I´m starting to "free" my hands

spikez · #1 05-28-2007, 07:19 AM

Hi there, and sorry if my english sucks!

Thirty minutes ago I was having lunch with my mom, after a fine joint, and my head was swirling with funky bass lines (I was in the mood to hear some James Brown, but my mom was watching the news and she didn´t let me put the James Brown DVD playing).
As I began washing my hands, my mouth started firing a funky as hell melody, so I runned to my bass and started to try to play the thing. 2 seconds after I knew it was an pentatonic line, so I put my freting and in standard position (in the position I play the scale). I was having much trouble playing the line with the hand "stuck" in that position, but as soon has I notice that, my left hand fingers startded to search for an way to play it using diferent positions.
Now, here I am posting my short aventure, because it made me think. This had never happened to me in my 4 years of playing the bass, but now I feel like I´m starting to get free from the scales patterns and starting to play much more musically.
Now that I think about it, it just sounds like bragging, but **** it, I´ll post it!!!

ThorBassManiac · #2 05-29-2007, 12:31 PM

Cool, man. Expanding your horizons is what it's all about. Never question playing outside of your comfort level, because that is the only way to grow.

Joe P · #3 05-29-2007, 03:07 PM

Cool - sounds just like what you were saying: "freeing your hands"!

You smoke with your Mom? You'll freak a few bassist out around here, talking like that, y'know. That reminds me: I gotta get my daughter over here for a visit again soon.

Yup - soon as they get a better connection than you have, they stop visiting.

Kids.

Joe

Vileem · #4 05-29-2007, 03:31 PM

since you are talking about braking free from the scale practise patterns, I assume that when playing scales you are always using the same finger positioning, when there's actually like 5 to 8 (not sure) different patterns to play a scale, that you should be practising - on 1 string, different ways on 2 strings and different ways of playing on 3 strings and that's just one octave. This can really help you get more comfortable with approaching playing different lines.
well, here's my 2 cents.