Use of Harmonics

I spend much of my time transcribing pieces for the bass.  I started transcribing Baroque suites and sonatas, these lend themselves quite easily to the bass.  I then progressed to Spanish guitar pieces: These sound beautiful, but I really difficult to play.  One limiting factor of the bass guitar is its' range: To combat this I began studying harmonics to find out if they would help. 

The are two factors to consider before I talk about harmonics - the practicality of playing harmonics may be a little difficult for you, so this will give you some good results before you are able to play the harmonics.  Firstly, to maintain the harmonic structure of the piece you are allowed to alter the pitch of a note by an octave.  One of first pieces that I transcribed was a Bach piece which called for a low 'C': The bass's lowest note is an 'E', or 'D' if you re-tune the instrument: A low 'C' is just a little too low to sound good. The first consideration is that when you are asked to play one note which is outside your instrument's range, alter that note by an octave.  The second consideration refers to whether or not the first, sounds good.  If I use Bach's Cello Suite in 'G' as an example, I can illustrate the point.  There is a descending run which ends below the range of the bass.  It I take option one, I would play all the way down this run and play the last note higher than the first: That doesn't make sense.  In the final transcription I transposed the whole run up the octave.  To recap: There are two options, transpose one note, or transpose a few notes, to make the problematic note make sense.  

If height is the problem, use harmonics:  I also use harmonics to combine low and high notes, otherwise outside the reach of my hand.  The way that harmonics works is like this:  The open string is the fundamental - E A D G.  By lightly touching the string, rather than pressing it on to the fret board, while you play, you create a harmonic.  The twelfth fret sounds a note which is one octave higher than the fundamental - E A D G, the seventh is a twelfth - a fifth plus an octave - B E A D, the fifth fret sounds two octaves higher than the fundamental - E A D G. The fourth is a major third higher than that - G# C# F# B.  

Taking in to account the two solutions that I have presented - transposing by an octave and using harmonics - I is conceivable that you can play any piece.  If you can't find the harmonic that fits the piece exactly, use the harmonic above, or below, sensitively and you should get some good results.

Transcriptions and recordings are available on request.