Double Bass Intonation

[Neon Scribe]

It's such an esoteric topic. I wonder how many musicians are even aware of the different types of intonation. In the age of ubiquitous electronic tuners, there's a tendency to just believe that a specific note is only and exactly what the device tells you it is. It started with the keyboard, really. Equal temperament is a sort of collective hallucination, a cultural construct based on our tolerance of music being "slightly out of tune" but still recognizable. The convenience of keyboards and being able to move easily among the 12 different keys most of the time outweighs the more subtle (and sometimes stunning) beauty of harmonies based on Pythagorean ratios.

I had a funny experience a long time ago of trying to tune my mother-in-law's piano the day before my wedding. As a math nerd and a music theory autodidact, I knew about just intonation and equal temperament, but didn't have any tools available other than a single tuning fork and a good-old-fashioned mechanical Seth Thomas metronome. I had a book on how to tune a piano that recommended counting beats between notes by using the metronome. That turned out to be ineffective. I ended up tuning the middle octave using Pythagorean ratios, removing all the beats, using the middle C tuning fork to start. It sounded amazing in C, but I knew that would not work in any other key. Finally, I just played major triads in all 12 keys and tweaked the tuning until they all sounded just a little bit off. When I tuned the rest of the strings by octaves it actually sounded good! Better than before I started, anyway. Unfortunately, the sound board was cracked, so it didn't hold its tuning very long, but it did sound OK for a while.

 

[damonsmith]

My guitar player friend wrote this about her recent solo album, it all guitar flat on her lap with various objects:
" I'm not striving for an imaginary "correct" sound, I'm listening to the real sound. I've given up on imaginary sounds. Real sounds are shaped by environments and countless subtleties of technique. There is unlimited nuance which is easily forgotten if you're focused on an imagined perfection."

It is important to remember that tuning systems are imaginary until put into use. They may or may not fit with the concrete reality of a given situation.
It is nice and tidy to think of an overall system somehow related to an octave, but that is not how music works.
In improvised music, a lot of the intonation comes from the tuning of the extended techniques other instruments use. An example could be: You provide an arco low note with the right resonance for a common saxophone multiphonic - if you do it enough then that note may become a pitch you hear on your own in another situation.

In more straight ahead music, a piano trio for example, you might have a different pitch in response to a D dominant 7 chord in root position based on whether it is an upright or grand piano and whether the drummer is on their ride cymbal or maybe on the floor tom. This is before getting into whether the piano is tuned well and how it is tuned. Again, play that note enough and you will start to hear it on its own.

Beauty & resonance are much better criteria to use when selecting a pitch rather than pre-determined frequencies that have no consideration for the situation you are in.

 

[Bruce Calin]

A trick I use to demonstrate to students the difference between equal and just is to have them tune an open G to a tuner(in equal, which they generally are) and then play the B harmonic and the fingered B on the same string. It's a graphic demonstration of the difference between the major thirds. It's also a good way to begin really fine tuning intonation and showing how different situations can mean different perceptions of "in tune".

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Beauty & resonance are much better criteria to use when selecting a pitch rather than pre-determined frequencies that have no consideration for the situation you are in.

Great post! This is where I am trying to lead by the time of the 3rd installment. The "Sweet Spot" is always situational, in real time, and in a real place. It's about letting go of preconceptions and locking in with what is actually happening. It's about always being able to find the spot of least harmonic turbulence, even if what you are after at any given moment might actually be harmonic turbulence... but if you don't have that point of reference, it's not a choice.

 

[damonsmith]

Great post! This is where I am trying to lead by the time of the 3rd installment. The "Sweet Spot" is always situational, in real time, and in a real place. It's about letting go of preconceptions and locking in with what is actually happening. It's about always being able to find the spot of least harmonic turbulence, even if what you are after at any given moment might actually be harmonic turbulence... but if you don't have that point of reference, it's not a choice.

