Fingering on a fretless

[Lenny JG]

Make sure it's intonated properly at 12 where you like to place your finger and the rest depends on the bass.

Gary Willis is famous for intonating his fretless basses to play right behind the line.

 

[5andFretless]

Please see post #5 above. You are getting off to the wrong foot playing a fretless instrument.

 

[Lenny JG]

Find the harmonics and let those be your starting place for making sure your fingers are properly placed.

Unless you mean at 12, and even then, this is not an accurate way to find where a note placement is.

 

[DJ Bebop]

Just got my first fretless bass - an Ibanez Portamento 5-string - and I have a question about finger placement. Everything I find says to place your finger directly at the marker where the fret would be, but this bass sounds in tune when i place my finger just slightly behind the marks, kinda like a fretted bass. Is it just my ear, or do some fretless basses sound better fingering like a fretted?

It is depended on how the intonation on the bass is set up, just like intonating a fretted bass, only its more critical where you put your finger in the process of intonation the bass. That is how you will get the bass to play in tune when you put your finger on the line vs behind or ahead of the line. Look up Gary Willis, he talks about this very thing.

 

[James Collins]

I didn't mean to insult you, James. The comment sounded worse after reading it than it was meant to. Sorry about that. The idea of a fret is to create a fulcrum over which the string travels. Correctly intonated instruments are as close to perfect as tempered tuning gets with the frets where they are. By fingering right on top of the fret you nullify the positioning of it and dampen the string. This may result in a muted sound (which may well be your signature tone) and shorter sustain. This would also make the fretted bass sound similar to a fretless in that regard. Far be it from me to tell you how to play. Have a great day.

No offense taken. Honestly, I rewrote the message a couple times trying to sound less snarky, but it didn't take. Too much resting sarcasm.

That is sort of true about a "fulcrum". But depending on where you finger below a fret you can affect the pitch. On the fret is more true to the intonation than below the fret. It is why vibrato works on a fretted instrument even though the string length isn't changing between nodes at the fret and bridge.when you rock your finger parallel to the string you change tension on the string. For most things it doesn't matter. We that play fretted instruments are always varying degrees out of tune anyway.

With that said, I feel like this is too off topic.

 

[DJ Bebop]

I disagree. If you place your finger right on the fret you will be dampening the note to some extent. IMO proper technique requires the finger to be placed immediately behind the fret so that the string can ring unimpeded from the fret to the bridge.

 

[DJ Bebop]

Make sure it's intonated properly at 12 where you like to place your finger and the rest depends on the bass.

Gary Willis is famous for intonating his fretless basses to play right behind the line.

Yup, but he stopped doing that because he noticed it threw everything off as you go higher up the neck.

 

[JRA]

you put your finger wherever the note is intonated....everyone's fingertips are different..... Playing in tune is not a visual process, it is an aural one.

...but this bass sounds in tune when i place my finger just slightly behind the marks, kinda like a fretted bass.

i get what you're saying --- makes sense to me (if i understand you, correctly). put the side dots where they do you the most good...but no matter what it looks like: it has to sound right... right?

maybe you just have to trust your ears and hear where it leads you. use steve's 'formula', above. congrats on your new fretless! good luck!

 

[GreyBeard]

I've never played one with fret lines. I just push my finger down where it sounds in tune. If you can't hear that it is in tune or out of tune, then you are probably not ready for a fretless. Imagine what a trombone player must go through!

 

[lordradish]

I don't quite understand because a fretted instrument you normally try to put your finger right on the fret.

This is the first time I've ever heard this in over 35 years of playing. Finger goes right behind the fret, as close as possible.

 

[skycruiser]

Check out the Korg Pitchblack PRO tuner. It's a rack mount tuner that is a great visual guide that you can see from anywhere in the room. Mine is mounted on top of my combo amp and always on. Perfect for fretless training.

 

[darwin-bass]

Fretless lines are not approximations but are exactly as accurate as frets are. Frets vary in height / width but this does not affect intonation as the note is defined by the top of the curve of the fret which is the same regardless of fret size in new basses.

Your finger spreads out when you finger a note so the actual place on a fretless where the string is pinned to the fingerboard varies person to person and will be a bit closer to the bridge than the center of your finger. That small difference may be minor at the 3rd fret but becomes a larger percentage of the overall length above the 12th fret. I find placing my finger centered at the line works fine at the 3rd fret but at the 12th I need to center my finger a few mm further from the bridge to be in tune.

 

[DJ Bebop]

This is the first time I've ever heard this in over 35 years of playing. Finger goes right behind the fret, as close as possible.

Fingering on a fretless

 

[richardbruce]

Check out the Korg Pitchblack PRO tuner. It's a rack mount tuner that is a great visual guide that you can see from anywhere in the room. Mine is mounted on top of my combo amp and always on. Perfect for fretless training.

Sounds like a great idea - thanks!

 

[Killing Floor]

Just a word of caution to all those taking the advice of those recommending tuners - the point of using the tuner is to train your ear to know what 'in tune' sounds like, not what it looks like.

True. But it has the added benefit of training your eyes what your neck does not look like.

 

[coy garcia]

The answer is practice with a tuner on until you get used to the instrument. If a certain string seems off adjust the saddle to the correct string length.

 

[James Collins]

This is the first time I've ever heard this in over 35 years of playing. Finger goes right behind the fret, as close as possible.

As close as possible to what? On top of the fret? Participating in forums can be unnecessarily exhausting.

 

[richardbruce]

Fretless lines are not approximations but are exactly as accurate as frets are. Frets vary in height / width but this does not affect intonation as the note is defined by the top of the curve of the fret which is the same regardless of fret size in new basses.

Your finger spreads out when you finger a note so the actual place on a fretless where the string is pinned to the fingerboard varies person to person and will be a bit closer to the bridge than the center of your finger. That small difference may be minor at the 3rd fret but becomes a larger percentage of the overall length above the 12th fret. I find placing my finger centered at the line works fine at the 3rd fret but at the 12th I need to center my finger a few mm further from the bridge to be in tune.

Good point!

 

[DJ Bebop]

As close as possible to what? On top of the fret? Participating in forums can be unnecessarily exhausting.

This is the first time the poster has heard of placing one's finger on top of the frets on a fretted bass as Jaco recommends.

Fingering on a fretless

 

[richardbruce]

Fretless lines are not approximations but are exactly as accurate as frets are. Frets vary in height / width but this does not affect intonation as the note is defined by the top of the curve of the fret which is the same regardless of fret size in new basses.

Your finger spreads out when you finger a note so the actual place on a fretless where the string is pinned to the fingerboard varies person to person and will be a bit closer to the bridge than the center of your finger. That small difference may be minor at the 3rd fret but becomes a larger percentage of the overall length above the 12th fret. I find placing my finger centered at the line works fine at the 3rd fret but at the 12th I need to center my finger a few mm further from the bridge to be in tune.

I can visualize that!