So we tune asymmetrically and sacrifice the ease of melody playing slightly since we can shift one note and still play chords well. I have a low E and and now a high F and a C on the second string.
Stringed bass range full#
However if I wanted to play full chords, I quickly find that I don't have enough fingers and fingering becomes impossible. If I were to tune in all fourths, major scale shapes would become symmetrical across all the strings making playing melodies a bit easier. Why? Not because it's in the guitar family. Standard guitar tuning is all fourths except for between strings 3 and 2 which is a major third. I can tune my sixth string E down to D and the reason is to get a low D in the bass for a fuller sound when playing in D. I don't know who invented this tuning but we can make observations.Īlternate tunings are completely valid. I often tune my guitar to standard tuning (E A D G B E) and sometimes curious students ask why. One could certainly make the argument that a particular instrument belongs to a certain family but it doesn't fully answer the question- the same question still applies- why does that family get tuned a certain way. The reason for tuning an instrument a certain way is always for playability reasons (and instrument construction/design/purpose). And the viola clichee-wise uses an even narrower range than the bass, despite its fifths tuning. But I'd say, why not? Violin and cello also don't really need such a wide range, they just happen to have it. One could also argue that the bass doesn't “need” such a wide range as cello and violin. Chords on fretless guitar are rather more difficult than on cello!) (Of course, fourths tuning is excellent for chords too as the guitar demonstrates – but these chords really don't work very well on fretless fingerboards. So you wouldn't really benefit from the mandolin-like chord capabilities the cello and violin have. In the bass' register, polyphonic playing is largely just usable as a special effect: often it simply sounds to muddy-undefined.That would get very troublesome in fifths tuning.
I think most bassists never use the pinky on its own at all (or do they?), because a bass requires so much more force than cello. If you were to play it like a cello, you would need a) much more frequent position changes, and/or b) a strong, independent and wide-reaching (much wider than on cello with its shorter scale) pinky. Bass is difficult enough the way it is.The Wikipedia article on the history of the cello explains the relationship of the older, lower-pitched Spanish violone (tuned in fourths) to the younger Italian cello (tuned in fifths). The structure and design of the modern double-bass still has more in common with the earlier viola da gamba than with the cello - even if, superficially, they look similar. Since there was not originally a bass member of the violin, viola and cello family, luthiers adapted the existing design of the violone (the bass viol, six strings tuned in fourths) to make it better able to accompany the new violin-family instruments.Īlong the way the violone became longer in scale length, to increase string tension, tone and projection, and it lost its two highest strings. Once the newly-designed violin, viola and cello came on the scene, the viola da gamba family fell out of usage, because they could not compete with the loud, cutting sound of the violin, viola and cello. They also have structural differences which give them a much stronger, louder sound than the relatively quiet viola da gamba family instruments. Violin-family instruments have four strings tuned in fifths. The lowest-pitched instrument of the violin family was the cello. The violin family of instruments came from Italy, and as they were originally conceived, there was no bass instrument in that family. The violin, viola and cello were newer inventions that came along almost 200 years after the first appearance of the viola da gamba family. Instruments of the viol or viola da gamba family, from the violone on the left to the treble viol on the right. These were instruments of six strings, tuned in fourths, like the modern guitar. These instruments came into prominence in the late 1400s, after originating in Spain. This is a controversial assertion among music historians, as these things evolved continously, but many scholars do not consider the double-bass to be a part of the violin family at all.Ībout two centuries before the violin, viola and cello were invented, there was the viola da gamba family: the violone (the double-bass viol), the viola da gamba, the tenor viol, and the treble viol. It is because the double bass, essentially, comes from a different family of instruments than the cello, viola and violin.
0 kommentar(er)
