Tips for starting out on fretless?

[01FromFinland]

Heyy! I've played fretted 4/5-stringers for almost 10 years, but next week I'm gonna get my first fretless. It's a 4-string warwick RB with lines. Any tips on starting out? Bands that have fretless stuff for beginners etc.? Any tips are greatly appreciated!

 

[SanDiegoHarry]

Expect to sound rather bad for a while. Stick with it - the ONLY way past this is to play, play, PLAY. Do scales, lots of scales. Try not to look at where your fingers are - it's amazing what will happen after a time - you hand WILL know where to go, but you have to play the living snot out of your instrument. Until then, you *will* make dogs howl with your terrible intonation. Don't feel bad - we all did it.

 

[Joe Nerve]

Play in the dark.

 

[MalcolmAmos]

You fret right on the line. Hook up your tuner and see how much just a little behind or above the line affects your pitch. You have to be much more accurate with the fretless. I have a tendency to walk out of tune. The beast is not as forgiving. Those with good ears can slide into the correct pitch. My ears do not pick up a couple of cents one way or the other. I bought a no line fretless and I'm having trouble feeling comfortable taking it out in public.

Good luck.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

Practice singing seriously and develop a rock solid internal sense of pitch.

 

[HeadWind]

Play in the dark.

Yeah. I bought a fretless acoustic bass. Perfect play-around-the-campfire bass. Well guess what, you can't see all that well playing around a campfire at night. Suddenly I realized I didn't really need to look at the lines/dots.

 

[Mushroo]

I plunged into fretless very early on (less than 1 year total musician experience) and will always remember a great lesson from my first teacher:

Try to practice the fretless, so that it doesn't sound like you are playing fretless.

A good way to achieve this is to record a song or exercise on your fretted bass, and then practice along with the fretless, trying to match the pitch exactly to the fretted recording.

 

[BassChuck]

Start by comparing your fingered note to one of the open strings. After you get comfortable hearing that, move to both notes fingered.

Octaves and fifths are the easiest to hear correct intonation. Get them sounding good with no 'beats*' in the sound. Hand position is very important. If there are no really good fretless players in your area, don't be shy about taking a lesson or two from an UB player or even a cellist to work on intonation.

*by 'beats' I don't mean rhythm, I mean the pulses that you can hear when two sounds are not in tune. The slower the pulses, the closer you are to being in tune. Experiment: Tune your bass. Play a fingered G on the D string. While that is sounding, play an open G and slowly drop the pitch a little and then raise it back. You'll hear the beats. If you know how to tune a bass with harmonics it's pretty much the same thing.

 

[jsbarber]

+1 on Harry's comments above. I haven't invested the time to get to where I want to be with fretless bass guitar yet, but I did study double bass and can share some insights from that. As Harry said, you want to be playing without looking at the neck. On double bass, I worked through the standard material.The Simandl books and 30 Etudes, the latter of which can be had with a CD for piano accompaniment, which is very helpful for improving intonation because you can hear your pitch relative to the piano. Sight reading in general is good, because you will look at the music instead of the neck. Beyond the 30 etudes, there are piano accompaniments (CD and midi) to the Vivaldi Cello Sonatas and other classical repertoire available. It might seem strange to practice this music when you want to play other genres. But I found that sight reading and playing with accompaniment is very effective at developing technique in general and especially improving intonation. You wouldn't necessarily need to play the double bass material, as long as you were sight reading and had a piano accompaniment for pitch reference.

Also, when you play a fretless instrument you train your brain to constantly listen to intonation and your left hand to constantly adjust pitch in real time. This focus on pitch will develop your brain and I think you will hear music differently as a result of this. I did.

 

[AMOlson]

My own take is to stick with something I learned from Suzuki as a kid ... learning to play by ear. It really does work for the fretless instruments. Or at least I'm still improving and haven't gotten stuck yet.

 

[dreamadream99]

Lines are helpful when starting out, but a good way to insure your listeners never see your eyes. You'll be looking at the fretboard 100% of the time.
There really is no substitute for a solid sense of intonation. I'd suggest playing long tones through a tuner.
Learn to rely on your ear to maintain your intonation.

 

[theduke1]

Just play it and it will come to you

 

[kkaarrll]

on the limited fretless I have played, with little musical theory in my pocket, I found it much easier to find the right note by playing by ear and just sliding to the correct note when I was playing along with songs. It actually taught me to play my fretted bass correctly on some.

Waiting for a custom fretless to come in. It will be my main bass.

 

[BMGecko]

I jumped into fretless back in '89 and pretty much played it full time. Just take your time to enjoy it, and work on meat and potatoes lines. A friend of mine years ago said it didn't sound like I was playing fretless (implying I wasn't utilizing it as well as I could've) but I wasn't big on sliding things around. You may not utilize the fretless sound to its more dramatic capabilities, but work on getting a good solid sound, and workmanlike lines in the music you do and add the glides and swoops intentionally... Sing or hum them or just sing in your head as you play them on the bass.

