Hello,

I've been playing bass for 2½ years. I mainly listen to metal and hard rock, so of course that's what I like to play as well. Now, the thing is that there's often some really fast playing in metal songs, and since I mainly play with my fingers (I use 3 fingers when playing fast, I can't for the life of me figure out how to play with 4), I find it hard to keep up. My hand simply cramps up after about half a minute with constant 16th notes. Do you guys have any advice on how to learn how to play fast and play fast for extended periods of time?

Also, I find that when I do play that fast, I can't really seem to get rid of the "gallop" sound (you know, like Steve Harris). Normally I don't mind the gallop-sound, I'm a huge Iron Maiden fan and use it a lot, actually, but there are of course times where I want to play fast without the gallop sound. Again, any ideas how to get rid of this?

Help is much appreciated!

Why are you using 3 fingers? If it works for you that's cool but you should be able to get all the speed you need out of 2 and you'll likely have a better time controlling that galloping. Sounds like you are wanting speed and consistency, always good goals. The simple answer is practice. Do 2 octave scales and exercises with tough string crossings for your fretting. I don't suggest chromatic runs but others seem to like them so YMMV. Always use a metronome and start out slow so you can get that even tone and rythym from your plucking hand. When plucking, try to minimize the bend in your wrist, even if you have to hold your arm up above the body a little, this will help with your cramping and give you more power and has the added benefit of avoiding carpal tunnel in about 10 years. As you get better at this then increase the metronome. You'll be playing like a speed freak in no time.

Play hard, REALLY snap those strings with your fingers, picture it as a form of weight training, do nothing but that for a while and you'll steadily get better. Practice practice practice.

really the only advise i can say is, practice.
It's gonna hurt while you build up the muscles (i can remember my drummer almost bringing me to tears a few times).
Using three fingers is going to give you that gallop, try just working with two and imagine one finger is down and the other is up (like a pick but both figures are plucking like normal) if you can imagine that.
You could also build up some stregth playing near the bridge where the strings are stiffer than up by the neck.

my 2 cents, hope this helped and i am not responsible for any personal injury cause by my foolish advice.

About avoiding gallopping with 3 fingers:
play scales with 4 notes per string all over the fretboard. That will REALLY help you break the mental boundaries - as long as you keep the 1-2-3 alternation going on your plucking-hand, regardless of how many notes per string you play.
You'll have to rely on muscle-memory to keep the 1-2-3 alternation going, no matter how many notes you play per strings.
It's a kind of natural fluidity that trumphs over logical thinking. It'll take a lot of work to break out of the triplet-barrier, but it's much worth it!

An easier starter excercise is to play straight 16ths at a modest tempo, accenting the first note of the beat, counting out loud, while keeping the 1-2-3 alternation. "1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-"etc. (Bold marks accent, red marks starting finger - usually ring-finger)Switch the accent to the second, third and fourth beat in due time to improve. Then move on to the previous excercise!

My suggestion is to learn to play fast the same way you would with a pick: Relax. You'll play faster, more consistently, and for a longer period of time without cramps. I only use two fingers, and I can play pretty much as fast as I want. (Disclaimer: Speed isn't everything, as many people have found. It's a great goal to be able to play fast, but there's more out there to be accomplished.)

It is something that has been covered loads on here...

If all else fails try listening to necrophagist, then DL their power tab for the start of ''Only ashes remain'' and play THAT fingerstyle ;)

I like to use three fingers to play fast 16th notes. I use a pattern like this 3-2-1-2/1-2-3-2 to do it fluidly. There are many ways to play fast with three fingers, but that's my way because one can accent the first note pretty clearly. However, it took me a good amount of time for this pattern to be natural.

If I am playing really fast on my lowest string (B) I sometimes use this pattern to get a more aggressive accent: T-3-2-1. This also took me a pretty long time for it to be natural and very accurate.

Sometimes I'll just use a pick if we are working on death metal type stuff.

Whatever you do, keep your hand fairly relaxed and be patient. You might be playing too hard as is, especially if you are competing with the rest of the band in terms of volume. You can develop Carpal Tunnel Syndrome from that type of tension over time.

Play hard, REALLY snap those strings with your fingers, picture it as a form of weight training, do nothing but that for a while and you'll steadily get better. Practice practice practice.


...except that a heavy touch slows you down. Using your weight lifting example...which could you curl more times in 10 seconds, a 5lb dumbell or a 20lb?

There are other reasons to use a lighter touch;

It gives you more control over your dynamics since you're not always playing loud (and you will have better control and lower volumes).