I think the main point of my post is the life these pitches can take on after the situation. Rather than a tuning or microtonal system of breaking up an octave you end up with a tuning system of lived experiences when you play these notes enough.
It can make it harder to codify and harder for the literalists to get their head around.

 

[Neon Scribe]

I think the main point of my post is the life these pitches can take on after the situation. Rather than a tuning or microtonal system of breaking up an octave you end up with a tuning system of lived experiences when you play these notes enough.
It can make it harder to codify and harder for the literalists to get their head around.

The big challenge is that these notes are never twice the same! We don't play in a vacuum, we play in a room with other musicians. We are constantly adjusting our playing according to what we hear. Choosing the pitch for a particular note is not so different from, say, choosing a note in a bass line when we are accompanying someone. Do we go up or down, choose the fifth or the third or the seventh? Of course, intonation is a bigger deal when we play sustained arco notes than when we're playing a pizz walking bass line. And what about vibrato? It's like a puzzle that we're trying to solve by listening and making tiny adjustments as we go. A string quartet or a small a cappella choir with experience and careful listening can capture this magic in a way that seems telepathic.

 

[damonsmith]

The big challenge is that these notes are never twice the same! We don't play in a vacuum, we play in a room with other musicians. We are constantly adjusting our playing according to what we hear. Choosing the pitch for a particular note is not so different from, say, choosing a note in a bass line when we are accompanying someone. Do we go up or down, choose the fifth or the third or the seventh? Of course, intonation is a bigger deal when we play sustained arco notes than when we're playing a pizz walking bass line. And what about vibrato? It's like a puzzle that we're trying to solve by listening and making tiny adjustments as we go. A string quartet or a small a cappella choir with experience and careful listening can capture this magic in a way that seems telepathic.

Correct, but some of them or at least the sources are the same. Common saxophone multiphonics for example. In certain areas of the music they are as common as a 440 A. I am not talking about adjusting in the moment, which is some we all do, even harmonic literalists.
I am talking about differently tuned sounds we encounter often enough that the pitches we chose to harmonize with them become pitch points we start to hear on our own.

 

[turf3]

Well, we have "just" or "Pythagorean" tuning, where everything's a multiple of 2 or 3 of a lower tone. Unfortunately if you have instruments where a given note has a given pitch (piano, for example, or guitar), when you move to other keys you find intervals built up from 2X and 3X relationships no longer have the right ratios and sound bad.

We also have "equal temperament" where each note is the twelfth root of two above the one below: all intervals are the same frequency ratio no matter what the notes (so, for example, a major sixth is the same ratio whether the notes are C and A, or C# and A#, or F and D).

Frankly, I think the arguments about just tuning vs. equal temperament tuning are largely cork-sniffing; when we actually play an actual musical instrument, we make moment-to-moment adjustments to make each note sound good in its context of the moments.

Since we're talking about an instrument without fixed pitches, the double-bass, I think the student should learn to play in tune using equal temperament, and be prepared to shade the finger position a hair this way or that, as dictated by those things on the side of his head.

 

[Bruce Calin]

It's helpful IMO to have some knowledge of this stuff in order to understand why the "same notes" can sound fine in some contexts but out of tune in others and how to deal with that. I've had experience with basses with dots or markings with varying degrees of accuracy and have explained to frustrated students that as your ear improves you realize that the dots are only approximations of reality in playing situations and you must learn to trust your ear. You can't rely on the "training wheels". This sometimes does the trick that changes their thinking.

 

[WG Plum]

It's helpful IMO to have some knowledge of this stuff in order to understand why the "same notes" can sound fine in some contexts but out of tune in others and how to deal with that. I've had experience with basses with dots or markings with varying degrees of accuracy and have explained to frustrated students that as your ear improves you realize that the dots are only approximations of reality in playing situations and you must learn to trust your ear. You can't rely on the "training wheels". This sometimes does the trick that changes their thinking.

