(light upbeat music)
- Hey everyone, this is Jamahl Smith.
And today we'll be talking about
how to make your standard four string bass
play and sound like a five string.
I've been playing bass for over 15 years.
And for just about all of my bass journey,
I've been playing four strings exclusively.
I love the classic aesthetic of a four string.
It's lighter, it's more comfortable to me,
and creatively speaking,
I feel less has certainly served me more.
Okay, so if you happened to grab your bass
and try to play along to the track I was just playing to,
you might have noticed
that most of the notes I was playing
were a lot lower than the low E that comes standard
on any four string bass tuning.
To achieve this,
I'm gonna let you in
on the technique that has allowed me
to play more styles of music,
play bigger shows and tours,
and also give my bass more depth and range.
So obviously as bass players,
we know the standard tuning of a four string
is E, (electric guitar playing)
A, (electric guitar playing)
D, (electric guitar playing)
and G. (electric guitar playing)
However, since the dawn of electric bass,
there have been many advances in music
leading to a an even deeper range of bass notes being used.
In a lot of today's music,
we have sync bass, 808s,
we even have five string bass
playing on a lot of songs and in live settings as well.
So as an avid four string lover,
I began to run into limitations on gigs
and it actually got pretty frustrating.
So a few of my friends
recommended that instead of tuning to low E
that I tried tuning my bass lower
to something like low D.
This resulted in me tuning my whole bass down
one whole step,
resulting in D, (electric guitar playing)
G, (electric guitar playing)
C (electric guitar playing)
and F. (electric guitar playing)
I personally loved it.
It gave me two notes,
the E flat (electric guitar playing)
and D, (electric guitar playing)
but I was still pretty curious
as to what other low notes I can add using this technique.
I'm a huge fan of bass extraordinaire Evan Marion.
One day while studying him
I noticed he was playing his five string.
However, it wasn't in the typical way
five strings were normally tuned.
Typically, a five stringed bass is tuned B, E, A, D and G.
However, Evan tuned his bass,
E, A, D, G and C,
resulting in an even higher range of notes
for chords and soloing.
If you're able to pick out the pattern,
Evan pretty much gave his five string
the range of a six string bass
by eliminating the low register
and adding the higher string C.
This idea and concept got me brainstorming
to what I could do with my four string.
So as a result,
I started tuning my bass
to A, (electric guitar playing)
D, (electric guitar playing)
G, (electric guitar playing)
and C. (electric guitar playing)
Before I lose anyone,
let me explain a little further.
So on the five string bass,
you have B, E, A, D, G.
We're gonna remove the high string
so you have B, E, A, D,
and then we're gonna drop these four notes
down one whole step
resulting in A, D, G, and C.
One more time to sum it up.
I'm basically taking the tuning of a five string,
placing it on a four string
and de-tuning all four notes
down one whole step.
With this tuning
is giving me now seven more notes to dig into
all the way down to low A,
which in Western music is considered lowest A.
This could be really useful
for any bass player looking to open up their range
and try something new.
I rarely miss the high range of notes
for the gigs that I'm doing.
It's typically all about the low end.
However, use the concept and experiment what works for you.
That's all this technique is about, no rules.
All right.
So thanks for checking out this technique of the week.
I hope you learned something new and useful.
If you're stuck,
drop a question in the comments.
And if you're looking for more tutorials,
check us out on Fender Play.
Peace.