Double Bass Owning both D and Eb necks?

[Bruce Lindfield]

I have no doubt that the better players like Chris can adjust and it all contributes to the challenge - I have seen great Jazz pros swap instruments and still sound as good as ever.

But as a 'weekend warrior' with little enough practice time, I think it would take me weeks or months to adjust to the difference!

 

[drurb]

Chris,

Interesting insights. I wonder if what happens in those 30 minutes to an hour is that you rapidly learn the the new physical landmarks and "feel." I always thought, perhaps incorrectly, that the "feel" in terms of muscle memory was a big part. No doubt, the ears and all senses, as you say, are very important factors as evidenced (I think) by the fact that if we can't hear ourselves, intonation suffers. At least it does for me and I don't have any room to spare on that front.

 

[Lo-E]

But as a 'weekend warrior' with little enough practice time, I think it would take me weeks or months to adjust to the difference!

You might surprise yourself. It takes me about 15 minutes to adjust to my teacher's bass after which, I'm no more prone to making intonation mistakes than I would be on my own bass - and I suspect that even as a weekend warrior you have more time logged on the DB than I do.

I think Drurb makes a good point; that little adjustment period probably accounts for the physical adjustment - the re-learning of the lay of the land, so to speak - but the other, more important aspect of playing in tune, our hearing, goes with us from bass to bass, regardless of different instruments' physical properties.

Whether or not I buy that bass, this is a very interesting discussion.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

Chris,

Interesting insights. I wonder if what happens in those 30 minutes to an hour is that you rapidly learn the the new physical landmarks and "feel." I always thought, perhaps incorrectly, that the "feel" in terms of muscle memory was a big part. No doubt, the ears and all senses, as you say, are very important factors as evidenced (I think) by the fact that if we can't hear ourselves, intonation suffers. At least it does for me and I don't have any room to spare on that front.

You might surprise yourself. It takes me about 15 minutes to adjust to my teacher's bass after which, I'm no more prone to making intonation mistakes than I would be on my own bass - and I suspect that even as a weekend warrior you have more time logged on the DB than I do.

I think Drurb makes a good point; that little adjustment period probably accounts for the physical adjustment - the re-learning of the lay of the land, so to speak - but the other, more important aspect of playing in tune, our hearing, goes with us from bass to bass, regardless of different instruments' physical properties.

Whether or not I buy that bass, this is a very interesting discussion.

I think you are probably correct about the physical adjustment period, and I would add the disclaimer that I feel I will always play better on my own setup. However, when I say "holistic" I'm trying to imply a sense of the big picture from a sense of small details: on the DB, I think we are always getting to somewhere from somewhere (especially as improvisers, which many of us are). With this being the case, once the body feels how far it is to play, say, a whole step on the same string or a perfect fifth on adjacent strings, it creates an internal compass or mapping sense of how far it will be to other intervals all over the instrument, and adjusts accordingly. Obviously this sense becomes better and more exact with time and practice, but I think being open to this bigger picture of muscle memory/awareness is an important part of playing the bass at all times, and certainly of switching between different instruments. Again and always, YMMV.

 

[Lo-E]

I think you are probably correct about the physical adjustment period, and I would add the disclaimer that I feel I will always play better on my own setup. However, when I say "holistic" I'm trying to imply a sense of the big picture from a sense of small details: on the DB, I think we are always getting to somewhere from somewhere (especially as improvisers, which many of us are). With this being the case, once the body feels how far it is to play, say, a whole step on the same string or a perfect fifth on adjacent strings, it creates an internal compass or mapping sense of how far it will be to other intervals all over the instrument, and adjusts accordingly. Obviously this sense becomes better and more exact with time and practice, but I think being open to this bigger picture of muscle memory/awareness is an important part of playing the bass at all times, and certainly of switching between different instruments. Again and always, YMMV.

Makes a whole lot of sense. Coming from 25+ years of playing electric bass - much of that time on fretless, I move frequently between different makes, models and scale lengths of fretless electric basses and need only a minute or two to get my bearings. Fretless bass guitars have no landmarks at all until you get to C or even farther on the first string - quite far into thumb position on a DB, but my muscle memory knows where the notes are in relationship to each other, and that seems to carry more weight than where they are in relationship to the bass.

Sadly, none of that is worth a hill of beans as soon as I pick up the DB! It takes everything I've got to stay in tune right now...

 

[Matthijs]

I think I personaly would choose for one type of neck, although learning the skill of changing over fast will be very usefull. Another suggestion though: if you're playing an Eb neck at your teacher's and youre getting yourself a carved Eb my guess is you're ply D neck won't get that much playing time anyway.

 

[Lo-E]

You might be right. It's hard to say, really. As plywood basses go, mine's really nice and plays really well. My interest in a carved instrument is more about lust than it is about need and, as has been discussed here on TB many times, a real gem of a plywood bass can often blow the doors off of an 'entry level' carved bass.

Scheduling issues have prevented me from getting a chance to see the carved bass yet, so I don't really know how any of this will play out, but the discourse has been really interesting to me - I'm getting a lot of insight from a lot of collective experience.

Again; thanks to everybody who's been chiming in!

 

[TonyD]

1 advantage of an Eb-neck: it is a little bit easier to reach for the F# on the G-string with your 4th finger, if you use traditional finger settings.

 

[Lo-E]

So, in the end it turns out that the bass didn't really strike my fancy so it was all moot.

Thanks everyone who contributed, though. All very thoughtful responses and all very useful information.

Now I'll get back to practicing instead of thinking about gear... for a minute or two.