Re: Eberhard's intonation...

[David Beardsley <db@biink.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Steve Lawson" <steve@steve-lawson.co.uk>

> > I've never heard him play in person, but I would be interested
> > to hear him fumbling around on the bass as you describe. All
> > we have is your word.
> >
> Absolutely - what I find distasteful may be considered perfectly fine to
> some. I wouldn't have called it fumbling, more that as he got further and
> further up the dusty end of his bass, the accuracy of his pitch got more
and
> more random. in a band situation, it probably wouldn't have been so
> noticeable, but when he was layering stuff up with the EDP, the
combination
> of pitches was way off. I know how tricky it is to do - I do a lot of
> layered fretless stuff myself, and occasionally glitch the pitch. From
what
> I heard on that gig (could be a freak occurance, though other players 
>I've
> spoken to attested to a similar experience when watching him live), he
just
> didn't have adequate control over his thumb position playing.

Ah...thanks for explainiing a bit more. It's tricky playing
high notes on fretless bass, but a hell of a lot easier than
on a fretless guitar! I rarely play on that part of the neck on my
fretless guitar.

> I don't play upright. If I ever get one, I'll be taking it straight to a
> luthier and getting at least very obvious position dots on the board, if
not
> getting the whole thing lined... I'll never buy an unlined fretless
bass...

I depend on the dots on the side of the neck. That's enough for me.


* David Beardsley
* microtonal guitar
* http://biink.com/db