Hello, my name is Kai Kiernan, and I’m in the unfortunate position of liking upright bass a lot, but singing in a band where I usually play electric bass and yell like I’m trying to be heard over a bad PA.  So, in order to be better at both my electric bass playing and also my singing, I am learning how to sing nicely over just upright bass.

WHOEVER TOLD ME TO DO THIS OR PUT THIS IDEA IN MY HEAD IS NOT A NICE PERSON ( I blame Scott Mulvahill). It’s hard, the upright bass is a trickier instrument to play than the electric bass, and due to the increased concentration that the upright bass takes it ALSO makes it harder to sing.

Here are a list of five obstacles that I need to face in order to be a better/acceptable upright player who sings.

1) The lack of variety in sound/ part writing

I feel like if I were to use more specific language, the problem is limited orchestration. No matter how I dice this tomato up, I’m still eating a tomato at the end of the day, no matter what I do, I will still be singing with just an upright bass. Trying to come up with a cool, interesting and full sounding part that accomplishes a goal of being percussive, rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic all at once is not a challenge that I am used to. That is a hefty task list when you are only used to just doing one or two of those things at a given time.

But when I am looking at what these upright singer-songwriters are doing, it seems that they are addressing this problem by incorporating a wider variety of sounds from the instrument. This means that they are hitting the instrument to have a percussive element to the song, it means they’re writing higher lines on top of a lower and simpler bass line, it means they are using space in an unconventional and effective way, it means using the bow, and bowing chords. It’s really an amazing use of the instrument.

Ultimately this is a task where you have to be learning to do more than just what the instrument typically calls for, and due to that pressure, I believe this practice to be an extremely helpful way of developing as a musician. Creative approaches to intimate performances are always going to lead to an improved musician.

2) Limited range/ Difficulty of higher range playing

In most music where the bass is included, bassist typically use one or two octaves. This is done intentionally as a way to fill up a mix, with guitars, pianos, choirs, orchestras, and a large variety of almost any other instrument pairings one can think of. This practice has a basis in bassist having the job of filling up the low end of a mix. Due to this, there is a minimum required use of the neck, and I find that my capability to fill out an arrangement when left to my own devices a little discouraging. This is devastating! I want to play acoustic shows with just upright bass and singing, but ultimately I do not have that same ability to fill out an arrangement.

This is true for singing as well. I have been finding out more about my voice each time I sing, which has helped me improve a lot. I think this was particularly true after writing harmonies for an album I am working on. At the end of the day, my lower voice mixed with a lower instrument makes things sound a little muddy and ends up feeling like a missed opportunity in most scenarios.

The only way I can think to see my way out of this problem is to learn how to write parts for voice and bass that complement each other. If my bass is low, my voice should be higher, if my bass is higher than I can sing lower. I think I should treat it like a piano with two hands. If both of my hands are on the same key, it’s just bad form. If I don’t treat my playing like an arrangement I suspect the performance will be worse for it (which is such a huge missed opportunity).

3) TUNING/ being an unfretted instrument

Sooooooooo,

As you, a reader of an article about upright bass, might know, uprights do not have fretboards, it has a fingerboard. The fingerboard is usually a long bit of black wood where you put your finger down, resulting in a shorter chunk of the string vibrating. This means you get a different note.

It also means that there is technically an infinite number of other microtones between each note on the fingerboard. This makes my head spin, and results in more complicated upright bass lines typically being out of tune, and thus making everything else around them also sound wrong.

I feel as though when I finally start playing shows with an upright and singing, I am going to start feeling this much more. By default, there are going to be some wrong notes and bad harmonies, and I suppose a practice routine is going to be heavily about minimizing that room for failure.

4) EQ and Tone/ Amplification?

The upright bass is an instrument with an absolutely gorgeous tone. It is this beautiful instrument that vibrates through the air, ground, and everything that comes out of the instrument has this hug-like effect on those who get to listen to it. When you are in a concert hall or space that allows you to fully embrace that tone and sound, there are few instruments that sound as awe-inspiring in my opinion.

BUT.

We don’t live it concert hall. We play in basements, back rooms of bars, some one’s home, and often times do not have the chance to find rooms with perfect acoustics. This means that we need to find a way to improve that tone electronically and amplify it in order to compensate. This can be addressed in two ways that I can currently think of.

Firstly, you can change your playing. The closer to the bridge that you play on an instrument, the brighter the sound is. This is due to a reduced range of motion that the string is allowed to experience. When you pluck or strum down low, the string physically moves less, resulting in mainly higher frequencies coming through, due to the string being able to produce less of the lower frequencies (it does not have enough energy to produce larger (lower) sound waves). This means that if you pluck/strum closer to the neck, it produces a darker and smoother sound.

Lastly, it can also be done through amplification and EQ settings. EQ stands for equalization and essentially allows for the mixer (you) to decide which frequencies are going to be louder and softer. In the case of upright bass, you would want more of the higher frequencies to come through, and by giving yourself a minute to pick out which specific sounds you want to come through, you can better control over the sound that you produce. This can be further done through pedals that are used as a boost.

5) Environment

Upright basses are made out of wood and metal, which means they are mainly a huge chunk of a tree. This instrument expands and contracts with the temperature more then most other instruments, and if it’s not treated responsibly, the instrument can warp and bend and fight you. It needs to be treated with the utmost respect, and also demands that you take care of it. Life is hard enough without damaging your sound post, or having a multiple thousand dollar instrument exploding.

I take care of my instrument by tuning it regularly, so that the neck is experiencing a consistent amount of pressure, and so that the tuning pegs do not have a chance to rust. I also recommend using t as often as you can and cleaning it once or twice a month. I live in an old house, that has dust come out of the floorboards every time there is a particularly strong gust of wind, so I regularly need to dust my instrument to assure that potential dust mites and any bacteria that might find its way on the instrument, don’t have a chance to fester and damage the instrument.

For more drastic changes in temperature, I would recommend regularly tuning the instrument in order to assure that the instrument has a chance to adapt. Going from a comfortable 65-degree bedroom into an unbearable 95-degree basement is a lot for a human that can sweat, so imagine it from the perspective of an inanimate piece of aged wood. Bass can’t sweat, but it can mess up your show. Give it a chance to adapt. Take a minute to tune between one or two songs. You owe this beautiful instrument a chance to be comfortable, and for that compassion, the performance will be better, and people will love you more for it.

So with these five obstacles (complaints) that I have found in my personal experience as an upright player, I hope that you found something of value! Please feel free to comment, message me, email me, or get in touch if you would like to speak more about it. I might be updating this in the nearby future to incorporate more photos, videos, and infographics to make it a slightly easier read. If you have any advice on how I can improve this, please feel free to reach out.