In learning how to play guitar or bass , the first thing you need to know is how to tune your instrument How else would you ever know if your hitting the right note or not?
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Tuning the bass by ear...
- Thread starter Knavery
- Start date
Wow, I'm gone for a day and this reached five pages. I wasn't talking about harmonic tuning--more reference tuning. I have a very difficult time hearing the lower notes or the vibrations when out of tune. I didn't create the thread to say I don't know how to tune a bass as some here are suggesting. I was simply curious if this was normal, or if I'm losing my damn hearing. There are some really good responses, and I enjoyed reading them.
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It’s an interesting issue but not so important so it seems, to fretless players. Even highly respected fretless players don’t always intonate perfectly and no-one cares. A note here and there is not worth worrying about. With frets you get all of them in or out of tune at once.
Batteries go flat sometimes. Tuners get lost or left behind sometimes. It’s a skill I’m not prepared to forsake. I do use a tuner when time and context (gigs and recording) require it. As has been said, the idea that a musician can’t tune their instrument by ear is weird to me. It’s a basic part of your skill.
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Hi. I agree that if you follow the harmonic series up the ladder, i.e., first harmonic or original wave (root), second harmonic frequency doubling, etc., etc.), that in nature, harmonics, be they RF from a radio transmitter or sound waves from a stringed instrument are not precisely double each time you ascend one step up the ladder. Obviously, the further you get from the original wave, the farther off from mathematical precision the harmonics become compared to the first harmonic. This is rather esoteric knowledge and you are, in my view FWIW, perfectly correct in asserting it. The phenomenon at the second harmonic can be discerned visually using a highly accurate mechanical strobe tuner such as used by piano tuners, for example. In my experience, though, although noticeable at the second harmonic, the discrepancy doesn't become very significant, really, until you reach the higher harmonics at which point the diminishing amplitude becomes a problem trying to measure them.
I think that if you rigorously test your instrument with a highly accurate mechanical strobe tuner, you will find that the string is indeed stretched a little when pressed against a fret and that this does affect the pitch of the note produced a little bit. That is, regardless of how well the instrument happens to be intonated. Of course, both this phenomenon and the phenomenon of harmonics not being mathematically perfect are additive and also compounded or diminished depending on where you are on the string itself, which string is being tested and who knows what else including the fact that equal temperament itself is by definition not perfect making any tuning exercise on a fretted instrument an approximation. Not all or even very many of the digital chromatic tuners presently available are accurate enough to employ for investigating these matters, although they are perfectly fine for tuning up and playing out. It's not a major issue usually, I don't think. But its something that is there, and after all these years considering my own experience such as it is and way more importantly, that of the guitar guys (now called luthiers) I used / use, I will simply say that if merely setting up my instrument was the issue, I would know it by now.
As mentioned, in equal temperament tuning anomalies are baked in to any fretted instrument guaranteeing the impossibility of just intonation regardless of how the instrument happens to be set up. We may have to agree to disagree that fretting a string stretches it a little causing a very small audible discrepancy. I was vexed with these matters for years because for some reason, I happen to be able to hear the discrepancies in pitch. YMMV.
The error that accumulates in tuning by harmonics is tied to the facts that strings have mass, have thickness and have stiffness. Add to those the varying response of the instrument to different string tensions and pitches and you do what we’ve done for centuries: tune it close and refine it the best you can. Unless your action is set particularly high or you press hard on tall frets I’m sure that the pitch error due to fretting is insignificant. i.e. If you aren’t well versed in recognizing pitch error and you aren’t actively listening for it and the note isn’t sustaining long enough, there ain’t nobody gonna notice.
I used to play with a guitar player who tuned by ear. He was consistent on getting the strings right with each other but he was always about a half step sharp and refused to put a machine on his guitar to check it. I’d wait til he was tuned, then catch him on my tuner to see where he was, then tune to match him. It was a constant PITA so i cut myself loose after a short time.
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I've always had trouble with it - still do. But then, in Junior High I wound up in a study hall instead of Music class, because the teacher decided I was just tone deaf, too...
Personally I think everyone should use a tuner all the time. Tuners have revolutionized to quality of sound so much. Carry extra batteries as well.
I started playing the bass before the advent of electronic tuners (Yep, I'm old as dirt). I probably wasn't in tune for most of the sixties. When the Korg tuners came out I never left home w/o one. And now the Snarks are always in my pocket like a comb or wallet. I've found using a tuner and playing in tune consistently has actually improved my ear dramatically.
This reminds me of a sad story of a friend of mine that had perfect pitch, but she tuned (imprinted?) to a piano that was not tuned correctly. When she was old enough to go to school and start music, she couldn't handle it because everyone else was out of tune. She stopped caring about music.
I was called out on TB for using the term "perfect relative pitch." I looked it up and they were correct. It is only relative pitch. My PHD music teacher in the 70s messed me up on the term when he told me that is what I have. Now I guess I feel obliged to pass on the guilt to atone for my ignorance passed down by past generations.
Yup, I have a clip on that cost me around $30 cause I didn't trust the cheaper ones. It still struggles a bit to pick up the b string, but I leave it on the bass head 24/7. If the band is out of tune from me, then I pass it around. If there is an acoustic piano that is out of tune, well then, we have to go back to the basics and this thread comes back into relevancy.
Ouch!
Thankfully my niece has never had such problems. She’s in college now for biology major. She plays piano and trumpet and is getting some financial aid for playing trumpet in the school band. She’s a very good musician all around.
Another story I have of her similar to yours, when my niece was much older, she was playing with my own daughters toy giant floor keyboard and said, “Wow, this whole thing is off half a step. C is really a C#!”
I joked back to her that, “...to ME, its a C because its the white key to the left of the two black keys.”
Easy work around. Use the octave harmonic. My cheap clip ons have no problem with that.
I also have a Snark, but for some reason, it doesn't work very well. I've tried replacing the battery, but I have a helluva time getting the thing to register the notes. I've been plugging into my Zoom B3 and using that tuner, but I'd love to find a tuner that I can leave clipped on the head stock.
Have you tried moving it around? I've found there's a sweet spot on the headstock where it works best.
Not very practical: applying a 440 tuning fork on the A string at fret 12 produces an amazing effect.
But buy a tuner, man. When you are on stage, you dont have enough time, or silence, to tune by ear. And with the muted input, you can even tune during a song!
But buy a tuner, man. When you are on stage, you dont have enough time, or silence, to tune by ear. And with the muted input, you can even tune during a song!
I have a Korg tuner (not a pedal one) which I bought 25 years ago. Still works. Still has the original batteries.
