"OMG he's saying we can become better at what we do if we practice something! HOW DARE HE!!" lol
No doubt there have already been complaints to the mods about my posting my opinion on reliance on fretlines on a fretless
PS - the above starred-out word is a real word, used in a real adult context. Yet it has to be starred-out... it fascinates me that a MUSIC site, of all places, stars out that word given how it is common music usage for "slow the tempo". What a world.
Your starred out word is so common that I honestly have no idea what it might be! But then all my early musical experience was in public school bands and choirs and all my later experience has been in church choirs and, very recently, worship bands. I'm guessing your word, whatever it is, would be very out of place in those contexts. TB is a place where anyone can play, so it is G rated. It doesn't bother me and it should not bother you. It doesn't hurt to play nice once in a while.
Keep in mind that you are probably getting less reaction to the substance of your opinions than to the force with which you express them. Making them sound like absolutes is bound to attract opposition. Any musician worth his/her salt is going to oppose the notion that
this must be done my way and no other! All my experience with playing clarinet though would support the underlying value that you assign to learning to read music and to play without being dependent on watching your hands. Every minute that you spend not looking at the fret/finger-board is a minute you can devote to looking at the music or the other band members, or in situations like a worship band where there is one, the director.
How does a bass guitar player learn to read music when so little of the common BG material has been published in standard musical notation? I don't really know. I learned to read music as a clarinetist. I have yet to be given a piece of worship music with a written out bass part. It is all chord sheets that you follow and fake a part from. Sometimes the chords are written over standard musical staffs but those parts are for other instruments, piano most commonly. The only "written out" part I ever get is the practice mp3s which you can mimic by ear if you are able.
I'm not scheduled for a worship service until June 17 now and the music list for that service has not been released yet so my practice time is a free choice at the moment. Especially since I tuned my bass CGDA I have started to dabble in cello music that is often public domain and freely downloaded from the internet. So last night I was starting to learn a cello piece and you are certainly right, it is an enormous advantage to be able to sit in front of a piece of music and play the notes without watching your fingers all the time. Instead of watching your fingers you are reading ahead and planning out how to finger the next run of notes. It is a valuable skill indeed.
Playing without fretlines is probably not as valuable, in fact, once you have learned to play without watching your fingers the fretlines don't really matter, do they? But if you play without fretlines and concentrate on listening to the notes you play instead it probably does encourage you to play notes in tune, rather than to play the notes that the fretlines define. Both frets and fretlines are put in the standard, even tempered, positions. When you play with other instruments that are locked into even tempered note spacings then those are the notes that you almost always going to want to play. But when you play with a vocalist or a string section you have the freedom on a fretless bass to play perfect intervals to match the musicians you are accompanying and in that case your ear will get you where you need to be whereas fretlines will only get you into the general vicinity. But fretlines do not of themselves prevent you from playing in tune. You just need to move beyond them once you start to get the hang of playing fretless.
Even so, I see no problem with watching your hands occasionally. I do it when I am fingering an intricate run that I know I will have trouble with if I don't. Sometimes I do it just because it is fun to watch your fingers do their magic. I watch the string player's fingers at orchestral concerts all the time for that reason, after all. I guess it goes beyond that now that I tune my bass like a cello, I suddenly have a professional interest in watching how the cellists finger their parts.
So on the one hand I feel uncomfortable with opposing your stance on these issues while on the other hand I am just as uncomfortable with issuing them as absolute decrees as you have tended to do. Music is organic, not mechanical. Listen to your peers, take their notions to heart, but make them your own, don't become a slave to them.
Ken
