Bent fingers or straighter fingers?

[saltydude]

Straighter is harder to push down on the individual notes but wayyyy easier on the wrist.

 

[Fergie Fulton]

Its neither one or the other, using your fingers straight, or with some curl, are part of the techiques used to play the guitar, so let the music your playing decide the best use of the fingers.
Remember your hands default setting when you relax it is to have the fingers curved or slightly curled.

Playing bare chords, for example requires both straight and curled fingers, so music pkayed on a fretless will require straight fingers if the notes are in the same position (playing D to A or G to C).

For me my default position is curled because stress and tensions are being transferred through the line of the fingers and joints.... not over them.
I use the fingers natural curl to my advantage, as to use them straight means i have to use muscle tension to straighten them and as a rule swing rhe fingers from one joint, the MCP, rather than use all joints

Straight fingers increase the chance of hyper-extention. It may lead to a strain or even a sprain, of the finger joints... Similar to that injury you get when you jar your fingers when straight, maybe you did not catch something thrown to you correct.

So its not one or the other, its a blend of both, and for me if i relax my hand it has a natural curl, so i go with that and have curl as my main default position for both hands.

 

[Spin Doctor]

I've never really given it much thought, but I just checked, and I play with my fingers bent.

One thing I've noticed about Andrew Gouche is, as great as he is, his ergonomics leave a lot to be desired. Look at the bend in that wrist. If that's what allows him to play with straighter fingers, I'd say it's not worth it.

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His ergonomics makes it not worth being one of the best bassists on the planet. That's about the most crazy thing I've ever heard and I've heard a lot. Even if he sold his soul to the Devil, it's worth it.

I mean, what do you do, change tires for a living but you have perfect tendons? That's real livin'...

 

[The Bass Clef]

@smeet hit on it earlier in this thread. Straight fingers (where the power comes from the 1st joints) is usually associated with the rest stroke technique... and bent fingers (where the power comes from the 2nd joint) is usually associated with the free stroke technique. A well-rounded bass player should be able to do both IMO - I don’t mean you need to necessarily play every riff or song you know both ways, but you’ll find that some bass lines feel better to play one way and some lines, the other way. It’s up to you to figure out what the “best” way is to play whatever line for yourself. And which technique you choose to use will have an impact on how it sounds, which is why I think it’s important to be able to do both techniques - so you can have artistic options.

Personally, I often like using free strokes (2nd joint) for faster stuff like running 8ths or 16th notes, but some players feel it’s easier to play that style with straight fingers. I tend to use rest strokes (1st joint) for more melodic playing, or for passages that I just want it to sound a bit more powerful, as rest strokes tend to have a harder attack. Straight fingers also makes raking much easier IME.

 

[James Collins]

@smeet hit on it earlier in this thread. Straight fingers (where the power comes from the 1st joints) is usually associated with the rest stroke technique... and bent fingers (where the power comes from the 2nd joint) is usually associated with the free stroke technique. A well-rounded bass player should be able to do both IMO - I don’t mean you need to necessarily play every riff or song you know both ways, but you’ll find that some bass lines feel better to play one way and some lines, the other way. It’s up to you to figure out what the “best” way is to play whatever line for yourself. And which technique you choose to use will have an impact on how it sounds, which is why I think it’s important to be able to do both techniques - so you can have artistic options.

Personally, I often like using free strokes (2nd joint) for faster stuff like running 8ths or 16th notes, but some players feel it’s easier to play that style with straight fingers. I tend to use rest strokes (1st joint) for more melodic playing, or for passages that I just want it to sound a bit more powerful, as rest strokes tend to have a harder attack. Straight fingers also makes raking much easier IME.

Another use is to play rest stroke to bring out the melody while playing free stroke on the other notes. But this is used a lot less in bass guitar.