straight wrists

[davefarrell]

ive been working on keeping my wrist's straight and ive even started playing my bass resting on the left leg(taken from gary willis). my wrist is not cracking when it's straight but ive noticed alot of professional players don't keep their plucking hand's wrist straight. anddd im now working on finding out what i want to do with my thumb because the floating thumb is somewhat of an inconvience for me right now and im not used to the anchored thumb anymore so im kinda stuck in the middle. i was wondering what people think about this whole situation

[DocBop]

In general to avoid injury and most speed and flexibility keeping your wrist fairly straight is best. Let your wrist go limp and hand drop down. don't bend wrist further than that. Don't force it past where it want to naturally stop. For your plucking hand that is a fair amount of bend. For the fingering hand that isn't a lot of bend depending on height of the bass.

For best example of good playing position to avoid injury and good performace look and a classical guitarist. They have over a 100 years for refinement of their playing posiition. Note the fingering arm, elbow, and hand position. Neck up, elbow down, wrist and hand fairly staight. Fingering hand very different for them but the Gary Willis style is influenced by them. So check Gary out.

Anchoring your thumb can cause more strain on wrist as you go to higher strings. Also tougher as you go to 5-string or bigger bass. So floating thumb or floating anchor is better. Also you anchor your thumb you are limiting to the one tone. If you float you can get a large range of tone just by moving where you finger between bridge and end of neck. A lot of advantages of not anchoring. IMO of course.

[davefarrell]

so your saying it's natural for your right hand to be not perfectly straight but more or less just not strained. and is it also normal for my wrist to crack every now and again whenever i straighten it out from it being bent for some while.

[DocBop]

Originally Posted by davefarrell

so your saying it's natural for your right hand to be not perfectly straight but more or less just not strained. and is it also normal for my wrist to crack every now and again whenever i straighten it out from it being bent for some while.

That's right it doesn't have to be straight, just no drastic angle. I little experiment is the put you elbow on a table with arm up in air. Let wrist go limp and dangle. Now start wiggling your fingers around, should feel fine. Now very gradually while wiggling your finger start to bend a little further. You should instantly feel some stress in your wrist. That is the nerves in the carpal tunnel starting to be pinched. Kind of like bending a water hose when water is running. Now straightening your wrist out and feel the ease of movement. Move around and you should find the range of motion that if fine to use.