Plucking fingers bent?

[Tenorhaulic]

Hey,

I'm trying to refine my technique a bit (lot).

When I pluck with my index and middle, both knuckle joints are slightly bent, but every time I watch pro and more advanced players, their fingers are very straight.

See:



However other guys just bend their fingers too, although Vic does it a different way than I do.



So what way will be beneficial in speed? My old instructor pointed this out to me, and if I look at my fingers sideways, they should look like two fingers "walking," as in the Yellowbook commercial. However they were more like "plucking" before, but I'm getting a little less worse at it. Also, some guys just smack the hell out of the strings when they play fast but it doesn't make any noise! What gives!?

So, to recap:

Curved fingers ney?
Straight yay?
Curved in a walking motion yay?

[Alec W. Conway]

To me :

Straighter finger = more speed.

As for those guys that seem to destroy their string at every note, without a sound, I figure its a pup and EQ issue. If you cut the highs, you get much less of those background finger sounds. But then you can also keep the highs and play closer to your bridge, the strings dont go wobbling as much when you play there as opposed to playing near the neck, and since a lot of the noise is often done by the string going ape and hitting the frets when you donyt want them to, this cuts down on the noise factor.

[Pbassred]

I'm going through this myself at the moment. It's really slowed me down but I guess its something I will get better at. The way my teacher showed me:- when sounding the A string the finger should come to rest on the E string ( dampening it).
The thing is:- when I was plucking, the finger comes up away from the string ad is ready for the next (= quicker). Also straighter fingers requires a bigger movement(= slower).

But like I said, I'm sure I'll get quicker.
I looking for a good DVD that I came slow down to watch.

[eekmo]

I switched to a bent finger approach some 5 years ago after playing w/ the straight finger technique for some 20 years. The paradigm shift is quite dramatic.

My observations:
I play with a much lighter touch using the bent approach. This results in more control and less fatigue. My first knuckle doesn't hurt like it sometimes would after a long show.

This reduced motion technique results in less volume. Don't be concerned. Let your amp work for you. I've turned up the volume of my amp to compensate for the lower output from my lighter touch.

Your tone may change. Mine did. With the bent approach I'm now getting nail on every pluck. This actually benefits me in that I don't have to worry about that wacky one nail longer than the other thing that happens with the straight fonger approach. Once again, I have adjusted my amplifier settings to sound pleasing with the new technique. As a side note, I can more easiliy change my bridge/neck playing position without affecting overall output with the bent technique(resulting in more tonal options).

Once you're used to the bent finger technique, it feels great. My left hand feels really nimble compared to the straight finger approach I had used for so many years.

This change felt really awkward at first but I stuck with it and I'm glad that I did.
E.