Finger Raking

[mdsmith]

Hey guys. I'm in the process of working through the Bass for Dummies book, and am currently on the finger warm ups chapter. In the string skipping exercise it says to alternate fingers when going from a low string to a high string, but when goign from a high to a low, to "rake" the strings with the same finger. This feels a little weird, and doesn't sound very even to me. I'm sure a lot of this has to do with my technique, but I was just wondering if this is the correct way to play when skipping from high to low. Thanks.

[JimmyM]

no it's not. do that on a very fast riff with a lot of 16th notes in a row and you will end up screwing yourself. i used to play stuff like that very sloppily until dave larue straightened me out and told me not to rake. when you take lessons from him he won't allow it at all. improved my bass playing by a lot.

you will find a lot of people on here say raking is the way to string skip down, and maybe on slower passages that's ok, but i guarantee you it will screw you every time you want to do something quick. always alternate...that's my rule.

[mdsmith]

Thanks man, I didn't think it felt right. It just has a different sound to it.

[Jason P Bass]

I agree with JimmyM, but just to spice things up, there is a video of Billy Sheehan talking technique on youtube. He specifically talks about raking, and he is amazingly fast at it. He seems to approach it as a special effect, though. For regular playing, I think he probably continues the 3-finger pattern when going down a string.

But when he does those rakes: I've been practicing some of them and you can get some really cool effects.

[JimmyM]

jason, yeah, i had a few people change my mind about specific applications for raking such as billy's when i went into a no raking rant a few years ago. so i'm not quite as militant as i once was, but as you said in so many words, strict alternation should be the rule and raking should be a specialty exception.

[champbassist]

Originally Posted by Jason P Bass

I agree with JimmyM, but just to spice things up, there is a video of Billy Sheehan talking technique on youtube.

Here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oggshbPAzTE

[CMallett]

Before I played with three fingers id always rake with a couple exceptions to use my dominant finger when necessary, but now I use three fingers I always rake. As with anything you just have to practice slowly to attain clarity of notes and to stop them bleeding into each other, but after a while as billy sheehan's demonstrated, it does facilitate fast playing without having to think as much.

There are a few songs such as pretty little ditty or leverage of space, by the chilis (youtube them! You'll be surprised!) or butterfly by crazytown that actually count on raking to create the right flow for the song and trying to alternate then would make it damn near impossible. The fact is there are no hard and fast rules with an instrument,and its an art not a science, so don't take any rules of thumb as gospel because you could be potentially stopping yourself from writing the next great bass part that people learn and upload to youtube. If it doesn't sound right, its probably down to your technique, not the technique itself.