An Ecstatic Pursuit: The Fretless Bass Guitar in the Theatre Pit

In my performing career, I am no stranger to musical theatre pit work; much of my early performance foundation, through luck, location, and connection, was formed beneath the stage and behind the scrim. It was the summer after high school when I learned to read music quickly and under duress, shaping not only the score, but my specific place in the production’s life. In quick time, Snoopy the musical had evolved from an odd Craiglist-bound opportunity to a cornerstone of my performance discipline and a gateway to future endeavors. The musical was at once a nexus between the rough, rock-band formation I had thus far been fed, and a sign of performance to come. To this day, I approach each musical I play with the intention and serious attention to detail that I would bring to the symphonic stand.

My latest summer gig has been performing Mean Girls - the sung stage adaption of the popular movie of 2004. I have approached this production differently than other shows I’ve played. While many of the previous musicals I’ve played have themselves been products of a past musical practice or have evoked such a past, Mean Girls is existing largely in the current moment (rather than the early 2000’s), and the sound of the recording (thus setting the expected performance ‘style’) is decidedly digital. I decided, in preparation for the show, to approach the score differently.

I have used my trusty four-string fretted Jazz Bass as my primary instrument for a number of years, pairing it with a Markbass Little Mark II head. This has been an ideal setup: the Fender bass and the Markbass head together have proven to be a reliable combination with ample sonic variety for the shows I’ve performed. But Mean Girls is a product of a different time. I have swapped this setup for my 5 string and MainStage running on my laptop.

The show itself demands the 5 string, though not always explicitly. Where some shows have seemingly included the 5 string range arbitrarily, or to little noticeable effect, the Mean Girls orchestration feels and sounds intimately connected to the lower range (when the drama is faux and when it is real). Additionally, and not necessarily always connected to the 5 string, but my instrument is powered by an active preamp. This is relatively old technology for the electric bass, but it feels new that it is so uniquely necessary to the sound of the ensemble and the writing in this milieu; it is not just that the range of the 5 string is demanded, it is that the frequency range of the active (preamp-powered) bass is integral to the sonic, temporal, and ‘historical’ placement of the show. I plan to write more carefully on this topic in the future.

To make matters yet more complicated, this bass (the only 5 string, active bass I own) is fretless. That’s right - I have been performing the show 6 nights a week on a fretless bass guitar. While fretless is typically reserved as a special use-case (not unlike specifically-tuned and thus specifically colorful ((unusual)) woodwinds), I have elected to use it throughout the show, excepting where the score calls for the double bass. This decision initially caused some internal upset - would I disturb the show, the intonation of the ensemble, the concentration of the actors, the space of the audience?

None of these worries have come to pass. Instead, I have found myself fascinated by the fretless as a discipline; when confronted with the entirety of the show, plus the demands of the instrument, I have noticed changes to my hearing, my breathing, concentration, and focus. The fretless electric bass, even with helpful dots or lines demands a heightened sense of listening throughout; I can never take my ears off the bass - every note must be adjusted and made to fit into the ensemble and the moment’s intonational demands. Further, the bass in this situation, in this show, is not universally relegated to the (merely) functional bass range. Performing on the fretless demands attention to the instrument’s shifting role, where in one passage the bass is the melody, becoming counterpoint, becoming steady rock 8th notes. This is to say that the intonation approach shifts (even with the presence of the piano and its equally tempered voicings) according to the score’s changing image of the bass guitar in the ensemble.

It is a pleasure and a stimulus to engage with orchestration like this - an approach I tend to think of as multi-voiced bass or transgressively-voiced bass. Nonetheless, the fretless (when imagined as a full-time instrument rather than utility) offers unexpected expressions. Suddenly, the articulation of the right hand becomes more involved and varied. The left hand is now intimately involved not only in minute adjustments to pitch, but in the production of the sound - using the tip or the flesh of the finger makes a change to the clarity and (seemingly) the alignment of the upper partials - the sound literally becomes more focused or more diffuse! Every shift has the possibility of being an expressive portamento. Further, each glissando, no longer skipping frequencies but embracing the full spectrum of frequencies between endpoints, fills the sonic space differently, as if increasing the frame rate of film.

The challenges also scale. Since every note has a greater possibility of being out-of-tune, the stakes are higher. This instrument demands more of the player, but grants greater highs, realizations of the musical with increased depth and nuance, for those able to notice. The risk-taking pays off. The pursuit of accuracy is certainly important, but the fretless in its inevitable pitch “fuzziness” sounds somehow more organic and human, as if replicating the tiny pitch inconsistencies of the symphony orchestra, or an ensemble of voices. There is more research to be done on the effect of these overtone stockings through the ensemble and the effect of the bass being -slightly- of the equally tempered pitch center.

For my own playing and artistry, the fretless is no longer just a special effect - it has become an integral part of how I approach the bass, my ensemble responsibilities as a bassist, and even how I negotiate these transitions to and away from the bass’s melodic focus in the heat if dynamic, shifting performance. I would invite my fellow bassists to take practice and performance on the fretless more seriously! The instrument feels risky, but the reward is immense.

More on this topic to come soon!