Double Bass All in with 5ths tuning

[reverendrally]

I'm not a 5ths player . . . but if I were remotely serious about it, I'd get shedding 5ths ASAP. Maybe you should shelve the strings for a couple of years. They'll be fine sitting for a good while, but your 5ths technique needs developing now.

Thanks for encouragement. Honestly, I see 5ths as another flavour or colour pallet. I'm sure there's plenty of work I could do on my playing that would benefit 4ths or 5ths playing. For now, I think I'll shelve it. I can't see a great benefit in swapping at this time. I can always come back to it. What's really cool is the huge number of options we have as player these days. Strings, amps, setups, etc. And then there's the online wisdom that easily available. It's all such a blessing. I wish we had it when I was learning 30 years ago!

 

[JBarz]

I made the mistake of playing a 4ths bass for about 20 minutes about two months ago and had all these tunes and lines under my fingers muscle memory autopilot, it was awesome. When I came home to my 5ths basses, by brain was properly confused and I’m still trying to recover, tbh. Every once in a while I’ll be thinking about grabbing a low F and accidentally lay down a fat C# or something similar. I thought at one point I could juggle both tunings, but no…

 

[jkmtl]

When I was in 5ths, I still played electric in 4ths. I would occasionally get confused and play the wrong note, but it didn't happen very often. There's no way I'd be able to switch between 4ths and 5ths on upright wthout getting confused, it has to be one or the other. Even for tunes I knew well in 4ths, if I played them in 5ths without shedding first, it would be a mess. I needed to relearn most of my repertoire. And then relearn a lot again when I went back to 4ths.

 

[hdiddy]

Hmm, I only just had these strings put on recently. And I REALLY love them for 4ths playing. Maybe I should shelve this for a couple of years til I need a string change.

Getting the right syringe makes a big diff. I now have my Squier PJ bass in 5ths to start doing some experimenting with double stops and not have to worry about intonation and learn the fingerboard.

Life has intruded so my practicing time has gone down but I’m in this limbo between the two systems but now I’m starting to find it hard to play in 4ths when I go back to it on my fretless eb.

This will be a longer investment but I’m thinking that for jazz, 5ths is superior from the perspective of an accompanist. So much easier to go after money notes in the lower register and stay there. Note I’m starting to feel naked when I can’t go below E in the 4ths tunings. It takes a while for the ear to adjust to play that low. Soloing hasn’t been a big issue as I can play the mental diagonal playing trick to use a lot of lines I developed in 4ths tuning. Right now it’s more struggling to be accurate with more choices when walking or 2 feel. To play exactly what I hear.

 

[hdiddy]

kk been doing this for a minute now. There's no way I'm going back to tuning in 4ths. no way. There is one major (or minor!) fundamental difference.

It is nearly physically impossible to play the 1st inversion of any minor chord in 4ths tuning. Major 3rd a hell of a stretch and you won't have the fluidity that a guitarist might unless.... you're in 5ths tuning. It's basically the ability to play a 6th with a melody note on top but what matters is playing with the 3rd of the chord on the bottom. Because wider distances are easier in 5ths, you can play pretty much any chord tone with the root on top.

I kinda come from a guitar background - always wanted to do voice leading/chord melody type playing and it always seemed impossible with 4ths tuning and now i know why. Even on guitar, doing such a thing is stretching across 4 frets and a bit of a stretch. 5 frets to get to b3 of the chord but you have the ability to hit some of the other strings since there are 6 of them.

What is hard in 4ths is easy in 5ths tuning. Nailing the 3rd is either 1-2 "frets". For me it's a sort of game changer since that's how I hear music with the 3rd as the main guide tone.

Sidenote: I did also change my strings for my EB (a PBass) to match to help me learn a little easier and not worry about intonation.

 

[JBarz]

Glad you’re ‘committed’… I agree, once you relate it to guitar fingerboard it opens lot of conceptual doors. You should consider the five string tuning with high e on top some day - it’s a trip in part for this very reason.

I played a gig the other night that made me very aware I need to spend some time shedding a couple dozen paths through ii-V7 in all keys at tempo, though. I’ve mostly been playing solo material and chordal stuff, but functional bass playing needs to be retrained from scratch. I’ll be all the better for it, but it’s time to get to work.

 

[hdiddy]

Glad you’re ‘committed’… I agree, once you relate it to guitar fingerboard it opens lot of conceptual doors. You should consider the five string tuning with high e on top some day - it’s a trip in part for this very reason.

I played a gig the other night that made me very aware I need to spend some time shedding a couple dozen paths through ii-V7 in all keys at tempo, though. I’ve mostly been playing solo material and chordal stuff, but functional bass playing needs to be retrained from scratch. I’ll be all the better for it, but it’s time to get to work.

Oh yeah I’m thinking about it. I have a 5 string fretless Ibanez as my single 4ths tuning hold out just in case I want to revisit and compare. I’ll let you know if I ever pull that trigger.

Same here, the functional stuff needs shedding.

 

[hdiddy]

Btw if I ever did the 5 string thing, it’ll likely be a fretted EB. Ebs sounds great in 5ths and very pianistic. The other crazy thing I’ve been considering is a second A string. Yeah two A strings, crazy, no?

Why? Because then I can play 2nds and hit some of Monk’s voicings that use a 9b or 9.

 

[JBarz]

Oh yeah I’m thinking about it. I have a 5 string fretless Ibanez as my single 4ths tuning hold out just in case I want to revisit and compare. I’ll let you know if I ever pull that trigger.

Same here, the functional stuff needs shedding.

Octave4plus.com guy, Garry, knows how to produce the set for EB when you’re ready.