Standard tuning for a 4 string bass is EADG. If you add a string, that would typically be a high C or, more commonly, a low B and, if you opt for a six string you get both and would expect to be tuned BEADGC, with an extension in either direction. That’s where I started on six string bass and it was mainly because I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to go a string up or a string down. Getting on for twenty years ago, I had a brainwave and decided I would start tuning my main six string bass from a low D, giving me DGCFBbEb. That is a little higher than normal but still gave me a nice, fat low D (which was very handy, particularly for a lot of the church music I was playing) but also gave me a little more range at the top, also handy in church when we were missing a regular guitar.

Recently, I’ve found that bass has been struggling to get the Eb note in tune. I guess the string has stretched and, because of the way headless bass tuning works, there is a limit to how far you can push a fixed length string up with the mechanism. I noticed this shortly before my accident and then ended up putting that bass aside for a couple of months. Getting it out this week, the same problem was still evident so I pondered what to do. My first thought was to borrow from regular guitar tuning and drop the top two strings a semitone lower than they would normally be on bass: DGCFAD. The trouble is that my guitar chord knowledge is thrown out by being a tone lower than regular guitar tuning and my bass playing is very habituated to the beauty of even intervals between the strings.

I tried it for the first song at tonight’s church rehearsal and it worked to an extent… but I mainly found myself sticking to the lowest 4 strings and the chords I would normally play on bass weren’t instinctively at my fingertips. I was also leading the vocals on that song and help the rest of the group learn it but, in getting reading for the next one (less in the spotlight), I decided to try the alternative idea I had and drop all the strings down.

I had considered going from a low Db but that felt like too much mental gymnastics. I would either be describing my tuning as Db Ab Gb Cb Fb Bbb (brain busting), Db Ab Gb B E A (still brain busting because of the jump in the middle) or C# G# F# B E A (also still brain busting). That wouldn’t give me suitable low open strings for the keys I often end up playing in. Instead, I opted for C F Bb Eb Ab Db. It will still take some getting used to but, to me at least, seems a bit easier to get to grips with. If in doubt, I can always remember to reach for notes two frets higher than I’ve got used to… and don’t ask why that seems easier than one fret higher!

As a bonus, my initial impression is that it felt very comfortable to play and I was enjoying the thick warmth of the low notes (looser strings so perhaps a little rounder in character) and the low C that I haven’t had access to for a long time. My inner jury is still deliberating but I think I’ll give it some more work over the next few days and a proper live test when I play on Sunday morning.