Learning to Fret Less (OR A Post About Bass, Projects, and Risk)

If you are a regular reader of this blog or of my twitter feed then you're probably aware I spend a lot of time talking about Making in the classroom. STEAM is one of my teaching passions and I feel very strongly that there is no learning like hands-on, get it wrong, then reflect on what you learned and generalize it to everything else learning. I do not ignore the textbooks in my classroom, I'm not an extremist who thinks ditching normal tools makes sense, but I do lean hard in the Explore And Do To Learn camp. I love telling my students that they're going to make a cardboard arcade and then stepping aside and letting them figure it out over four days. I love fielding student questions like, "How do I make this arcade game do this thing I want it to do?" with "I dunno, I've never made a game that does that. Draw out what you think, building it, then revise it until it works." It's the same reason I like teaching coding. Coding is all about revision and generalization of rules.

I love watching my students do this. I love the risk I feel I'm taking as a teacher by letting them do these things.

But is it a risk? I mean, I believe in this method. I have actual years of experience doing it with students. I've seen the positive results over and over. I have faith in the process even in the midst of freaking out about the process not working this time. I call it a risk because making often throws a classroom into what looks like chaos, but it's really a messy but controlled working environment. Making in the classroom isn't a real risk for me.

Especially since I'm not the one making anything. I'm supervising.

If you're not a teacher who does a lot of making you might think this is a strange way to do things. "I wouldn't have my students do anything I wouldn't do" and all that. But here's the thing- there's a lot to watch and be aware of when a classroom full of kids are making something. When I'm making something I need to focus. It's kinda the same reason I don't silently read when my kids silently read. I wouldn't be able to stop when the timer went off. I wouldn't be able to stop working on my thing to help a student deal with whatever their thing is. Also, students tend to follow their teacher's lead, even independent students. They are trained to assume that the way you're doing something is the "right" way. So I don't do anything, unless a specific skill needs to be modeled. I don't let them just drown. I'm the teacher, after all.

But here's a secret about me- I'm super confident about making things out of cardboard. Cardboard is easy and cheap. However, I get kinda freaked out making things that are real. I don't like changing my own oil and I'd rather pay someone. If I go to IKEA and buy a flurgenshiglet my wife will be the one to build it because she likes that kind of thing. I'm just now learning to love Lego. My "creating" creativity happens at a keyboard and, more recently, on my electric bass.

Which is why when I got the wild hair to turn my cheap starter bass into a fretless I had significant concerns. What if I screw up my bass? What if I do it wrong? I don't know how to do this, I've never done it before.

You know, excuses I wouldn't tolerate from my kids.

I prefer the direct human touch to YouTube tutorials, so after watching a dozen how-to videos that ranged from a five minute video of "I Used A Kitchen Knife To Make A Fretless Bass" to "Part Seven of Fifteen: Choosing the Proper Sand Paper" I texted a buddy of mine about it and it turned out he'd done it before. Through a longish, patient text conversation he convinced me that it wouldn't be that hard, I could do it, it's pretty cheap, and he'd be a phone call away if I needed it.

That's all it took. I'm hesitant to start projects like this, but I'm also of the personality that when I decide I'm going to do something I jump directly in and go. I decided I was going to do it on Thursday night, and Friday after school I hit the craft store for supplies and, after putting the Weirdlings to bed, got to work.

A little context for those of you who might not know what I'm talking about- guitars and basses are fretted instruments. The frets are those metal bars that go up the neck. They allow the player to know where the notes are and they cause the note to ring out in tune as the string is pressed against them. A fretless instrument has, as I'm sure you've figured out from the clever name, no frets. You can buy a fretless where the neck was built without them or, if you don't have the cash to throw around on a new-to-you instrument, you can convert a fretted instrument into a fretless by, well....pulling the frets out with pliers and filling in the gaps.

See the silver lines? Those are frets.

The first fret removal. It has begun.

It's a pretty straightforward process. You might be able to see where my trepidation would come in though. I own two basses- this one, which was my first bass and cost, along with a tiny practice amp and a junk gig bag, just over $200, and a Geddy Lee Signature Series Jazz bass that cost a lot more. So I only have two, my good one and my old back-up. I'd rather not ruin the back-up. But if I'm going to experiment on something it ain't the nice one. And this is a way of revitalizing an old, kinda junk instrument without getting rid of it or spending a ton of money on it (I think there's an education metaphor here too).

The frets are held in with some glue, so I took our clothes iron, set it on high, and heated up each fret. Then, using needle nose pliers, I gently wiggled the fret free. Repeat 22 times. Next, I bought a sheet of 1/32" basswood, the narrowest sheet available. I still had to sand down both the fret gap and the sheet of basswood, then cut it into small slats which filled the gaps. I added a tiny bit of superglue just to be sure nothing would move, but those things were in there tighter than a [REDACTED].

Once the whole neck was filled in I had to trim the pieces shorter and then go at it with progressively finer sandpaper. I started with heavy grit to cut down the tall slats and as they got closer to the neck switched to finer and finer grit. It still took quite a bit of sanding and I know I took some width off the neck in the process, which is ok because the bass kind of had a baseball bat neck to begin with.

What's nice about this process is once you're here you can't screw it up any more. Like, you can, but it's too late to fix it or take it back, so I could relax and go to it with the sandpaper.

By the time I finished the neck was nearly perfect. It's still not perfectly smooth, which means I will occasionally get some weird buzzing, but the friend who talked me through the process to begin with is sending me a radius block that I can use to finish the sanding. I also need to file down the nut *waits for the giggling to stop* which is the metal post at the head of the neck that keeps the strings in place. When the neck had frets the nut was fine, but I was pressing the strings down onto the frets, not the neck. You wouldn't think that that tiny fraction of an inch would make that much difference, but it does. So when I get the radius block I'll also file the nut to lower the string action and make the bass more comfortable and cleaner to play.

What does all of this have to do with teaching? I constantly challenge my students to take risks. I'm always asking them to do things they don't know how to do and have faith that they'll learn from it. But I rarely do that. Learning to play the bass starting two years ago was a big moment for me in my journey of continuing learning. When do I learn from making? What's STEAM in my life? When did I do something I wasn't sure I knew how to do and used my resources to figure out anyway? Yes, we can be constantly growing our practice by attending conferences and reading new books, but what concrete things are we doing that can reflect in our practice? You cannot expect to put something into the world that you do not first internalize and actualize.

I think this bass will eventually need new electronics, the knobs are rubbish and cheap, and probably new tuners, and then new pick-ups, and maybe a new bridge. Eventually it'll be the Bass of Theseus*. But the thought of dealing with wires and electronics freaks me out. I've never done that before.

Which means I probably should. For myself. And for my kids.


*no, I won't link to it, you Google it if you want to know what I'm talking about

If you like this post and the other posts on this blog you should know I’ve written three books about teaching- He’s the Weird Teacher, THE Teaching Text (You’re Welcome), and A Classroom Of One. I’ve also written one novel- The Unforgiving Road. You should check them out, I’m even better in long form. I’m also on the tweets @TheWeirdTeacher.