String transition fluidity.

[remo]

Hi Adam,

Love you playing, you are a WEAPON on the bass. I'd love to get your take on string transition. I have lots of trouble crossing strings quickly and fluidly. I've been playing for a very long time and it's never just 'come' to me. I've practiced slowly for a long time but whenever I go to speed up a bit it's like a car pile up on the freeway..

Do you have any specific approaches to playing a 16th line like this with fluidity and stamina?

|---------------------------------
|---------------------------------
|--------------5-5-------------5-5
|------5-5-------------5-5--------
|----------3-3-------------3-3----
|--3-3-------------3-3------------

best regards,

Guy
Melbourne, Australia!

[adamnitti]

ah guy, thanks for the kind words, and thanks for your post!

on a line like that i try to play with pretty strict non-stop 1-2 or 2-1 alternation with the plucking hand fingers as i cross strings in both directions, in order to maintain a very uniform and consistent performance. this evenly splits the workload between the two fingers and allows a bit more of a focused shift across strings. also it's worth noting that my plucking hand thumb anchors on the body or the pickups for the first 4 notes, and then shifts momentarily to the B string (looks like you have a 6 string bass from your diagram...) when i play the next 4 notes. so in other words, the B string to A string transition has the thumb anchored on the pickup or body, and then the E string to D string transition has the thumb anchored momentarily to the B string. beyond that, it comes down to muscle memory work and working on your stamina/endurance. hope that helps!

[chanson]

Adam, when I try this exercise, my thumb (floating thumb) wants to follow the movement of my fingers up to the D and G strings. So when I move up for the D string, my thumb wants to move to the B/E string and rest. And same for the G string. My thumb wants to move to A/D. What are your thoughts on this? Should I keep it anchored in one spot?