3 and 4 fret stretch

[NNbassest]

hey yall,
i know your supposed to normally play say a 3 or 4 fret stretch. but i was wondering, do any of yall play your own style? i know i dont enjoy the 4 fret stretch cuz i got samll hands, so i play A)my own stretch, which normally fits my mood or the style of snog or B) a revised version of the three fret stretch. any opinions on not using either stretch, and just using your own?

thanks, JJ

[Jace The Bass]

Originally Posted by NNbassest

hey yall,
i know your supposed to normally play say a 3 or 4 fret stretch. but i was wondering, do any of yall play your own style? i know i dont enjoy the 4 fret stretch cuz i got samll hands, so i play A)my own stretch, which normally fits my mood or the style of snog or B) a revised version of the three fret stretch. any opinions on not using either stretch, and just using your own?

thanks, JJ

My fingers can stretch 1-pre fret but sometimes I use an arc sort've motion to get say a note 5 or 6 frets apart
ie ( swing your fingers off the fretboard in an arc motion )
I think experience counts I mean the longer you play the more your fingers get accoustomed to it
Reading music also helped but if you feel okay with you're style ( provided you don't experience pain ) I think that's fine

If you however need some exercises I found that the book

BASS FITNESS by J du pres is worth a look it has great exercises to help get your fingers in top shape

[NNbassest]

haha ok thanks...im VERY comfortable with my style.

[Dynna]

If you play one finger per fret, all you'll ever need to do for stretching is to reach 1 extra fret with either your index, of pinky. You've got all 12 tones right there. I don't think it gets much easier than that.

[geoffkhan]

Originally Posted by NNbassest

...which normally fits my mood or the style of snog...

Must... control... laughter...

Ok, to answer your question without any goofery, I use 3-fret stretches at the most. 4-fret stretches are sort of a no-no for me considering my hands are rather small.

[kiwlm]

Originally Posted by NNbassest

hey yall,
i know your supposed to normally play say a 3 or 4 fret stretch.

What's a 3 fret stretch and what's a 4 fret stretch??

[Joe P]

There you are, NN! What's the deal - you wrote for advice under recording:

how exactly ?

..and never posted back! A couple of us tried to help you out with advice, and we never heard from you again. What - are you just launchin' this stuff over the wall to stroke us, or are you using this valuable input?

Have you gotten a recording of that song that you wanted to do yet?

~~~~~~~~~~~~
When it comes to fingering, I'd suggest that for proper runs and scales you use the 'arc technique' like Jace mentioned if your hands are too small - that way you can still keep your thumb fairly anchored. The bass is really tuned to work in four-fret groups, like Dynna said, and there has to be SOME place up higher on the neck where your hand isn't too small anyway. I don't always use one-finger-per; for licks or some faster 'box-shaped' patterns or simple grooves or doing a whole part in unison octaves or the like, I'll use mostly index-pinky.

My wife used to play bass (like 20yrs ago), and she was kind of a nut about always using proper one-per fretting, even when she certainly didn't need to. She has VERY small hands, and would arc like that all the time - even on a short scale bass - while still playing very smoothly (usually playing either a Grabber or a Kalimazoo before she orderd a custom shortscale Travis Bean. **I wish she wouldn't have gotten rid of THAT bass way-back-when! Mr. Bean just happened to be making a couple for Bill Wyman at the time, so he whipped-out an extra for her!**).

Joe