Tips on playing fretless

[nic salsus]

I studied with a teacher who was big on developing exercises to work on specific weaknesses. One that I came up with to nail position shifts is to play scales using the first note as a reference. So an F Maj scale starts with an F (1st fret E string) then G back to the -F- A -F- Bb -F- C -F- E -F- and so on up the neck and back. The concept works well with arpeggios and improvised motifs too.

 

[deckard]

As far as reading while playing fretless, I've adopted a suggestion by/from Gary Willis:

rather than putting the music stand directly in front of you, put it off to the left (or right if you play left handed) somewhat near the neck - this makes it easier & faster to glance from the sheet music to the neck & back again for a quick position check, if you get my meaning - works nicely por moi...

JMHO

p.s. - quite obviously this will work great for fretted, too (I just happen to play fretless exclusively)...

 

[billoetjen]

I've been playing fretless pretty much exclusively for 35 years or so. The best tip I can impart is to try NOT to make it sound like a fretless. Once you can do that reliably everything else will fall right into place, IME.

Now, I don't know why an established master would give away one of, if not THE, most valuable tip in the whole racket. But there it is. Really, nothing more to add here.

 

[Anonymatt]

As far as reading while playing fretless, I've adopted a suggestion by/from Gary Willis:

rather than putting the music stand directly in front of you, put it off to the left (or right if you play left handed) somewhat near the neck - this makes it easier & faster to glance from the sheet music to the neck & back again for a quick position check, if you get my meaning - works nicely por moi...

JMHO

p.s. - quite obviously this will work great for fretted, too (I just happen to play fretless exclusively)...

Hey, good thinking.

I always thought that a side benefit of being next to the drummer's hi-hat is that when you're looking in the neck direction, you're also pointed at the crowd and it's easier to engage them. Preferred in a pop setting.

 

[FromTheBassMent]

As far as reading while playing fretless, I've adopted a suggestion by/from Gary Willis:

rather than putting the music stand directly in front of you, put it off to the left (or right if you play left handed) somewhat near the neck - this makes it easier & faster to glance from the sheet music to the neck & back again for a quick position check, if you get my meaning - works nicely por moi...

JMHO

p.s. - quite obviously this will work great for fretted, too (I just happen to play fretless exclusively)...

I use the same trick for mic placement... I cock my vocal mic toward my head from a position to my left. Makes it much easier to cop a peek at my hands when necessary.

 

[deckard]

I certainly don't want to start a fight with anybody, but I don't see the point of playing fretless if one is going to work hard to make it NOT sound like a fretless.

I mean, isn't one of the major reasons to play fretless the very fact that it *is* such an expressive instrument and has so many possibilities not offed by fretted?

Don't want to start a war, just trying to understand this...

Can anyone help me out here?



Thanks!!

p.s. - hmmmm... it occurs to me that one reason might be for players who have different types of gigs... maybe/possibly?

 

[Passinwind]

I certainly don't want to start a fight with anybody, but I don't see the point of playing fretless if one is going to work hard to make it NOT sound like a fretless.

Because once you've achieved that all the fretless-centric techniques are trivially easy to master, and you'll always stand a much better chance of being in tune.

 

[maxiegrant]

I certainly don't want to start a fight with anybody, but I don't see the point of playing fretless if one is going to work hard to make it NOT sound like a fretless.

I mean, isn't one of the major reasons to play fretless the very fact that it *is* such an expressive instrument and has so many possibilities not offed by fretted?

Don't want to start a war, just trying to understand this...

Can anyone help me out here?



Thanks!!

p.s. - hmmmm... it occurs to me that one reason might be for players who have different types of gigs... maybe/possibly?

I would venture that if one is spending all one's time mwahing up and down the board of the fretless and not playing regular lines, one is going to be perceived as more jackoff than Jaco. I think the recommendation is, learn to just make your fretless play music before you get carried away with making it do weird things that you can only do on fretless.

And once you've learned to just play, the fretless aspects of your sound reveal themselves naturally as you discover what you like.

 

[nic salsus]

Because once you've achieved that all the fretless-centric techniques are trivially easy to master, and you'll always stand a much better chance of being in tune.

Absolutely. Everything starts from an in tune note so that's what you work on first. The idea of making it sound like a fretted bass is simply playing in tune with no slides or vibrato.

 

[deckard]

Thanks much, guys, for the last 3 posts!

Makes sense to me now.

Appreciate you three taking the time...

 

[Tommygunn]

Don't mess up..

But seriously, drones are cool stuff

 

[JTE]

I certainly don't want to start a fight with anybody, but I don't see the point of playing fretless if one is going to work hard to make it NOT sound like a fretless.

Back in post #22 I said "The key is to be able to play in tune and move from note to note with intonation so accurate that people don't know you're playing fretless. Why? Because then you can apply the expression a fretless affords for MUSICAL reasons rather than due to technical limitations." (Emphasis added).

John