Guitar habits - good or bad?

[worker201]

I used to play the guitar. Now I'm learning the bass. I've got this finger-plucking thing down okay so far, and I'm even using the thumb to mute open strings. So I think my right hand is doing alright. It's the left hand I'm worried about. I barre notes on adjacent strings, depress frets with the pads of my fingers (especially when barreing), and use a lot of legato sliding.

Will these habits make me an interesting bass player? Or will they hinder me in the long run? If I'm going to retrain my left hand, I want to do it now, while I'm still beginning. Thoughts and advice welcome.

[kevteop]

I wouldn't worry about it unless you intend to train yourself up as a billion-miles-per-hour shredding machine. And there's not much call for people with those chops on bass anyway.

If you do want to clean up your left hand technique, buy a fretless. That will sort your left hand out quicker than anything.

[phektus]

I used to play guitar, just plain chick bait cowboy chord shapes before I got into bass. By then my left hand fingers are too far away from the strings when moving around. That hindered speed and most importantly made me hit wrong notes during gigs because of tension. Now my teacher had it corrected and I only lift my left hand fingers a few millimeters off the strings with the help of fingering techniques. I also went back enjoying my electric guitar, but now I'm more interested in the 'shredder' type skills, which seemed to better complement my bass playing. I know there are guitard haters in here but I found practicing after John Petrucci's Rock Discipline before making love with my bass a bit more satisfying.

[JordanDelap]

well as long as u can manipulate that technique to make it sound good then happy days