frettless bassist, this is for u

[NickyBass]

Absolutely agree that intonation needs to be regularly practiced and checked up on. However, if your intonation is good enough to the point where your bandmates and the audience don't notice slightly off notes, you'll probably make yourself an even better musician by focusing more time and effort on something else.

I know my intonation could be better. I cringe when I make mistakes. But virtually no one but me notices so there are
other things I can practice more that will pay off bigger towards making myself a better bassist.

That is definitely a valid point. However, for me, on upright and fretless, intonation is number 2, after feel. Feel is something that really can't be practised in a traditional sense, so during my practise sessions, intonation takes a good bit of my time. I like to really focus in on what I'm doing, technically. I work on other stuff, constantly---but I make sure that the new stuff is in tune.

Different strokes et cetra et cetra. Neither of us are right or wrong.

 

[Robin UK]

Fretted is not in tune, either.

IMHO, one of the great things about fretless is that you CAN play more in tune than with frets.

+1

 

[Jim Carr]

Interesting. What I've read is that typically humans can't perceive pitch changes of less than 2Hz when listened to in isolation. When comparing two pitches played simultaneously you can hear smaller differences.

The pitch change between the low E & F is a hair over 2.5Hz. I know when using my tuner I can't tell the difference between "in tune"
and eighth scale "out of tune" for E.

+1
The JND in lower registers is much larger, though I don't have the literature in front of me to cite--I'm sure google can tell us.

In any case, you are probably aware that frequency does not represent pitch in any linear way. One "cent" is simply 1/100th of a semi-tone based on the standard ((12th root of 2)*f) + f algorithm for calculating the size of an equal tempered semi-tone at any given frequency, of course then divided by 100 to get the "cent" in HZ.

In other words, HZ don't tell you much about pitch except for a basic "region," within a given octave and perhaps "which end," high or low that region.

 

[Jim Carr]

Absolutely agree that intonation needs to be regularly practiced and checked up on. However, if your intonation is good enough to the point where your bandmates and the audience don't notice slightly off notes, you'll probably make yourself an even better musician by focusing more time and effort on something else.

I know my intonation could be better. I cringe when I make mistakes. But virtually no one but me notices so there are
other things I can practice more that will pay off bigger towards making myself a better bassist.

I agree, for the most part, but there a limits to how much slack I can cut myself.

Oh, and BTW, if you want to talk intonation issues in a serious way, we have to be either in the upper register of the upright, or playing arco, or playing chords in the middle/upper registers of the fretless. To me those situations, especially in exposed passages REQUIRE dead on intonation.

No amount of groove can hide the ugliness of some of the clams I've made!

Oh, derrrr.....clearly we agree on this!

 

[bh2]

Yawn... just play the darn thing!

 

[spade2you]

In response to vibrato: it should be used when vibrato is warranted and NOT as a substitute for good intonation.

Having a better groove vs. better intonation: why the hell does TB turn dang near everything into a debate that you can only have one?! Having both is the difference between playing a tune and nailing a tune. Most often, guitarists grossly underestimate the value of ear training and they're easy to pick out because their bends are way more than a few cents flat on a normal basis.