Re: Eberhard's intonation...

["Steve Lawson" <steve@steve-lawson.co.uk>]

> Concerning Eberhard's 'thumb position playing': given that Eberhard plays
> the "hi-five" (five string with a high 'C' string) he rarely plays high 
>up
> on the fingerboard. Because he plays seated and his bass has no 'body' in
> the traditional sense, when he does play high he doesn't have to use his
> thumb. In other words, i've never known Eberhard to play in 'thumb
> position'. Then again, i haven't seen him play live in a number of years
so
> maybe he's started using his thumb high up on the instrument.

I can't remember whether he was using his thumb or not, I just meant 
playing
high up on the neck.. he did some atmospheric stuff off the end of the neck
that was 'pitchless' in that it wasn't about notes being in tune, but more
about the vibe, which was very cool. It was when he was layering chords and
then playing tunes over the top that he's intonation seemed way off...

Granted intonation is just another parameter, and absolutes don't
neccesarily apply (hey, he's selling a lot more records than I am, and Jan
Garbarek still uses him for tonnes of stuff, must be doing OK... ;o) but he
was certainly not in control up in those higher positions...

The 'muscles and ears' method does seem to have it's draw backs, especially
in that your ears either tell you you are right after you played a note, or
tell you you are wrong after playing the note, which means you end up
correcting, and having the back half of each note in tune. I've had 
students
who played totally in tune... except the first quarter of a second of each
note. Some judiciously placed lines would have given them a much smaller
margin of error, if used correctly... ;o)

I do think that there's a HUGE difference between pizz double bass and
plucked electric - in general (there are some exceptions - NHOP for 
example)
pizz double bass notes contain a much smaller proportion of clear harmonic
material to percussive/jumbled/rumbling/whatever noises. So you can get 
away
with some fairly crazy things - Paul Chambers would occasionally play four
notes in the space of three in a walking line - because he was thinking
microtonally, or because direction was as important as intonation? It's the
big reason why there are so many upright players who sound fantastic with
their fingers, but godawful with a bow - Ron Carter would be a fine
example - the arco stuff of Ron's I've heard has been dreadful (not heard
all him playing, might just have picked up a bad CD), but his pizz playing
has always seemed jus' fine to me. The number of upright players whose
playing I really really enjoy in the upper registers is pretty small -
Patitucci, Steve Rodby, Red Mitchell, Marc Johnson, David Friesen, and of
course Edgar Meyer, who, not surprisingly given that he has the finest
intonation of any upright player I've ever heard - has dot markers on his
fingerboard! :o)

cheers!

Steve
www.stevelawson.net