After two years of arco work with vomits and drones, I’m finally starting to feel more comfortable with intonation. Still, there are moments…
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Double Bass Intonation
- Thread starter statsc
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I’ve listened to albums featuring far better bassists than me and thought, “Hmm, that sounds out.”
Sometimes it’s really more about things other than intonation.
Sometimes it’s really more about things other than intonation.
It can be illuminating to use a spectral ananlysis tool on famous recordings. Going note by note on the bassline will really reveal how "out" even the greats were (especially in jazz) a lot of the time.
All three of the bass teachers I've had have readily admitted that perfect intonation is an ideal never to be fully realized.
There was a review in the now defunct Double Bassist magazine of a Buster Williams album that had the reviewer all exercised about how out of tune he was at times. My reaction was (and still is),"kind of missed the point". It's not like a classical piece that is all figured out ahead of time. It's improvised jazz. As both a jazz and orchestra player, I'm aware of the difference. I don't believer the reviewer was. We do the best we can.
Isn't there something to be said for tempered tunings, sympathetic tunings... those sorts of things?
Like the reason piano strings aren't all tuned perfectly to each other?
When playing an F# on the G string against an open D string, you don't want the F# 'perfectly' in tune... you want it a few cents flat, so we trust our ears to make that adjustment.
Tony Franklin takes WAY TOO LONG to demonstrate this phenomenon on a fretless electric bass:
(apologies for Tony's bare feet)
Like the reason piano strings aren't all tuned perfectly to each other?
When playing an F# on the G string against an open D string, you don't want the F# 'perfectly' in tune... you want it a few cents flat, so we trust our ears to make that adjustment.
Tony Franklin takes WAY TOO LONG to demonstrate this phenomenon on a fretless electric bass:
(apologies for Tony's bare feet)
To paraphrase the OP:
After 60 years of arco work with vomits and drones, and Simandl and Nanny and bears, oh my!... I’m finally starting to feel more comfortable with intonation. And yes... still, there are moments… OY!
After 60 years of arco work with vomits and drones, and Simandl and Nanny and bears, oh my!... I’m finally starting to feel more comfortable with intonation. And yes... still, there are moments… OY!
I still remembering thinking how cool Fast Fourier transforms were when I learned about them in college.
He’s giving an example of what I call “sweet spot” intonation there. It’s the most rational and most intuitive form of intonation I know of. The basic premise is this: for any given non-perfect interval (i.e. not a 4th, 5th, or 8ve), there is a node at which the beating of the interval ratio is the least dissonant.
In other words, if the distance between the two notes were to be raised or lowered even by a microscopic amount in either direction, the beating between the two notes would increase in speed. That minimum dissonance point is the sweet spot for any interval. As always, EEMMV, and EEMWCB.
In a famous anecdote about Jascha Heifetz, someone asked him: “How do you play so in tune? You play so
incredibly in tune. How do you do it?”
Heifetz replied: “I don’t. But I adjust the note before you notice it was out of tune in the first place."
Now another anecdote I heard about him is that he would play double stop octaves slightly out of tune, so that people could hear they were actually octaves.
In any case, playing in tune, however you define it, is a life-long effort.
incredibly in tune. How do you do it?”
Heifetz replied: “I don’t. But I adjust the note before you notice it was out of tune in the first place."
Now another anecdote I heard about him is that he would play double stop octaves slightly out of tune, so that people could hear they were actually octaves.
In any case, playing in tune, however you define it, is a life-long effort.
Playing in tune is also a moving target. The better a players gets, the more discerning and picky they get.
Specific intonation can also be an artistic choice. (not just about fitting into 12TET)
Music is also more than intonation.
Specific intonation can also be an artistic choice. (not just about fitting into 12TET)
Music is also more than intonation.
If anything this phenomenon / technique reinforces the idea of drone practice: If I'm practicing with a drone, I'll automatically choose the most pleasing pitch even if it's technically a few cents off on the strobe tuner. (I do NOT use a strobe tuner for practice).
I've been playing EUB and DB for about 7 years now and 3 months ago I started taking in person lessons and learning to use the bow, I play pizz in jazz/swing bands. Aside from learning about bow technique my teacher has been helping me with left hand shape and "proper" fingering and that has made a noticeable difference in my intonation and I can really hear it when I jam with friends or play with a band. The lessons are weekly and fairly expensive but it has been worth it for me to have the direct instruction and feedback.
I'm almost 77 and have played and gigged guitar, banjo and bass for about 60 years and this is the first time I've taken lessons and I should have done it when I started upright bass. The lessons and various exercises and studies have made a major difference in my playing in general, intonation in particular.
I agree with some of the posts about hearing the occasional out of tune note from some of the greats and how that makes me feel better about the challenge of playing this wonderful instrument.
I'm almost 77 and have played and gigged guitar, banjo and bass for about 60 years and this is the first time I've taken lessons and I should have done it when I started upright bass. The lessons and various exercises and studies have made a major difference in my playing in general, intonation in particular.
I agree with some of the posts about hearing the occasional out of tune note from some of the greats and how that makes me feel better about the challenge of playing this wonderful instrument.
IMHO, Intonation, and maintenance of your ability to intonate well should be a matter of personal choice based on your own standards, not those of someone willing to accept less.
And that's the point - one's intonation will only ever be as good as your own internal sense of pitch and tolerance for 'out of tune'. Work on that and your intonation will improve, but not without...
The number of people that don't accept this is astonishing. Better late than never, right?
It seems to me... in tune notes make the bass sound "round" and full, out of tune ... the opposite.
This is true. One of my early teachers would tell me to let the instrument indicate when I was in tune. What she meant, I expect, is that the sound is much enhanced by full harmonic support from the sympathetically vibrating strings.
One of the reasons I discourage any sort of markers on the fingerboard except for very specific instances in the highest register is that good intonation on the bass is determined by what sounds in tune relative to several things that are changing as you play. Your ears are always the final factor.
It was passed to me that one should play the upper note of a trill a bit sharp and this was attributed to Heifetz.