It puts less strain on your fingers. Play as hard as you can for awhile and your hands will start fighting back.


If you need more volume, turn up your amp. It's a lot easier to turn up a little bit then it is to fix your hands.

Here's an exercize that can help you avoid the gallop sound.

i=index m=middle r=ring

Set a metronome at a slow tempo, between 60-80 bpm
Play even 16th notes fingerd as show and accenting where capitalized (on the beat)

|:1---2---3---:|
|:RmirMirmIrmi:|


This is assuming you naturally pick in rmi order. You can just reverse this if you naturally start with your index finger. The object of this exercise is to keep all your plucking even and be able to accent with each finger.

...except that a heavy touch slows you down. Using your weight lifting example...which could you curl more times in 10 seconds, a 5lb dumbell or a 20lb?

There are other reasons to use a lighter touch;

It gives you more control over your dynamics since you're not always playing loud (and you will have better control and lower volumes).

It puts less strain on your fingers. Play as hard as you can for awhile and your hands will start fighting back.


If you need more volume, turn up your amp. It's a lot easier to turn up a little bit then it is to fix your hands.

Exactly. Play lightly and you can play faster.

Use a metronome to get rid of the gallop or triplet feel (whichever you have).

That's about it. Practice slowly and work your way up.

The trick is to let the amplifier do its job, and have a light touch. practice just playing on open strins fast and even. Im not a technicla musician by any strech of the imagination, but the one thing I can do is play very fast finger jogging.

Play closer to the bridge, play softer and limit how far each finger digs into the string. you should be getting the same amount of skin on each finger. This may require you to find a new plucking hand position.

It's a complete myth that you need 3 fingers to play fast. I can't tell you how many flamenco guitarists (I'm working with one now...cuchi cuchi) that can play blazingly fast lines with "only" 2 fingers. It's not a limitation at all and don't simply buy that more fingers=faster.

Like others have said, it's about practicing and relaxing. There's no mysterious/magical component to it; it's just that simple. Practice and relax.

Use a lighter touch. If you need to play harder on other songs, just adjust the volume on your bass, not your amp. So, have youramp loud enough that when you play light and fast, you can have you bass volume full, to make it loud enugh, and when you are going to play harder (like for Black Sabbath songs or something), just turn the volume on your bass down so it doesn't blow peoples ears.

There is validity to using three fingers as opposed to just two. For one thing using three fingers once the third is developed is less tiring than two over an extended period of time. There are also other applications of three fingers where you can play "compressed" triplets or 32nd note flurries that aren't really practical with just two fingers.

As far as the OP goes I would say that any kind of technique takes time to develop fully. Most people that play with three fingers, I believe that Steve Bailey and Steve Digiorgio both use this technique, play [ring, middle, index, middle, ring]. This still means that your middle finger is working like crazy but it spreads the workload out over your entire hand rather than focus it on the smaller area.

As for cramping I would say that that is the result of two factors. Firstly that you aren't conditioned enough yet and have to keep working at it and secondly that you aren't warmed up enough when you play. In learning to play these kinds of techniques you need to spend hours upon hours practicing, not only practicing as fast as you can but also breaking it down and playing each note as a quarter note. I would not only practice on the bass either. I would practice the motion of this on the top of a desk or on the edge of a seat or any hard surface. People might look at you strangely but it's all for a good cause.

Don't expect that after playing with three fingers on your bass for a couple of months when you are only practicing on your bass for a few hours a week that you will become a master of this or any other advanced technique. You have to practice the mechanics of these things until they are second nature.

Good luck.

[Edit]There is one technique you could develop that makes playing with two fingers twice as fast and more economical. I have half developed this approach, and will eventually get back to it, but it involves playing with the back of your fingers as well as the front. My approach is to play [index down, middle down, index up, middle up].

The big challenge of this is not only getting it even rhythmically but getting the tone to sound relatively consistent. Your nails tend to sound more percussive than the flesh side of your fingers. Volume is another factor there too since it is hard to develop strength for the upstrokes.

For me when playing fast 16ths or 32nds, I'm probably the only guy who does this, but I just use my thumb in a tremolo plucking motion. It doesn't "look metal", persay, but it works.

There is validity to using three fingers as opposed to just two.

Sure there is. I use 3 sometimes myself, but what i was getting at (tho this is a bit of a tangent) was addressing the "I need to learn to use 3 fingers so I can play fast/difficult lines" type of query; to which it's a complete myth that there's some sort of "magic" if you just start using that 3rd finger.

