the passages correctly. But I was there to hit the right notes. Every time. Not come close. Not fair to the MD or the vocalist.

That also leads to working on intonation. Definitely a long term process. But, when you're in a gig and expected to hit the right notes, you do what you need to do to hit those notes. If you're relying on your ear, yes, you can quickly adjust the pitch. But you still had to play an off-pitch note first, right?

Naturally, you can get away with more intonation slop in larger band settings. Not so much when it's just you, brushes on drums and a vocalist.

But in the end, I agree that temporary reference points are the way to go instead of permanent inlays.

 

[drurb]

...If you're relying on your ear, yes, you can quickly adjust the pitch. But you still had to play an off-pitch note first, right?

Yes and no. Assuming you can hear your intonation, which is, of course, when you're using your ears, the adjustments are quite rapid, I believe, just as is the case for a vocalist. Viewed in that light, we're basically hitting notes off-pitch and adjusting all the time. The accuracy of intonation when you are using your ears is superior to what you can achieve with visual markers on the DB for reasons discussed in earlier posts here. If you can't hear yourself, well then sure, any port in a storm!

 

[Tom Lane]

So, do me a favor, get your Gollihur temporary markers and position yourself and your bass near a digital piano. Finger a note based on your marker and then while holding down the sustain pedal on the piano, play the note on the piano. Ask yourself if you're in tune.

 

[MikeCanada]

So, do me a favor, get your Gollihur temporary markers and position yourself and your bass near a digital piano. Finger a note based on your marker and then while holding down the sustain pedal on the piano, play the note on the piano. Ask yourself if you're in tune.

This has been my experience with any sort of marking, including ones that I myself have put on basses. Back in my elementary/high school days I was frustrated how everyone relied almost entirely on tape/dots, and not their ears. So I pulled off the tape, had a bunch of students freak out because they had no idea what to do, and then went through the process of carefully putting a much thinner piece of tape in the "right" place with a tuner on a few instruments, and everyone was happy for a time. I went back and taught a clinic a few years ago, and some of those instruments still appear to have the same tape on them that I put there many years ago. And it is just as far out of tune as the tape I replaced. Granted some of the instruments have seen quite a bit of abuse and repair since then, but the reality is that even a change of strings can change where the notes are considerably. There is a thread around here about tuning the notes on an extension and the differences that string changes make with some interesting visuals and a bunch of math that could explain this much better than I can.

I do agree that sometimes a temporary pencil mark or piece of tape or dot can be useful for learning large shifts or hitting that one note in a passage that is never in the right spot. I also understand that in some performance situations, particularly in amplified music, you don't always have the luxury of being able to hear yourself in which case something is better than nothing.

I am weary of something permanent because if I decide to change the type of string I use, raise my string height, or my bass goes through a particularly dramatic climate/season shift, I don't want dots in the wrong spots. While I would like to think I would be open to an instrument that had dots on it if everything else was what I wanted while bass shopping I know that many people in the market do not feel that way, and it could mean an instrument is significantly more difficult to sell than they are already. And in some of the work I do I could see bassist colleagues or conductors having an issue with them standing out, which is not something they like to see in an orchestra.

As previously mentioned, they are often not mother of pearl or another shell like they are on guitars. Typically they are wood. Sometimes they are intentionally white and create a large contrast, other times various species are used to make them less noticeable.

It does seem that we have divided largely into Tom's "camps" which isn't a bad thing. If you are considering them, might we at least suggest you try a temporary solution to see if it has the desired results before doing something much more invasive?