Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

for a while i've been thinking about playing fretless. how tough is it? i'm an average player but i have a really good ear.

It's certainly different. Good technique helps (because of consistency). It's no "harder" physically than playing fretted, but intonation is the word of the day.

I enjoy it.

-a

If you have an ear Sean it's well possible. I didn't play fretless for over 15 years and when I came back to it a couple of years ago it was far easier than I recalled and I felt like it was my vocation.

Depending on what style you play, you may have adapt a little. You tend to think Jazz and melody orientated with a fretless, but Sting played fairly aggresive lines with his.

Try it!

Here's a loop I did for a friend's video project a few months ago. It's my homebrew MM/Jazz fretless (not a Ricky, sadly) and some drum loops. No guitar.

http://andymcrory.com/loopy.mp3

-a

That's pretty darned cool, Andrew.

High five!

I love playing my fretless basses. You can get several different sounds out of the same note. The harmonic slides are easy. I dig that "mwah" sound.

Practice playing along with songs you know in the dark with your fretless.

typically i don't look at my fretboard anyway unless i'm learning a new song. i've always made it a point to be comfy with the neck and where my hands were on it.

by the way, there's one or two great metal players who go fretless...steve digorgio (death, sadus, testament) comes to mind along with tony franklin (not so metal).

hmmm...did rick make an FLs with fretmarkers?

nevermind, i see that they did. cool. hmmm...

Yes, the 4001FL and older 4003FL had dots on the binding on every note, as well as the dots on the fingerboard in the center of the "fret". The new 4003FLs only have binding dots matching the ones on the fingerboard.

IMHO, for playing jazz, the 4001/4003FL with tapewound strings is the answer if one does not own an upright. I *LOVE* my fretless Rics!!

I love the wood RIC uses,

Go for it, Sean...the really good ear is the most necessary thing, and difficult to acquire...

Fretless was easier than I expected when I bought my J in late 1992. It actually became my #1 instrument for quite a while. As Andy Winter mentioned, getting back to it wasn't that tough either, after about 6 years away from it.

Like anything else musical, the more you do it, the better you get. And if you have enough ear to be a musician, you have enough ear to be a fretless bass player. Just have to want it.

Andy M...that is a cool snip. It's a great example of some of the "gestural" things you can do with a fretless...with that downward, fading glissando. Sure, you can approximate it with a fretted, but it'll sound like a piano doing a descending chromatic scale. The seamless gliss (going up or down) is cool once you figure out how to control it.

I remember reading one fretless player say that he never felt like he needed a fretted bass while playing fretless, but sometimes felt like he needed a fretless when playing fretted. I see his point, but there are some songs that I just don't enjoy on fretless (Real World by Matchbox 20 comes to mind)...but I don't think it's a key thing. We play Real World in Bb, but I've played plenty of Jazz standards in Bb on the fretless just fine. My band also plays Disease by M20...in Ab...I LOVE playing that tune on the fretless. I used the FL in rehearsal recently and I loved the way "Can't Get Enough" from Bad Company came out - we do that in F (I actually consider it C Mixolydian; C - Bb - F for the most part...)

Dane says the ear is "difficult to acquire". I don't think it's really the ear, but it's the skill that takes time. And if you want to, you'll get it. Just have to care.

Like the time I saw Alro Guthrie and David Bromberg...some folks gave them **** about tuning between every song. Bromberg said "we tune because we care".

You've Got to Suffer if You Wanna Sing the Blues!

Hey Charly...how's your carcass coming along?

You've Got to Suffer if You Wanna Sing the Blues!

Would you believe I tried to use that tune as a campfire song at a Boy Scout campout when I was about 15 or 16? LOL! It did not go over well.

My favorite Bromberg tune is "Someone Elses Blues"...talk about a cynical song!