Trio with bass guitar & drums

[gvurrdon]

Have you considered tuning the guitar in fourths? I know some bass players who do that.

I have indeed! When I first started trying out guitar playing I did tune that way, reasoning that I only wanted to play jazz so the lack of standard chords wouldn't be an issue. There were a couple of things which prompted me to switch back to standard.

One was that, as mentioned by Bobby Timmons, I thought that having a high E string would be a useful reference. The other was that I read a quote attributed to Ted Greene to the effect that whoever invented standard tuning was a genius as it made so many chord grips usable. As a major reason for learning was to be able to play some nice-sounding chords I thought I'd give it a go. Then, of course, I ended up playing melodies on the bottom four and chords on the top four strings...

[Christian Miller]

I have indeed! When I first started trying out guitar playing I did tune that way, reasoning that I only wanted to play jazz so the lack of standard chords wouldn't be an issue. There were a couple of things which prompted me to switch back to standard.

One was that, as mentioned by Bobby Timmons, I thought that having a high E string would be a useful reference. The other was that I read a quote attributed to Ted Greene to the effect that whoever invented standard tuning was a genius as it made so many chord grips usable. As a major reason for learning was to be able to play some nice-sounding chords I thought I'd give it a go. Then, of course, I ended up playing melodies on the bottom four and chords on the top four strings...

I’m a standard stan all day, but there’s a few players I know who play bass excellently and guitar really well too and they use P4 like all the bass guitars.

Go with what works for you. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to anyone else, there’s evangelical types on both sides and tbh there’s drawbacks and advantages to both.

Presuming you don’t want to play folk fingerstyle or something, I think P4 clearly works well for jazz and fusion guitar.


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[gvurrdon]

Presuming you don’t want to play folk fingerstyle or something...

There's no danger of that - I feel constrained at present to using a plectrum as fingerstyle on relatively thin strings feels rather difficult.
On that topic, I wonder if anyone who has tried this course: Tim Lerch - The Art of Two Note Accompaniment | Jazz Guitar Society
...could comment on whether it is suitable for using with a plectrum. If so I'll buy it.

[GuyBoden]

I’m a standard stan all day, but there’s a few players I know who play bass excellently and guitar really well too and they use P4 like all the bass guitars.

I have been playing in P4 for more than 10 years.

Personally, with hindsight, I wouldn't advise anyone to change from standard tuning to P4.

But personally, I've invested too much time in P4 to change back to standard tuning.

[SetPhasersToSwing]

I went into our rehearsal last night with this thread fresh in my mind. Our bassist is quite new to jazz and seems to favour playing in the middle register. I've said to him a few times to try to play lower but I don't want to give him too much grief about it just now because he's very much still finding his own voice on the instrument. It means I can sometimes feel unsupported during solos but I have adapted to include more chords in my solos and and I'm also just learning to be comfortable with the space that exists between the three instruments. Our drummer is fantastic but quite "fusion-y" and doesn't sit in a swing rhythm for very long.

I'd like to think that, as our bassist gets more experienced and confident, he will apply a bit more dominance over the rhythm section but it's early days yet.

Forgive the very un-jazz attire, it was 5 degrees C in Scotland last night and the cottage we rehearse in doesn't have central heating!

Here is our take on The Chicken.

I was lazy with my setup last night and just plugged my Epiphone Joe Pass into the Ashton combo that is in the room. If I dial the bass back a bit and push the reverb I can get a serviceable clean tone for straight ahead Jazz.

[gvurrdon]

Well, I think you sounded better than we did (our dress code was about the same though). Your chap's bass doesn't seem quite so prominent as I was finding during our last session. Your mix of chords/single notes is the sort of thing I've been aiming for (and probably missing).

[SetPhasersToSwing]

Thanks! We’ve been playing together since about February and have done a few gigs so we’re starting to gel.

Joe has a very trebly tone for a bassist. I loaned him my P bass for a bit and he still made that sound like a jazz so I think that’s just inherent to him!

The camera (my iPhone) was actually on top of the bass amp so I’m surprised the video came out as clear as it did.

Regarding my chord work. I used to play in a big band with a busy piano player so I learned to comp with the inside voicing of chords and shell chords. As others have said, the guitar really doesn’t need to play the low end of there’s a competent bassist.