Endurance & Accuracy.

[juankavamo89]

Hi people, due to some injury I had to stop playing and pick up my bass about 7 days ago. I decide to master the Three (3) finger plucking technique; I am getting really good, I mean cordination, etc. But I found a problem, when I begin to get tired or to practice for some period I begin to f#%K up and to lost cordination. That get better when I stop a few secconds and try again. But my question is, Is this normal at the beggining (I'm almost a begginer)?, or, How can I overcome this? Thanks for take the time to help me.

Greetings.

[mward69]

Just keep at it. Wouldn't hurt to stretch your fingers and do some workouts {lotsa tips on here about that}
I have been playing over 20 yrs and still cramp up, or forearms knot up etc...you know it's bad when you rub tiger balm on your forearms between sets....

All seriousness though, approach it from an athletic approach. Look at where you elbow is, the angle of attack with your fret wrist. Other than that, just keep pounding away.......

[Deacon_Blues]

Warm up properly before playing, and check out if there's anything you can do to minimize your finger movement. I'm saying this because beginners tend to play too aggressively, then they run into a wall and need to rethink the technique. (It was like that for me too).

To do this, try playing as lightly as possible. I'd recommend to check out the first exercise in the exercise sticky. It's made for two fingers, but do it anyway so you'll see what I mean by minimizing the finger movement. Later, you can try to adopt it for your three finger technique.

Also, keep your hand approximately perpendicular to the strings and the wrist as straight as possible when playing. That will reduce the stresses in your hand/forearm which means more energy for your finger muscles that take care of the playing.

[tswd]

The "treat it like athletics" suggestion is really good. To build endurance, you need to play slower for longer periods of time. Runners do things called intervals to build up their speed. You could do the same sort of thing.

For example, add the following practice routines to your schedule.
Use a metronome and set it to 80 bpm, or whatever you can do the first exercise at.
1) Endurance training - Play straight quarter notes without stopping. Play for about half an hour or so.
2) Fast intervals - Play 16th notes for one minute, followed by half notes for one minute. Play for about 10 minutes.
3) Slow intervals - Play 8th notes for one minute, followed by quarter notes for one minute. Play for about 10 minutes.

If it helps, try playing scales or something to keep it interesting. These are mainly right hand exercises, so you could do anything with the left hand.

[chicagodoubler]

Work on stuff at low tempos for accuracy, and build up the metronome slowly, working on short bursts as well as endurance at respectively lower tempos.

If you really want to be able to use any technique, you need to actually play some songs too. I know this is a technique thread, but gee, we do end up playing music at some point. I hope.

For reference, I ask all my students to be able to use any technique for any song. Take a tune you are working on slapping and try playing it with a pick. Be able to slap major scales and arpeggios all over the neck. Technique is just a tool, but if it keeps you from expressing yourself, then after all that hard work, you might just be one too.