Maybe.

I can see where your point is coming from. I think that there are probably a lot of, especially younger players that have the idea that they have to play fast to be a valid "metal" player. While I can see that having three finger techniques as part of your repertoire is a valuable tool to have, you should be making sure that you are able to use two fingers effectively first. If you don't have solid two finger technique, three fingers aren't going to be much more effective anyway. Playing fast should never be the only thing you do in your playing either and just playing fast on its own isn't going to make you the next Lars K Norberg or Steve Digiorgio.

Playing fast should never be the only thing you do in your playing either and just playing fast on its own isn't going to make you the next Lars K Norberg or Steve Digiorgio.

Or (MUCH more important to me); it's not going to make you a good musician. That point is so often lost, especially with bass players in their (understandable) strives to be accepted/respected by other musicians.

Going back to the FX analogy...flashy FX in a movie is great...as long as the story is there underneath the flash. That's really my only point in this. Chops for the sake of chops is empty calories...it might be yummy but it will not nourish your musical soul.

Play hard, REALLY snap those strings with your fingers, picture it as a form of weight training, do nothing but that for a while and you'll steadily get better. Practice practice practice.

This is probably the worst advice I've ever heard on this forum.

Not only does hitting the strings overly hard kill the tone it actually makes you play slower.

Don't listen to this guy he doens't know what he's talking about.

I play finger style with 2 and three fingers sometimes very quickly.

The key to playing fast is a light touch. Using less effort and muscle will always go faster.

You need to have your bass set up with an action that is low so the bass is sensitive and have the amp loud enough that you don't have to pound on it.

Play the bass don't bang on it.

All I can say is just give it time. There's no real way that I am aware of to strengthen your fingers into lightspeed shape overnight. It's something that comes from playing for years and slowly building up strength and stamina. I would advise focusing on just two fingers, personally. You should be able to get the speed you want out of just two. The only time I use 3 is when I purposely want the "gallop" sound.

Or (MUCH more important to me); it's not going to make you a good musician. That point is so often lost, especially with bass players in their (understandable) strives to be accepted/respected by other musicians.

On the other hand a good musician can use any technique to their advantage as long as they know how to use it appropriately.

Going back to the FX analogy...flashy FX in a movie is great...as long as the story is there underneath the flash. That's really my only point in this. Chops for the sake of chops is empty calories...it might be yummy but it will not nourish your musical soul.

I personally agree with you. On the other hand who is to say that music made just for the sake of technique isn't valid, and how do you really define the line between one and the other subjectively?

who is to say that music made just for the sake of technique isn't valid

I guess I am :D

Thanks for all the tips.

One of the things mentioned was to avoid having my picking hand in a 90 degree angle, and this has helped my endurance tremendously (like thrice). BUT! whenever I try to actually play something like that, I end up playing very very sloppy, because my picking arm gets very tense, because I cannot relax it on the bass. And also, because I can not control the angle of the bass with my resting arm, I have to use my left hand (fretting hand?) to hold up the neck, resulting in clumsier movement of that hand. I also heard that you can actually get injuries if you keep playing with your picking hand in a 90 degree angle?

So any further tips on how to actually being able to play without resting my picking hand on the bass?

And also, because I can not control the angle of the bass with my resting arm, I have to use my left hand (fretting hand?) to hold up the neck, resulting in clumsier movement of that hand.
Are you standing up when practicing? When you are sitting down, you are probably holding your bass more than letting it hang from you. Also, once you stand up, your strap length might be different and thus, all the angles from picking to fingering to fretting, will all be different.

btw, to get rid of the gallop, and become faster at three fingered picking, see if you can find Billy Sheehan's old videos. He talks about this. But to take care of the gallop, use a metronome and go s l o w... go s l o w... no, I mean s l o w and build up.

So any further tips on how to actually being able to play without resting my picking hand on the bass?

Rest your thumb on the thumb rest, or edge of a pickup or fingerboard, or wherever you can, I usually hang mine on the edge of the pickguard of my P but you gotta do what works for you. Then you can lift your elbow up so your wrist isn't bent so much and still have control of the bass. When you lift that elbow up don't slump your shoulder forward either. Stand in front of a mirror and go slow. Doing this boring stuff is absolutely necessary if you want to be in it for the long haul.

I think at this point I should offer the obligatory advice of "get a good bass teacher". If your technique is bad from the start you're just asking for trouble later on, both with achieving what you want out of the bass and with hand injuries. If you aren't a beginner then you'll need to unlearn some habits it sounds like.