Natural progression

[AlpherMako4]

I fear I may have entered the five string world before gaining a good knowledge of the basics and fundamentals on the four string. Does anyone have light they can shed on this? Or am I being a crazy man?

[Kev]

HI Andy, nice to see another fellow Alpher player on here

I am not a theory driven bloke so cannot comment too deeply I'm afraid, however in my opinion, providing your left hand technique can adapt to the different spacing and extra width, there is no negative in having a 5th string. All it does is give you an extra 4 notes and tons of positions. If I was starting to play bass all over again, I would have choose to start with a 5 string.

[AlpherMako4]

Ooooooooooh, good words man.

[ambient]

One of my students is 17, his first bass was a 6 string.

There's no need to progress from 4 to 5 etc.

I keep saying this, but I would recommend at least a coupe of lessons, just so you get the technique right.

[Bilbo]

There is nothing 'basic' about learning on a four string. You just learn with what is available to you. Yours is an entirely legitimate starter instrument. I went from 4 string to 7 in one step. I didn't have to go up one string at a time

[leftybassman392]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1456010179' post='2984576']
There is nothing 'basic' about learning on a four string. You just learn with what is available to you. Yours is an entirely legitimate starter instrument.
[/quote]

This ^. If you start on a 5 then to you it's normal. You just learn how to deal with what's in front of you.

[lojo]

You could argue going from a 5 to a 4 is harder as you'll be moving around the fret board so much more to achieve things that can be played in one position on a 5

Not saying it is , just there is no "harder" just differences

[Dazed]

You are crazy man.

Id say play as many as you can, the less you restrict your practice to any single bass the better. 4, 5, 6, etc fretless- use them all.

[visog]

Five and Seven strings yield their major scale note layouts better than four and sixers if you're a pattern-based player.

Simple maths really resonating with pentatonic and seven-note (sepatonic) scale forms.

I know many will cry rubbish but as an example, I'd cite the seven's ability to deliver the entire major scale as a single fret vertical as one primary form on which to build.

Like-wise a five will yield a wonderful 3x3 mixolydian with rotational symmetry with its rotated brother pivoting around the Ab on the A. (In the key of C.)

A four cannot reproduce this so neatly. A six can but with the ugly pattern breaking remainder on the adjacent string.

Edited July 3, 2016 by visog

[TKenrick]

In my mind there are two separate responses to the issue of 'how many strings do I need?'

1. The instrument itself is largely irrelevant, it's what you do with it that matters. Far too much emphasis is placed on the materials used to play rather than the playing itself - much like going to a restaurant and fixating on what sort of spoon was used to stir the soup.

2. At a nuts and bolts level there are some technical adjustments to make if you're switching between 4, 5 and 6+ strings, and moving beyond 4 strings can definitely reduce the amount of position shifting required. Having said that, staying in one position all the time isn't always the right thing to do - it depends on the tone that you want to produce from the instrument.

It's also about matching your instrument to the sound that you hear in your head. Having been through 6-string and 5-string E-C phases I realised that (for me, at least) a high C string on a bass doesn't work and (to my ears) will only ever sound like a bad guitar. This may well be down to my playing, but that's a separate issue...