Double Bass Fretless Electric - helps transition from BG to DB?

[KodyAudette]

I am currently in the very transition process being described. I played classical guitar for several years before picking up the (fretted) electric bass. After playing that for a year or so I came across a fretless for $80, picked it up and it came very naturally to me. It only took about a month or so before I had very good intonation with the fretless BG.

Now I'm finally making the jump to DB. I would say that as far as recognizing when I'm playing a correctly intonated note, and having the listening skills necessary to do that while playing with others have definitely followed over from the fretless. The only issue I have is that I constantly have to think about not following my normal muscle memory since the scale length is something like 8" longer. For now a lot of times I play a note, then have to slur it just a hair to get it on pitch.

Certainly hasn't helped with coaxing sound out of this beast either. Pizzicato is certainly different. As is arco, though at least I have some experience with violin and cello to help out a little bit with that.

Haha.

 

[gerry grable]

The only issue I have is that I constantly have to think about not following my normal muscle memory since the scale length is something like 8" longer. For now a lot of times I play a note, then have to slur it just a hair to get it on pitch.


This fits in with my personal observation that all players of fretted instruments play flat. They finger north of the fret and necessarily so. That is where the notes sounds, not is.
After all of these years of having played my Fender Jazz Bass, I still have to take care, especially on fast tempos, not to hit the string where the note is, ie., on-- directly above, the fret. Unfortunately in my case, it is impossible to "slur it just a hair" to the north of the fret without having already produced a dead note or a buzz.

Then there is the problem of the Eb/ D necks on DBs vs. Zero or no necks on BGs

 

[Tommy el Gato]

From my standpoint now, 12 or so years of playing DB, I think the benefits were much more the other way around. DB improved my fretless EBG playing much more than the chop laid any kind of foundation for DB. (... and I think it might have laid some small foundation but not too much, to be quite honest. I learned much more about listening for in-tuneness via DB than via fretless EBG. Arco DB really, really, really exposes your intonation naked to the world!)

This was my experience as well, except that I don't quite have as much experience. haha.

I defretted my mexi j-bass in part because I was frustrated with frets that inevitably buzzed and in part because I had been listening to Jaco a lot. Needless to say, I had some intonation issues that never quite got resolved until after I switched to double bass my second year of college. Even to this day I play with better intonation on my double bass than the fretless electric. Granted, intonation on both instruments is still a work in progress (I don't think it's ever not, really).

 

[playbass0410]

I think playing a fretless anything will help with that aspect of learning to play upright. The downside, is that it is very easy to pick up fingering habits, both right and left hand, that will serve you very badly on the upright.

Not my experience. Stuffed with >30years of EB playing (fretted+fretless) starting with DB I haven't kept any (bad) fingering habits, because EB technique just don't work on the DB.

The whole discussion of EB-->DB transition comes down to: prepare yourself to learn a new instrument from scratch.

And as already mentioned in this thread - to me the hardest part was to step from being a skilled EB player back to be a complete rookie again and this with running jazz bands...

 

[Tom Lane]

Not my experience. Stuffed with >30years of EB playing (fretted+fretless) starting with DB I haven't kept any (bad) fingering habits, because EB technique just don't work on the DB.

The whole discussion of EB-->DB transition comes down to: prepare yourself to learn a new instrument from scratch.

And as already mentioned in this thread - to me the hardest part was to step from being a skilled EB player back to be a complete rookie again and this with running jazz bands...

That's great for you! It sounds like you were able to avoid having to un-learn your BG technique because of your smart attitude, so kudos to you. On the other hand, I have friends who play, well, good enough to get called regularly, who have such awful technique it makes me whince. Slurred notes more often than not and a four-fingered left hand for the entire neck. No shifting. The constant slurring bothers me but not a lot of the local musicians in the vicinity, so, I guess, in the end, it works for them.

 

[Jack Clark]

Personally, I don't see the differences as that large - not at all. And although I don't play tuba, I do play several other brass instruments.

