Self-Taught In Afghanistan

FTA_Forever@hot · #1 02-03-2008, 01:37 AM

Alright guys, time for your next idiot noob series of questioning. Hopefully you can bear with me. I am self teaching myself while I am here in Afghanistan and am starting to kinda hit a few road blocks. I am using the Hal Leonard book and DVD. Here is a few of my issues.

- I am finally on to the 8th notes portion and I notice that I cant really get that smooth fast finger speed to just hammer out 8th notes consistently. any exercises or pointers.

- I tend to rest my thumb on the front pick up and cant really get the hang of using my pinky and ring finger to mute strings. any pointers for this.

- I use my index, ring and pinky finger on my left hand and am having a hell of a time getting my middle finger into the mix. did any of you run into this problem when you were learning

Thanks for any help you guys can offer me. The one thing that I will take out of this horrible deployment is a new passion that I will probably have for the rest of my life. I think I just need to get past a few road blocks

phektus · #2 02-03-2008, 05:36 AM

I will advise you to seek a teacher.
--
I would assume that you have a metronome. I believe your right hand should be given separate exercises from the left hand, and then both. That way you can ensure your right hand is being utilized without getting your attention snatched away by your left hand.

1. Use this exercise posted here for your right hand dexterity: Excercise sticky
Please do it dead slow first.

2. Try the exercise I mentioned in #1 but incorporate the muting technique (like when you are plucking the higher notes). The studybass website may be of great help: http://www.studybass.com/lessons/bas...ring-crossing/

3. I also have the Hal Leonard series, but I don't follow his convention for fretting. I use one similar to Jaco, which is one finger per fret. That way, I'm forced to use all of my fingers. My problem now is stretching them out in the lower octaves as my pinky sometimes gets lost, as well as my middle finger. I found that stretching each pair of finger away from each other before doing exercises and playing can relax them a bit.

Hope that helps. Yeah, that won't be the last road block you'll encounter, so get used to it.

morf · #3 02-03-2008, 06:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FTA_Forever@hot

Alright guys, time for your next idiot noob series of questioning. Hopefully you can bear with me. I am self teaching myself while I am here in Afghanistan and am starting to kinda hit a few road blocks. I am using the Hal Leonard book and DVD. Here is a few of my issues.

- I am finally on to the 8th notes portion and I notice that I cant really get that smooth fast finger speed to just hammer out 8th notes consistently. any exercises or pointers.

- I tend to rest my thumb on the front pick up and cant really get the hang of using my pinky and ring finger to mute strings. any pointers for this.

- I use my index, ring and pinky finger on my left hand and am having a hell of a time getting my middle finger into the mix. did any of you run into this problem when you were learning

Thanks for any help you guys can offer me. The one thing that I will take out of this horrible deployment is a new passion that I will probably have for the rest of my life. I think I just need to get past a few road blocks

1) Keep at it. It will come after awhile.

2) Same as above

Its all about persistence.

3) Do walking line exercises. A 12 bar blues is perfect to start with, or you can do even more simple and take 4 frets, 1 finger each, and do:

1-2-3-4
4-3-2-1
1-3-2-4
4-2-3-1
etc etc etc.

neptoon · #4 02-03-2008, 09:47 AM

i'm not sure if you guys noticed, but he's on deployment in afghanistan...probably not too many teachers or metronomes in the area...

if you need anything while you're over there and you don't have family or whatever backing you up, just let me know...i'm a navy chief and i'll do what i can for you...feel free to call if you like...i'm at DSN 882-4348...we send stuff to our guys all the time...my senior chief is over in afghanistan right now...it's a long shot, but if you bump into craig poling, tell him dave said howdy

BuffaloBass · #5 02-05-2008, 11:54 AM

Ditto that.

Its all about drill.

One fret, one finger. Just keep doing it chromatically, you know, no scales, just one fret after another up and down the fretboard.

A metronome is handy. Hell man, a loud alarm clock works.

Your body is now doing "micro motions' that you arent used to. It'll take a ton of drill, but its ALL worth it.

What unit bro? ( my old 97E training showing through)

You need anything YOU HOLLER now, wont ya!?

Gene

bottomend! · #6 02-07-2008, 10:44 PM

Heres a good way to improve your fingering technique in the general sense ( 1st sergent if you're enlisted...);

One of the biggest issues with people first starting out is coordinating the two hands. The best way to attack this problem is by isolating each hand and working them individually.