I definitely prefer lines on my fretless BGs, but they are only points of reference. I don't miss them on the upright. I may have side dots put in, however. Good enough for Edgar Meyer...

 

[Bruce Calin]

I definitely prefer lines on my fretless BGs, but they are only points of reference. I don't miss them on the upright. I may have side dots put in, however. Good enough for Edgar Meyer...

There's been a lot of discussion on TB about dots over the years, both pro and con. IMO the way Mr. Meyer uses them on the fingerboard and a player would rely on them on the side of the neck in the lower positions are two totally different things. My point in this discussion has to do with hearing the variations in the differerent tunings and developing pitch sensitivity in different situations, not relying on markers of whatever type.

 

[WG Plum]

There's been a lot of discussion on TB about dots over the years, both pro and con. IMO the way Mr. Meyer uses them on the fingerboard and a player would rely on them on the side of the neck in the lower positions are two totally different things. My point in this discussion has to do with hearing the variations in the differerent tunings and developing pitch sensitivity in different situations, not relying on markers of whatever type.

Understood, but I think it opens it up to the question. My default is always do whatever works for YOU. Absolutes either way are unhelpful, imho. Micro-adjustments will be necessary regardless, it's just part of playing the instrument.


Ear training seems like a key part of this.

 

[Don Hergert]

For those of us here who just don't get into 90% of the complexities of this conversation, just play in tune with the other instruments playing nearby and it should be ok.

 

[WG Plum]

Pretty much, lol.

 

[the_Ryan]

I’m working on a series of videos to serve as a practical guide to intonation. I was hoping to discuss a couple of things here with the community. My first question: when I was coming up around these parts, “Just Intonation” was referred to as “Pure Intonation”. Research online shows that the former term is correct but that the two are synonymous. I kind of like the latter term and will likely use it in my presentation, but am just wondering if others have had the same experience?

I tend to hear “pure” in reference to specific intervals

 

[notabene]

I think this is related to the topic at hand. I recently made ( on sibelius [notation program]) a score for playback of a piano, playing back diatonic scales in 12 keys. Quarter note scales (eg in E) E F# G# A B C# D# E . one octave up E F# G# A B C# D# E. Then broken scales E G#, F# A, G# B , A C#? B D# C# E, D# F# E etc....and one octave up. And so on in 12 keys. The ear makes the "tuning" of the scale irrelevent, because the ear easily predicts the next notes' pitches . When I have played (arco) with the playback matching the pitches (sometimes in octaves) my intonation has improved noticably, and quickly. The mindless predictability makes the hands mindlessly play the pitches accurately. Maybe not for everyone, but the mindlessness of the practice is its asset. Mileage may vary. And for me mindlessness is often a real musical asset.

 

[SteveCS]

Frankly, I think the arguments about just tuning vs. equal temperament tuning are largely cork-sniffing;

Love it or hate it, but there is some music that wouldn't be the same in Equal Temperament. Intonation sets a great String Quartet from a mediocre one, and Barbershop groups would be garden-variety Boy Bands without just intonation.

 

[turf3]

Love it or hate it, but there is some music that wouldn't be the same in Equal Temperament. Intonation sets a great String Quartet from a mediocre one, and Barbershop groups would be garden-variety Boy Bands without just intonation.

But those are instruments without fixed pitches, so the musicians can adjust as needed, in and out of various temperaments. I assure you that if a barbershop quartet sing a piece that modulates from C major to F# major, they will be re-pitching the notes to remain "in tune" in both keys. But if a guitarist and pianist do the same, they'd better be tuned to equal temperament, else they'll have to stop and re-tune.

 

[SteveCS]

But those are instruments without fixed pitches

.. and so is/are the instrument(s) which is/are the premise of this thread.

 

[Bruce Calin]

One of the things that got me learning about the various tunings and the physics behind them was when I became a teacher of bass and had to deal with the question "Why?" from students when it came to intonation issues. As any parent of a young child knows, this is the question that needs an answer. It helps to have some sort of useful info.