A Little Help With My Technique

[BigDaddyJ]

Hey guys I've been playing bass for about 3 years now. Up to this point its been a casual hobby of mine but now I'm wanting to get a bit more serious.

The one thing that I'm really having troubles with at the moment is that my fingers are fairly short and pretty fat lol, and with this curse i can barely span 4 frets and my small finger can barely do anything cause it is to short to make anything i fret with it sound good. So for the last 3 years I have for the most part been playing with 3 fingers and excluding the fourth and was wondering how bad of a habit this is and how I would break this habit and "train" my pinky to be better lol.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[erik281]

i had the same issue for many years as well b/c i have the same fingers. what i did to break it was forcing myself to walk up and down the bass forward and backward with all 4 fingers.
the other was, as dumb as it sounds, was playing guitar hero. if you play on hard or expert you will definitely use your pinky actively. i also rehabed my friends hand like this too (he had severe tendon damage and could barely use his fingers afterwards), he is now 100% on his hand use and he plays bass as well

[BigDaddyJ]

thanks a ton! I actually have noticed a small difference in my finger dexterity now that im playing alot more rockband lol! thanks for the tips!

[Rav]

Best thing you can do is find a good bass teacher and go to a couple of lessons. A good teacher can look at how your playing and immediately give you good advice on how to change your hand position to play more comfortably and with better flexibility.

That being said here are a couple of general things that based on what your saying are on the list of probable issues.

1) Don't wrap your hand around the neck like a guitarist. Rest your thumb in the middle of the back of the neck lightly. Gripping the neck forces a closed hand position and makes it impossible to stretch frets, causes fatigue and makes your little finger much more likely to not want to do something different than your ring finger.

2) Start out by playing 4 over 3 instead of 4 over 4 hand position. Use your pinky and ring finger to act as 1 finger and fret with it. So your pretending to have 3 fingers instead of 4 with your pinky acting like one big finger with the ring. This does 2 things, it trains your pinky muscles to fret without having to train it to act independant ( at first ) from your ring finger. And it also gets you in the habbit of having your pinky close to the fretboard with the rest of your fingers.

I know a lot of people with short stubby fingers that play bass just fine. And a lot of people with long thin fingers that can't span more than 4 frets because of bad technique.

Again, best advice is go to someone who can play and teaches professionally and buy a 1/2 hour and have them sort you out. It will be the best money you ever spent.

-Rav

PS. Make sure you go to a bass teacher and not a guitarist that teaches bass.

[BigDaddyJ]

Thanks a ton Rav! Thats some killer advice!

[steve4765630]

You must use you pinky. There is no other finger that you must train harder than the pinky. He is your best friend and your best chance at having any reach on the fingerboard. I usually have my students do excercises that lead with the pinky (4th finger). One of them is starting with your 4th finger on the 12th fret (the frets are closer together and easier for you to reach up there), play a decending chromatic line, 4, 3, 2, 1, then back up 1, 2, 3, 4. Play this on each string starting on the E, then A, D, G. Make sure that you are not pulling the pinky way off the fingerboard when you're not using it. The other thing I have them do is similar to the last, but start with the pinky and come back to it between each decending and ascending note. 4, 3, 4, 2, 4, 1, 4, 2, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 2, 4, 1, 4, 2, 4, 3, 4, etc. Try this for 10 minutes in a row and you'll be surprised how well it starts setting in. Remember, play in the upper register where the frets are closer together and really focus on keeping the pinky close to the strings when you lift off. I hope these help. Steve

[Rav]

Kind of a follow up of what Steve just said. Getting in the bad habit of having your fingers out of the way or a long way from he fretboard is one of the hardest things to fix later.

If you look at closeup video of any of the all time great bass players the one thing they have in common is their fingers are so close to the fretboard that it almost looks like all 4 fingers are always touching the strings.

This is one of the classic differences between guitar and bass fretting technique. Guitarists use the death grip and heavily arched fingers to fret. Bass players use remarkably straight fingers and a flat open hand position.


-Rav

[BigDaddyJ]

Ya I think when I first took lessons it was from a guitar player teaching bass so I have the bad habit of my fingers being arched and away from the fretboard. GRR! another bad habit I'll have to break.

[unclejane]

Originally Posted by BigDaddyJ

Ya I think when I first took lessons it was from a guitar player teaching bass so I have the bad habit of my fingers being arched and away from the fretboard. GRR! another bad habit I'll have to break.

I'm missing the tip of my fretting pinky (left hand) from an accident as a child, I effectively therefore have less reach than I otherwise would.

I played with just 3 fingers for quite a while but eventually learned to use my pinky anyway pretty much normally.

My hand is always ever so slightly out of position because of that but I'm otherwise just like a player with somewhat small hands. I've been able to compensate by:

- always staying in position with the thumb behind the neck.
- wearing the bass higher so I can maintain good reach and keep my fingers free (never hold neck in palm or crook of fingers!)
- shifting more often.

This last one is especially important on the fretless but also for those of us who don't have gorilla-sized hands or have pieces missing like I do. This is also a bit different from guitar technique, where you don't shift as much. They're much smaller scale so you can kind of crawl around the neck and still git 'er done. But shifting is a lot more important on the bass due to the longer scale and the need to stay in position (especially fretless)....

LS