Warp Speed Staccato Plucking: Share your techniques

[subexpression]

Though it is a relatively small part of bass playing as a whole, the pursuit of fingerstyle speed seems to dominate practice sessions for many bass players. Attaining high speeds is certainly a benchmark achievement, and is a ready tool to whip out at your disposal. Many who would rather be working on functional harmony and composition still find themselves forever pushing the needle to the red.

Of course, it's genre dependent. Certain styles demand it, while with others it would be superfluous wanking.

I'm curious to know everyone's take on personal achievements, their "holy grail" practice routines, and technical notes on how they personally approach development of warp-speed staccato plucking.

[garmenteros]

I just warm up with a lot of scales and a metronome. I start slow then after a while I get pretty fast and over the years my playing has gotten a lot tighter and cleaner. I also practice lots of fast punk-ska lines which can be quite demanding and sometimes I'll take any riff and speed it up and down with the metronome... It really helps you develop a sense of rhythm to play things at different tempos... So my holy grail if you could call it that is a metronome. Drum loops are good too, but for random creative practice... not so much for building speed.

[Marty Forrer]

The real challenge is not how to play fast, but how to play slow. Try playing whole notes for several minutes with the metronome set at 1/4 note = 40bpm, and nail every one of them. It aint easy, but this is the sort of practice a lot of great players do. Sure it's fun to try and emulate Rocco's "What Is Hip" lines, but I believe accuracy at speed is a byproduct of accuracy at snail's pace. But what do I know?

[varunkapahi]

bass fitness by Josquin des Pres

[OOZMAN]

I play with a pick so picking speed is no problem :P

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Originally Posted by OOZMAN

I play with a pick so picking speed is no problem :P

It's plucking not picking!

Well, speed is not a problem no matter what technique you choose.

For that matter, I can accurately play 16th notes at 200bpm with a pick, but even faster plucking.

My plucking exercises consist of starting with triplets. For each quarter note pulse of the metronome I play an 8th note triplet. 8th note triplets are not to be confused with galloping 8th-16th-16th, or reverse gallop 16th-16th-8th.

So, if I bump the metronome up to 260bpm, the triplets are pretty fast, but nowhere near as fast as 16th note quadruplets at 260bpm. To calculate exactly how fast your triplet 8ths are in comparison to 16th note quadruplets, you need to do a little bit of math:
Q = quadruplets
T = triplets
(T bpm / 5) * 4 = Q bpm

Playing triplets on quarter notes @260bpm is the same as playing quadruplets on quarter notes @208bpm.

The reverse calculation:
Q bpm * 1.25 = T bpm

Then, after I've topped out with triplets, I slow down the metronome and begin quadruplet drills...and slowly nudge the speed higher and higher. When I top out with quadruplets, it's proportional to my top triplet speed...the math proves it.

Starting with triplets is essential if you're a 3-finger player...because you can lock into the pulse of the quarter note.

[Skitch it!]

4 finger technique is pretty effortless when you get in down, I've been working on it over a year now, I still wouldn't gig it yet. My take on 4 finger is more about string crossing rather that single string flurries, string crossing/muting is the tricky part.

I started with 2 fingers originally, then switched to 3 in university, then back to 2 a few years ago, now a mix of 2/3 sometimes thumb, index and mid for classical pieces. At the Guitar Institute in '96 the requirement was 2 octave scales (harmonic min, melodic min modes, superlocrian, stuff like that) in 16th's at 120bpm, lately I don't know.

Speed is very much dependent on the string crossing required in with what the left hand is playing, more string crossing, the harder it is for dexterity/speed and muting.

[austentaciousC]

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showth...4#post10229514

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Originally Posted by austentaciousC

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showth...4#post10229514

Great players - all of them - and yes, they're certainly benchmarks for fingerstyle speed.
I especially love "Got A Match?" - of course I learned Chick's part on guitar about 2 years ago...from the studio album. I've never tried it on bass, but I know all the changes. Haha, now I'm going to stay up late
EDIT: I got the head up to speed...now for the rest

Originally Posted by Skitch it!

4 finger technique is pretty effortless when you get in down, I've been working on it over a year now, I still wouldn't gig it yet. My take on 4 finger is more about string crossing rather that single string flurries, string crossing/muting is the tricky part.

Agreed - 4 fingers is best in my opinion...however, I do the same...I play 3 when gigging.

Originally Posted by Skitch it!

I started with 2 fingers originally, then switched to 3 in university, then back to 2 a few years ago, now a mix of 2/3 sometimes thumb, index and mid for classical pieces. At the Guitar Institute in '96 the requirement was 2 octave scales (harmonic min, melodic min modes, superlocrian, stuff like that) in 16th's at 120bpm, lately I don't know.

Yeah, 2 and 3 octave scales (on guitar) 16th's @120bpm was a graduation requirement at my college as well. They'd also ask me to play a 2 octave triad arpeggio from 2nd inversion @120bpm also. I think my jurors just wanted to see if they could throw me off
They also wouldn't give you a metronome click - It really tests your ability to internalize tempos and play them without checking. I kind of cheated to nail 120...They had an old analog clock on the wall and I listened to the ticking of the second hand, doubled it and got my 120

Originally Posted by Skitch it!

Speed is very much dependent on the string crossing required in with what the left hand is playing, more string crossing, the harder it is for dexterity/speed and muting.

Totally agreed.

[Skitch it!]

Originally Posted by subexpression

Yeah, 2 and 3 octave scales (on guitar) 16th's @120bpm was a graduation requirement at my college as well. They'd also ask me to play a 2 octave triad arpeggio from 2nd inversion @120bpm also. I think my jurors just wanted to see if they could throw me off
They also wouldn't give you a metronome click - It really tests your ability to internalize tempos and play them without checking. I kind of cheated to nail 120...They had an old analog clock on the wall and I listened to the ticking of the second hand, doubled it and got my 120

Yay, I hear you, internalising time is very tricky. If I use the microwave to warm something to eat up for a couple of minutes, I try to subdivide the seconds and count it down without seeing the clock, usually 5-6 seconds out on a v.good day, my food gets burned on a bad one. I used to have a fridge also that buzzed in Perfect G to tune to, I didn't take it to gigs though

Another thing we used in Uni which was part of the assessment on scales and dexterity was playing the scales in 3rds, 4ths, (the difficult one imo) 5ths, 6ths at tempos, this was great for crossing, intervallic recognition/harmony, something to get out of the more horizontal scale approach and a great exercise for fingering.

Technique is definitely nice to have up to a level that you feel confident in knowing you can take something tricky on, but I feel using it musically is the difficult part, I think any advancement is a good thing, conveying it musically and not tripping on it (yes, I'm as guilty as anyone, but I'm older now) is the hard part imo.

It's great that all these tools are available to make your own, some of my favourite bassers are the guys who feel it rather than think it. Bass is my favorite chameleon and the best chameleon for metal imo

[maturanesa]

to develop speed i practice with a drum machine and try to keep the amount of notes along the time as much as i can. Usually a fast groove. Thats not just give you speed, also stamina to hold the speed