Over time, learn melodies. Happy Birthday, Bette Davis Eyes, whatever floats your boat. Try to learn phrasing, copy the guy from Styx' phrasing, or maybe Tom Waits. Just use that to influence how you phrase and squeeze emotion from a line. Maybe listen to the sarod, a northern Indian classical instrument which has a fretless metal fretboard. Check out Amjad Ali Khan (and his sons!).

Perhaps a relevant thing for any bassist, but for a fretless player who wants their sound consistent is to learn how to adjust the truss rod for proper neck relief to maintain a consistent growl/mwaah or lack thereof. You likely want that particular tone from your baby, so treat learning how to adjust the neck a priority if you don't already do this. I make small adjustments most days on my bass.

 

[SGT. BAKER]

It´s a tad harder but not impossible. You need working with your eyes first time and your ears a tad later. It takes some time do it well.

Following the advices of many fretless bassist (some friends of mine) that I talked with they and they gave me to me, I´d suggest you that maybe it be better starting playing fretless with a lined fretboard. It´s very important having a visual reference of your fingerboard to having an idea of where you are putting your fingers. The first times it´s very common putting your fingers in the wrong place, so it´s eassier being out of tune. So if you have an lined fretboard you are giving the chance to correct your fingering of possible minimal mistakes of tuning, and the most important: you are working your ears and learning how it sounds this fingering played in tune. You can do this to play scales, arpegios, and more.

One time you make sure that your finger positions of the fingerboard are good enough it´s time to play with a musical reference. Use your ears to win accuracely. Whatever thing that it gives you a determinate tune for playing your bass it´s a good point of starting (you can record a sustained chord of piano, or taking some loop, or chossen an easy song to play along,...). Let your ears work, and if you realize that aren´t in tune you ever could take a look to the fingerboard to do some corrections in your fingering. It came the time that your ears are you telling if you are playing in tune or not, so you will don´t need taking a look to your fingers to know if you are or not in tune.

I hope that it helps.

 

[jsbarber]

I just came across an interview with Jaco, where he talks about studying classical repertoire - Cello, Bass and even Violin material. So my suggestion above actually is not so off-base as it might seem... go to 1:15 and listen to his answer to the question. (I wasn't aware of this when I made my original post)

Jaco Pastorius: Musicians Institute Master Class

+1 on Harry's comments above. I haven't invested the time to get to where I want to be with fretless bass guitar yet, but I did study double bass and can share some insights from that. As Harry said, you want to be playing without looking at the neck. On double bass, I worked through the standard material.The Simandl books and 30 Etudes, the latter of which can be had with a CD for piano accompaniment, which is very helpful for improving intonation because you can hear your pitch relative to the piano. Sight reading in general is good, because you will look at the music instead of the neck. Beyond the 30 etudes, there are piano accompaniments (CD and midi) to the Vivaldi Cello Sonatas and other classical repertoire available. It might seem strange to practice this music when you want to play other genres. But I found that sight reading and playing with accompaniment is very effective at developing technique in general and especially improving intonation. You wouldn't necessarily need to play the double bass material, as long as you were sight reading and had a piano accompaniment for pitch reference.

Also, when you play a fretless instrument you train your brain to constantly listen to intonation and your left hand to constantly adjust pitch in real time. This focus on pitch will develop your brain and I think you will hear music differently as a result of this. I did.

 

[BAG]

I'm looking for my first fretless and have a question for experienced fretless players and/or luthiers.

I do all of my own setups on my basses and guitars and was wondering how you set the intonation on a fretless? I understand that any minor intonation issues are easily dealt with purely by minor adjustments to where your fretting finger is placed but surely some intonation setup is required to have it playable in the right position. Am i overthinking this?

 

[twinjet]

Try to practice the fretless, so that it doesn't sound like you are playing fretless.

Quoted for truth.

Develop a sense of pitch and the day someone is surprised your lined fretless is actually fretless, then you know you done good. Then keep practicing more.

 

[Mushroo]

I'm looking for my first fretless and have a question for experienced fretless players and/or luthiers.

I do all of my own setups on my basses and guitars and was wondering how you set the intonation on a fretless? I understand that any minor intonation issues are easily dealt with purely by minor adjustments to where your fretting finger is placed but surely some intonation setup is required to have it playable in the right position. Am i overthinking this?

Proper setup is just as important on a fretless as a fretted bass. A good place to start is the "ALL BASIC SETUP QUESTIONS ANSWERED HERE" megathread: ALL BASIC SETUP QUESTIONS ANSWERED HERE

To your specific question, setting intonation on a fretless is exactly the same procedure as setting intonation on a fretted. The only minor exception being, replace "fret" with "fret line" in the instructions. So, for example, if you are following instructions that say "tune the 12th fret harmonic, then press down at the 12th fret" you substitute it with "tune the 12th fret line harmonic, then press down at the 12th fret line."

Some fretless setup guides will tell you to use a straight edge instead of your finger, or other alternate method. However, I find I get the best results when I set up my bass using my normal real-world playing position and techniques.

 

[BAG]

Thanks for your reply. I figured that would be the case but wasn't sure if there was any special tools for fretless (like a straight edge, which I won't use either). I'll just set it up the same way I do with my fretted basses except being on the 12th fretline position.