One of the best things I've found for the left hand is to simply play the same stuff you're already practicing, but without using the right hand to pluck. You will have to bang down fairly hard with the left hand in order to produce a sound ( dont bang too hard or you could injure something!) because you're no longer using the right hand to set the string in motion. What does this accomplish? Well, it places ALL the responsibilty on the left hand for the timing for one thing. We normally think that the right hand is providing the rhythm and the left hand is providing the notes. This exercise refutes that notion.

After practicing like this for a while (2-3 weeks?) you'll notice that your timing has improved and you're fretting accuracy has also gotten better.
I stumbled up on this phenomenon when I first started playing Acoustic bass. I would spend hours and hours with bowing exercises and not touch my electric bass for weeks at a time. I figured my right hand would be mush by that point but lo and behold, I had actually had MORE control!

I really didn't answer you're questions about the right hand but what you're gonna find by doing the left hand "hammer on" ( thats what this technique is actually called BTW) is that your hand will start to find ways to mute the notes naturally. i would guesstimate that 75% of muteing comes from the left hand anyway so you'll be well on your way to solving the problem you're having with notes sustaining too much.

keep the faith over there in AfganiSAND!!!

bassrique · #7 02-08-2008, 06:48 AM

Thank you for your service.

Do you have your own laptop with you? If so, you can download a metronome and or drum machine while online and then use the thing[s] for however long you want later.

This might help you w/tuning up.

A TB link about blisters.

I don't know how much online time you can get, but here's a pretty good instructional site. Check out the scale fingerings and modes if you get bored with what you're doing.

Another.

If you could fast-forward five+ years of your practicing, who would you want to play like? Go to YouTube and watch that person. Look at the hands and take snapshots with your mind. When you practice, do likewise.

Come home safe.

Audball · #8 02-08-2008, 09:30 PM

FTA_Forever, I'm actually taking lessons from Ed Friedland, the author of that book (I'm assuming you're using "Bass Method, Book 1"). I'm about where you are (page 38, a few ahead of you), and figured I'd chime in:

[FTA] - I am finally on to the 8th notes portion and I notice that I cant really get that smooth fast finger speed to just hammer out 8th notes consistently. any exercises or pointers.

Slow repetition is probably the best bet. I'd suggest practicing even slower than the songs on disc, focusing on getting your fingering and timing as good as you possibly can. Gradually speed up as you get better.

Additionally, I also personally noticed that (right hand) fingernail length became an issue on the A string and up, so be sure to keep them short.

[FTA] I tend to rest my thumb on the front pick up and cant really get the hang of using my pinky and ring finger to mute strings. any pointers for this.

You don't have to just use the right hand for muting - the left works as well. Just use whatever works best in the particular situation. Again, practice slowly.

As to specifically the ring and pinky fingers of the right hand -- Ed doesn't have me use them for muting, but rather focus on the index and middle fingers. (E.g. if you're playing D-D-A, I'd use m-i-i for the fingering, raking the index from the open D to A, and mute the A with my middle finger).

But, as stated in the book, use whatever is convenient for yourself.

[FTA] I use my index, ring and pinky finger on my left hand and am having a hell of a time getting my middle finger into the mix. did any of you run into this problem when you were learning

I'm using the 3 finger, 4 fret coverage approach in the book (it's not that Ed is against it - he just saves it for later in your development, specifically page 15 of "Bass Method, Book 2"); however, rather than use index, ring and pinky like you state, I'm using index, middle, and pinky, which seems relatively comfortable (given that I had never played before... hand is definitely still adjusting). You might want to see if using middle instead of ring helps your comfort any.

Good luck!

WesW · #9 02-13-2008, 01:26 AM

Hey bro - I'm in Afghanistan too.

small world, eh?

Check yer PM's. . . .

whitedk57 · #10 02-13-2008, 12:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FTA_Forever@hot

Alright guys, time for your next idiot noob series of questioning. Hopefully you can bear with me. I am self teaching myself while I am here in Afghanistan and am starting to kinda hit a few road blocks. I am using the Hal Leonard book and DVD. Here is a few of my issues.

- I am finally on to the 8th notes portion and I notice that I cant really get that smooth fast finger speed to just hammer out 8th notes consistently. any exercises or pointers.

- I tend to rest my thumb on the front pick up and cant really get the hang of using my pinky and ring finger to mute strings. any pointers for this.

- I use my index, ring and pinky finger on my left hand and am having a hell of a time getting my middle finger into the mix. did any of you run into this problem when you were learning

Thanks for any help you guys can offer me. The one thing that I will take out of this horrible deployment is a new passion that I will probably have for the rest of my life. I think I just need to get past a few road blocks

Todd Johnson's technique is what I have converted to. It allows you to mute strings and not have to stretch your right hand so much for the G-string. Check it out...

FREE floating thumb video @ YouTube.com