Exercising Plucking Fingers Without A Bass

[mrjim123]

I play electric bass, finger plucking exclusively.

My right hand technique seems to benefit from a lot of hard plucking, i.e., practice, practice, practice. I average maybe close to an hour a day practice when I'm not gigging, but I wish I could do more (the wife sometimes asks me if I'm married to her or to my bass ... and I have to think hard about that one ).

Anyways, since my commute time to and from work is a little over an hour, I am looking for a way to work my plucking fingers while I drive (extending the middle finger to rude drivers seems to have little effect). Has anybody figured out a way to do this? I'm even thinking of mounting some old strings to a board with tuners attached to it. Is there anything commercially available?

 

[Steve!]

This is how I exercise my hands for plucking or fretting.

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[Jazz Ad]

The side seam of my jeans always did the trick for free.
Gripmaster and other Prohands devices are the worse possible exercice you could imagine for a musician. They give strength (which you don't need) at the expense of slenderness and speed (which are absolutely essential). If you want to lose any kind of velocity it is the right too for the job. YMMV.

 

[totallyfrozen]

This is the one I use. I use the medium tension version.
Gripmaster
They don't sacrifice speed as some people might think. The stronger your hands are, the longer they can play without tiring; therefore, you can move fast for long periods of time. If your muscles are weak they can't move strongly or QUICKLY...if they are strong, they can do both.

Now that I look at the comment above, I have to ask: what do you mean by "slenderness"?
Do you think your hands will BULK UP if you use a Gripmaster?

 

[Steve!]

That's the one I have

 

[Cyber Soda]

The side seam of my jeans always did the trick for free.
Gripmaster and other Prohands devices are the worse possible exercice you could imagine for a musician. They give strength (which you don't need) at the expense of slenderness and speed (which are absolutely essential). If you want to lose any kind of velocity it is the right too for the job. YMMV.

This.

 

[Jazz Ad]

Do you think your hands will BULK UP if you use a Gripmaster?

Of course. this is exactly what the device is for. They advertise it for climbers, not musicians. Brushing strings with the tip of your finger has little if anything in common with clenching on buttons.
You use exactly the same muscles to lift weights with your forearm and to write. Do you think pumping iron will help you write faster or with more precision? This is what you're doing to your fingers.

 

[Freelancer]

The tendons in your hands are like any other set of muscles. You can train them either for strength or for stamina/endurance. Bulking up and pure strength training is actually counter productive for stamina and repetitious activity. The more mass there is in the muscle the more it is geared towards short explosive bursts and less for endurance. That large mass stores a lot of energy which is burned very quickly. Unfortunately because of the larger mass, it is much more difficult to get the energy and oxygen needed to sustain the activity for longer periods of time when compared to the muscle that's leaner, trained more for long repetition.

When you train more for endurance rather than strength, the muscle tends to instead, try to optimize itself to the task of lasting as long as possible before muscle failure. For little used muscle groups this could mean a little toning up naturally. This is why professional distance runners look almost like walking sticks. The muscles have maximized efficiency to the point of allowing just enough muscle mass to withstand the rigors of the activity without injury, keeping mass as low as possible in order to not overtax the bodies' oxygen supply.

As a bassist you don't need uber strength to play. I can barely touch the strings and get a decent strength tone out of my amp. I let the amp do all the hard work and try and keep as much tension out of my hand and fingers as possible. My goal is to be as efficient as possible.

Rock On!
-Chris