S4SBTH5: Simple 4-String Bass Tuner HTML5

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How to Use

  1. Please wait a moment until all resources have been loaded.

  2. Hit either button to loop each note. Hit again to stop it and enable another note reference.

    Each note has around 4 seconds of duration until it's replayed from the beginning.

  3. This uses HTML5 <audio> with MP3 format. If your browser doesn't support it, there'll be an error notification to replace S4SBTH5.

  4. This tool probably won't properly produce sound on mobile-device speakers. S4SBTH5 plays low frequency audio. You can use earphone/headphone to listen to the notes reference.

About Bass

  1. Bass guitar has various number of strings: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc.

    This one is the standard 4-string bass notes reference.

  2. Like guitar, the first string has the highest pitch. On the actual bass, it's the bottom string. And the lowest pitch is the fourth string (because this is a 4-string bass), the top string.

  3. Because of the low note, unlike guitar, bass instrument music sheet usually uses F clef. So that it can be read normally without counting too many lines below the actual staff.

    The common clef is G. G clef.

    Staff

    Before staff lines, singers used neumes, squiggles floating above text, to suggest melodic direction. The trouble was, everyone sang those at slightly different pitch levels, because there was no fixed reference. As in, Oi, we sing aaah, not aaah. ⬅️ See how hard to differentiate?

    The staff then first introduced by Guido d'Arezzo, an Italian monk, c. 1000 AD. Then things happened. The "G" isn't taken from his first name, but boy, what a coincidence.