This article is written by Toru Hoshino, a jazz bassist and instructor based in Japan who teaches online lessons to students worldwide. In this article, he shares the one habit that matters most when practicing intonation in the high positions.
In the online community I run, “Bebop Practice Group,” we’re currently working through tunes that use the high positions a lot. It’s genuinely tough — upright bass especially makes you feel just how unforgiving intonation can be up there.
The higher up the neck you go, the narrower the spacing between notes gets, so even a tiny slip becomes much more audible as an intonation problem.
When it comes to copying a high-position line, I keep coming back to the same, almost too-obvious conclusion:
Listen to the phrase closely. Really closely.
That’s really what it comes down to.
When you’ve listened closely enough, you build a mental image of exactly what that phrase’s pitch should sound like. Then, the moment you play it even slightly off, you catch it yourself — “oh, that wasn’t quite right.”
On the flip side, if that mental pitch image stays vague, you’re much more likely to end up not even knowing what note you’re currently playing — especially up in the high positions.
Nailing a specific high-position note on the first try, especially on upright bass, is genuinely difficult. That’s exactly why training your ear to hear the correct pitch in your head — before your fingers even move — matters so much.
I’ve been getting back into high-position practice myself recently, and it’s been really rewarding. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of nailing a high-position note dead center.
Pitch in the high positions is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to self-diagnose — your ear adjusts to your own slight inaccuracies without you noticing, which is where a second pair of ears really helps.
Want Personalized Feedback on Your Playing?
This is exactly the kind of thing that’s hard to fix alone — and where having a teacher makes all the difference.
At Line on Bass, I offer an online lesson service where you send me a video of your playing, and I give you specific, detailed feedback — every single day if you want.
Students from around the world are using this to fix exactly these kinds of issues and steadily improve their jazz bass skills.