At the risk of repeating myself, my point in this thread was that this is a tool I don't think we hear about enough. It's not the only tool, and for sure no one can say with certainty that it's the right tool for a particular person at a particular point in their development as a double bass player.

But - it is a tool we should all keep in mind, and since it needn't be expensive and has a nice "cool" factor, it's one worth considering.

-S-

What I was thinking about, but did not adequately explain, is that we seem to get quite regular postings from BG players who are experiencing some degree of frustration trying to translate what they know from BG onto DB. It seems to me, from what I've learned here at TB, that the less frustrating approach would be to treat the DB as a wholly different instrument—like a BG undoubtedly would if he/she were learning tuba instead of DB. Sure, a lot of bass theory will translate over in either case, but I think BG players would be less frustrated with the slowness of their transition to DB if they thought of it more as a wholly new instrument, rather than as a bigger, fat-stringed, upright, fretless BG. But, again, I have only dabbled at both instruments, so I'm relaying my impressions mostly from these boards.

 

[Matt Ides]

To me it is the bow that is truly the biggest curve ball if you have no string instrument background. It was a complete foreign object when I first started playing DB.

 

[damonsmith]

I'd have to say playing fretless will generally mean you are bringing more bad habits to the table than starting from scratch!
Not in all cases, but often enough.

 

[playbass0410]

That's great for you! It sounds like you were able to avoid having to un-learn your BG technique because of your smart attitude, so kudos to you.

Well, actually you are on the right assumption with me.
I was really a decent BG player but I felt that I somewhat got stuck by all that patterns and scales that I just could shoot off lightening fast.

Believe it or not - change to the DB was hard but also a kind of relieve to leave all that burden behind that I felt has gotten between me and the pure essence of music.

Now I have to reduce myself due to limitations to my technique and the physical demands of the instrument.
It is the best chance to grow as musician as I have to express myself in the music and not by impressive technical prowess to shoot out many notes per beat easily.

So I really, really feel relieved to leave my BG skills behind and do not the very same thing just with longer, thicker strings and upright playing position....

 

[ojo]

I'm actually going through the transition from EB to DB right now. I've been playing fretless for the past four years, and that experience has been very beneficial as I work on the DB. However, I suspect my fretless experience may not be the norm because when I made the switch to fretless, my instructor taught me Simandl technique. Just so happened that he was an old jazz cat, and had interest in eventually moving towards DB.

As I practice the DB, I'm finding that the two biggest things working in my favor are a) the knowledge of the Simandl fingering, and b) the ear training for proper intonation.

All that being said, had I not learned from that particular instructor, my current transition to DB would be very different.

 

[playbass0410]

... when I made the switch to fretless, my instructor taught me Simandl technique...

well, funny enough I did play Simandl style on BG without anyone told me so not nowing the name Simandl just by lazyness and comfort. Only for fast stuff I did switch to 4 finger style.
So being introduced to this technique by my DB teacher was not a surprise nor unusual to me.

Anyway I find being in correct intonation on the fretless BG was much, much easier as on the DB.

 

[Tom Lane]

Well, actually you are on the right assumption with me.
I was really a decent BG player but I felt that I somewhat got stuck by all that patterns and scales that I just could shoot off lightening fast.

Believe it or not - change to the DB was hard but also a kind of relieve to leave all that burden behind that I felt has gotten between me and the pure essence of music.

Now I have to reduce myself due to limitations to my technique and the physical demands of the instrument.
It is the best chance to grow as musician as I have to express myself in the music and not by impressive technical prowess to shoot out many notes per beat easily.

So I really, really feel relieved to leave my BG skills behind and do not the very same thing just with longer, thicker strings and upright playing position....

Wow! That IS uncanny! I had the exact same experience except I came from guitar. I felt very limited by all of the licks I had internalized and it got in the way of my learning to improvise on jazz standards instead of blues and rock tunes. I found that in order to play the DB, I have to pre-hear the pitch and that moved me forward.