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You Can Never Escape Math Class: The Fretboard as a Grid

Feb 7, 2014
4 min

You Can Never Escape Math Class: The Fretboard as a Grid

Another excerpt from “How Do I Bass?”. See also this post about how the fretboard is not a grid. In the actual book this chapter will come before that one. Before I understood anything about music theory, I learned the bass by finding visual patterns. And even now that I understand a fair amount, I still find myself resorting to and using these patterns, because they’re useful. Unlike a guitar, which has a major 3rd between the G and B strings, all the intervals on the bass a

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Jan 30, 2014
3 min

Perception Exercise 3: The Sounds are Coming from Inside the Sound

When a string or whatever object vibrates at a constant rate you assign a pitch to it, but there is never only one pitch. The string produces overtones with various mathematical relationships to the fundamental, and the relative volume of the overtones is one of the major determinants of your tone. You probably know of these overtones as “harmonics”. This exercise assumes you know how to play natural harmonics, which you should. Here is the best chart I’ve found for harmonics

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Jan 19, 2014
5 min

Technology, Constraints, and why I love my Scordatura

Another excerpt from my upcoming book tentatively titled “How Do I Bass?” Music is all about constraints. You can’t avoid them, so you might as well be aware of them and learn to work with them. Unless you’re Harry Partch or you have an “Ustad” before your name, you’re probably working with the standard 12 tones. But even if you’re dealing with more, you’re still constrained by them. Each instrument has a range of pitches and textures it can reproduce, which you have to keep

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Jan 19, 2014
2 min

Perception Exercise 2: G = G ^ ~G

Set the EQ flat on your bass and amp. If you normally use an overdriven or “hot” sound, set it to clean. Play an open G. Play it a bunch. Play it softly, play it hard, stop it short, let it ring out, etc. You can even slap it, if you’re into that. Now play a G on the 5th fret of the D string. Now play a G on the 10th fret of the A string. Finally, play a G on the 15th fret of the E string. Alternate between different combinations of these G notes. They’re all the same pitch (

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Jan 19, 2014
2 min

Perception Exercise 1: The Whole Hog

This is one of the few exercises you should do without a metronome. You are not aiming for perfect execution, you are evaluating what is. Set the EQ flat on your bass and amp. If you normally use an overdriven or “hot” sound, set it to clean. You want the most neutral possible tone. Play an open E, and then play every note on the E string as high as you can go. Go back down. What do you observe about the sound? Obviously, the pitch is getting higher as you go higher up. What

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Jan 19, 2014
2 min

Pitch <> Sound: The Fretboard as an Irreducible Whole That Refuses to Submit to Abstraction Despite

When you’re starting out with a teacher, you are probably told that the fretboard is a grid, but this is only half true. The fretboard is both a grid and not a grid. This is one of the great paradoxes that make music interesting. Pitch is a function of several physical attributes of a string: its length, thickness, material, tension, elasticity, and many more. We’re going to focus on length, tension, and thickness for our discussion here. All other things being equal: Longer

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Jan 19, 2014
2 min

Fuck Virtuosity: A Healthy Skepticism of Music-For-Musicians

An excerpt from my upcoming book, “How Do I Bass?”, edited slightly from an earlier version posted on Facebook. Lots of modern players talk about “expanding the role of the bass” or words to that effect. Certainly there are many techniques only possible on the bass and no other instrument, and the solo repertoire has expanded exponentially in the last 30 or 40 years. But the role of the bass as a solo instrument is very different from its role in a group, and the audience for

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