I don’t think your method is crude at all but rather a brilliant approach
Lately I have seen a few players say that they feel that a fretted note DOES NOT sound as good as the same note played on an open string. I do not agree and prefer the timbre of the fretted note, but that is a personal preference. I only mention this because I noticed that a lot of your fingering notation shown also prefers the fretted note. Case in point is the Intro where the D is shown fretted as opposed to just playing the D string open.
I am working on a song at the minute and I think that the open A string into the fretted notes on the A string gives it a nice contrast.
The open A feels like it has more punch and sets up the beginning of the riff which is all fretted notes nicely.
There’s situations and styles where I definitely think the open string sounds better than the 5th fret below it, and even when it doesn’t, there is still often call to use it anyway. Sometimes reaching that 5th fret is not convenient.
Agreed but I still like the timbre of the A at the 5th fret of the E string compared to A sting open.
I think the thickness of the E string has got to come into play somehow.
I think I will wade in and give a solid it depends.
With my new rumble 100, my old Ampeg 110, and various basses I’ve been practicing a song for Christmas to do a cover, and whether I fret a D or play an open D sounds different bass to bass, and way differently on the two amps.
The fender adds a lot of bass tone on the A string you don’t get on the D string.
On my Surveyor it’s more of a difference in MM pup mode than Jazz pup mode.
Hell,… I’ll jump in too on this… Totally agree with @Wombat-metal…
Depending on the tones that make YOU happy, play them as you wish… Let your ear be the boss and tell you what to do… I’ve bounced back and forth with some songs depending on my mood at the time (and the mood off those I’ve played with)… Sometimes you just need that “Open Ring” of an open note to “Make a Point in the groove”…
As far as having a “long reach” for the fretted notes of an open string as @howard pointed out, yes, that makes a difference too so what ever “floats yer boat” can (and does) work…
A lot of this also depends on when and where you"re playing… When I play with other groups, or playing with a band, I will play one way… When doing my recordings, I will play another way… When I just go out and play with a jam band, I always just make it as simple as possible because I don"t know any of the others play so I just stick to simplicity and bare basics…
I don’t use pedals or anything else… Bass “Tones and Ambiance” for me are established using my fretting hand fingers. You can control a lot of things on bass just using your fingers - way more than on a guitar which is what I’ve played my entire life until just a couple years ago when I moved to bass…
When @Barney mentioned that things just “felt and sounded better” using an open A and then going to a 5th fret E in a song,… Well, that’s just “Friggin’” cool…!!! Obviously he’s "feeling’ something that “Floats his boat” and puts a smile on his face…
And isn’t this what makes it all worthwhile!! We all do things a bit differently, and we can all learn (or not learn) from each other… When it comes to music, all that matters is that it makes us happy and puts a smile on our face… When it comes to playing bass, all that matters is being ON TIME and playing IN KEY…
Why isn’t this getting more press? This is a big deal and they’re hiding it from us. Last week the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, the Opec of syrup, release 22m kg of the sugary maple goodness from its strategic reserves. This is a crisis of the first water.
It’s liquid sugar so who cares? it’s not like running out of beer or coffee.
Where I live we’ve had record heat, drough, forest fires, smoke for months, flooding and landslides, houses and farms wiped out, thousands of a animals killed, all the highways to the coast closed, railway closed, oil pipeline shut down, ports at a standstill, stores almost empty for weeks, continuing shortages of dairy produce and gas… so it’s hard to get too excited about boiled tree juice
You Canadians might not want to read this next part, as it is blasphemy. Years ago I designed and installed an Aunt Jemima syrup batching and production system. Water, HFCS, fake color and fake flavor. It was literally the easiest process I ever built, and the last time I ever used anything but ‘boiled tree juice’.
The ‘first world problems’ the news talks about are truly asinine, when there is so much else going on in the world. Now, if we run out of shipping boxes……eeesh (jk).
it’s not like running out of beer or coffee.