Watt,

I have only been playing bass for about 6-7 Months now, I am a musician, I have played flute for 8 years, and can play quite fast, but when I play bass, my left hand cant keep up with my right, when I try to see my weekly 'growth' I play 16th note runs, I get the first few notes wright and then get way off, I just try in 4/4 two chromatic 16 note runs 1-16 and back to 1 (16-1) or frets 1-4 on eadg (in that order) with the 5th fret being the turn around note, what I want to know is "How can I improve my speed" I think a better bass would help, but that cant be fixed right now.

Thanks a lot.

You're not talking "speed"; you're talking "accuracy". The key is to start slow.

Got a metronome? Set it to a sloooooow tempo (~60bpm or so) and practice your 16th's there. Do it for like 20 minutes straight. The next day, set the metronome at 70 and do the same. Etc., etc... even better if you have an accommodating drummer to play with; locking in with a human being is infinitely preferable to playing to a machine.

Concentrate on hitting the notes on the beat, rather than worrying that it's slow and boring or something. Get your accuracy down, and the speed will come.

takeout nailed it.


I actually have a the opposite problem. My right hand isn't all that fast. It just takes a long time. Start slow with something keeping time and speed up a tad day by day.

Well, I am pretty acurate as I seem to be a fast learner. Have you ever heard of a song called
'A Chick From Corea' from Chick Corea? Victor Wooten made a version of that song and I can play it fine, I can already go 16th notes on about 120bpm, but when I say fast I mean like around 220bpm or faster, I want chops like
John Petrucci (guitarist, but if you know him youll know what I mean) I just need some good exercises to get my fingers moving faster.

You gotta work up to it. You're fast now, you want to be faster. The same basic idea carries over. Instead of starting at 60bpm start at 120, or 130. Work on that for a few days, then slowly start ratcheting it up. Don't jump up, go up slowly, that way it sticks with you.