Fretless Noobie

[JackieMoon]

Hi All,

Just about to pickup my first fretless bass (used to play double bass in school around 12/13 years ago). I would say i was of an intermediate standard on fretted and I love the sound of fretless.

I was wondering what tips people have for making the move into fret free territory? Excercises for improving speed and intonation, some full songs to work on to start with? That kind of thing.

I am open minded and enjoy many genres so hit me with your ideas.

Many thanks, JM

[hubrad]

I started on a fretless and it's never let go yet!
My tip would be to consciously not play the fretted one at all for a while. That way you'll get the hang of all your regular technique on the fretless.
I think it was Steve Bailey who talked about the typical, normally fretted player.. pick up the fretless for one song and go all slidy because suddenly you can. Then put down the FL and back to normal. If you play FL for the whole gig you can slide if you want to but (and this is the point) YOU DON'T HAVE TO! SB said a big compliment was when people started saying 'oh, I never realised you were playing a fretless'.

[Jerry_B]

There are quite a few threads on this forum which ask the same question - they will hopefully be of some use

[BottomEndian]

Play all the stuff you'd usually play on a fretted bass. Don't concentrate on the differences; concentrate on the common ground.

When you've got [i]that[/i] sorted... [i]then[/i] you can slide and swoop around like a tit.

[velvetkevorkian]

Absolutely right IMHO.^

[BottomEndian]

I only figured that out after doing it the wrong way round.

[ezbass]

You've definitely got to play songs you know and like or you won't enjoy it. Make sure there are some nice slowish ones too so you can work on your vibrato. My favourite for this is Steely Dan's Rikki Don't Lose That Number (really oscillating my finger on the root V intro). I like to swoop around in a 80s Pino stylee occasionally, but really it's all about the vibrato for me.

[EssentialTension]

As everyone is saying already, don't go 'ooh, it's a fretless' and treat it differently. Just play what you would normally play - maybe even simplify things - and concentrate on listening for the intonation.

[Jerry_B]

It'll take a while to train your ear-brain-finger co-ordination, but that pays off in the long for bass playing, be it fretless or not.

Is it a lined fretless?

[JackieMoon]

Yeah it is lined, will be picking up the Squier VM Fretless Jazz for my first.

[BottomEndian]

[quote name='JackieMoon' post='806211' date='Apr 14 2010, 04:27 PM']Yeah it is lined, will be picking up the Squier VM Fretless Jazz for my first.[/quote]
Good choice. An absolute beast of a bass for the money.

[fatback]

[quote name='JackieMoon' post='806211' date='Apr 14 2010, 04:27 PM']Yeah it is lined, will be picking up the Squier VM Fretless Jazz for my first.[/quote]

With a new bass, it may be worth checking that the neck relief is pretty flat. It really needs to be to get that mwaah thing going.

You may know all about that stuff already, but in any case it's no big deal. You'll find a load of posts here about setup.

+1 on playing it like a fretted. When I joined my current wee band, the drummer was hassling me to get a fretted, but i didn't have the spondoolies. So i played it all the time like a fretted and eventually he forgot he didn't like fretless. Helped my playing a lot, I'm sure of it.

Have loads of fun.

Soon, you'll find playing fretted annoys you. All that clanking and extra work.

[Soliloquy]

I would recommend that you carry on playing your fretted. Just play 'on the fret' rather than 'in between'. It'll help your muscle memory and should transfer across to your fretless.

[Toddy54]

[quote name='Soliloquy' post='806280' date='Apr 14 2010, 05:18 PM']I would recommend that you carry on playing your fretted. Just play 'on the fret' rather than 'in between'. It'll help your muscle memory and should transfer across to your fretless.[/quote]

+1