To rake... or not to rake?

[Tupac]

Hi! What is your opinion on raking? Many people have told me that it's sloppy technique and a bad habit... but I don't see why. I can't imagine playing faster licks like YYZ or Panic Attack without it, and it's very consistent and prevents fatigue. Should I keep at it, scrap it completely, or attempt to learn both?

[Simorchid]

I too use this technique and am very interested in Todd's thoughts on this post.

[Todd Johnson]

Originally Posted by Tupac

Hi! What is your opinion on raking? Many people have told me that it's sloppy technique and a bad habit... but I don't see why. I can't imagine playing faster licks like YYZ or Panic Attack without it, and it's very consistent and prevents fatigue. Should I keep at it, scrap it completely, or attempt to learn both?

Yes, rake!!!mI'm not recommending raking excludively, but YES rake by all means.

It's a technique ....an articulation....besides its not an always or never proposition. Make sense??

Who on earth is telling you this??? Ah...I don't need to know.

Play slow....have fun!!!!

[Tupac]

Thanks

[JimmyM]

Um...hi there.



So when I took lessons off Dave LaRue in the 90's, first thing he told me was no raking in class. Took me a couple weeks to adapt, but strict alternation made things much easier that were really hard for me to play, such as fast passages with a lot of 16th notes in a row. Once that happened, I dropped raking from my vocabulary and sung the praises of strict alternation. And then I got into a lot of arguments about it on here.

I finally came around to the idea that not everyone is looking to play 16th notes in a row really fast, and that if you rake and it's in time and it sounds good, then it's a good thing. But I still believe that mastering strict alternation made the single biggest difference in my abilities as a bassist, and even if they love to rake and have no intentions of stopping it, I really believe that it behooves other bassists to master SA, if for no other reason than to see what you're missing so you have a basis of comparison. Might have been wrong about being militantly against raking, but SA has a lot of benefits that those who don't do it don't realize.

I don't think that's so bad, is it?

[metalstorm]

Work on being able to do both? It's never bad to be able to do things differently.