The fretless electric bass is essentially an electric bass with the frets removed, providing the sound and convenience of an electric bass, with some characteristics of an upright.

You can hear the difference between fretted and fretless basses by the smooth sound and even gliss that a fretless player achieves. Remember, a gliss or slide on a conventional bass guitar will move up or down in half-steps, like a piano (read more in the previous article on playing techniques). Fretless players tend to use a lot of gliss technique to highlight this slick sound. It also has the advantage that you can always slide a bit more if you don’t quite hit the note pitch exactly!

For someone coming from an electric guitar or bass background, this is an example of how ear training can help you learn to play the fretless bass. Without frets to guide you in playing notes at the correct pitch, your ears and hands must work in perfect harmony. This can seem a little intimidating at first, but persevere and you will be surprised how quickly you can pick it up.

Most people came to know the fretless bass through the music of Jaco Pastorius.

Pastorius modified a jazz bass by Click to read the rest…