Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Fast fingers
- Thread starter vengence
- Start date
I'm going to have to agree with Mr. Jet Black Jazz and say Practice...but to increase speed, with consistency and tone; I would practice with a metronome. Start at comfortable BPM and when you can nail it without flaw bump up the BPM. Continue increasing BPMs until you are where you want to be speed wise. You can do this running scales or lines...doesn't really matter IMHO
You train them to respond to what you want.
Practice is part of it but not all of it. As with any muscular activity, practicing has to be the right practice, not longer practice or the wrong type of practice.
Practicing the wrong things under the wrong conditions can produce the opposite of what you desire......you're basicaly ensuring your practice ingrains the wrong thing not the right things....the same thing can apply to training as well.
I will ask this question to anyone:
Where does your hands get their energy to function?
Think about it.....when doing physical activity your heart rate and breathing increase to get the extra energy required to keep the muscles fueled to keep the task going or to accomplish it. In playing with your hands, as in bass playing, you do not lose breath...so where does the energy come from to fuel the muscles?
Simple answer, is from diet and training.
Foods will provide the energy that the increase in breathing and heart rate will not provide when it comes to playing bass.
There has to be a clear difference between muscle use, since a muscle does not know the difference between practice and playing, the two tasks are basically the same.
Only your brain tells you there is a difference between the same muscle use.
Practice takes in many tasks, including a physical one, and that to some end must include fatigue when practice goes on to long after a muscle is low on energy. Do we stop when the muscle tires, i guess not because the visible result may be a mistake, a lack of dexterity, or some other related point. What we do now is to carry on and do it again and again compounding the problem.
Where as training is just the physical side of the task, when the muscle is fatigued, you rest. Your physical work out is short but intense. In training you rest to allow the muscle to recover so you do not damage or injure it.
In the end you can train a muscle to improve practice, and since practice covers many aspects of bass playing you get the benefit.
Practice is part of it but not all of it. As with any muscular activity, practicing has to be the right practice, not longer practice or the wrong type of practice.
Practicing the wrong things under the wrong conditions can produce the opposite of what you desire......you're basicaly ensuring your practice ingrains the wrong thing not the right things....the same thing can apply to training as well.
I will ask this question to anyone:
Where does your hands get their energy to function?
Think about it.....when doing physical activity your heart rate and breathing increase to get the extra energy required to keep the muscles fueled to keep the task going or to accomplish it. In playing with your hands, as in bass playing, you do not lose breath...so where does the energy come from to fuel the muscles?
Simple answer, is from diet and training.
Foods will provide the energy that the increase in breathing and heart rate will not provide when it comes to playing bass.
There has to be a clear difference between muscle use, since a muscle does not know the difference between practice and playing, the two tasks are basically the same.
Only your brain tells you there is a difference between the same muscle use.
Practice takes in many tasks, including a physical one, and that to some end must include fatigue when practice goes on to long after a muscle is low on energy. Do we stop when the muscle tires, i guess not because the visible result may be a mistake, a lack of dexterity, or some other related point. What we do now is to carry on and do it again and again compounding the problem.
Where as training is just the physical side of the task, when the muscle is fatigued, you rest. Your physical work out is short but intense. In training you rest to allow the muscle to recover so you do not damage or injure it.
In the end you can train a muscle to improve practice, and since practice covers many aspects of bass playing you get the benefit.
Well, the fingering speed it's just a fitness matter, just as any physical sports.
The most important thing in this way to gain some good result it's not just the quantity but the quality of your training.
For example if you play 20 hours every day you'll get faster movement off course but you'll also lose musicality in my opinion.
You need to obtain quality from you studies and speed without heart it's just a poor.
Anyway the best way it's just study a bass part very slow with click and day after day increase it. Careful you need to obtain a clean sound for every note, some dynamic, so not jump quickly to high level metronome.
An play it for 2 hours but good it's better than play it 10 hours but bad, plus off course your finger will feel more pain in the second option.
I saw a lot of better result in my students when they focus quality than quantity.
Anyway I will happy to give you more help if you need.
Cheers. Enrico
YouTube
WebSite
The most important thing in this way to gain some good result it's not just the quantity but the quality of your training.
For example if you play 20 hours every day you'll get faster movement off course but you'll also lose musicality in my opinion.
You need to obtain quality from you studies and speed without heart it's just a poor.
Anyway the best way it's just study a bass part very slow with click and day after day increase it. Careful you need to obtain a clean sound for every note, some dynamic, so not jump quickly to high level metronome.
An play it for 2 hours but good it's better than play it 10 hours but bad, plus off course your finger will feel more pain in the second option.
I saw a lot of better result in my students when they focus quality than quantity.
Anyway I will happy to give you more help if you need.
Cheers. Enrico
YouTube
WebSite
I don't know about you guys, but I found the magic pill that solved all of my technique and groove woes forever. Hard practice is a way of the past.
There's only time for results in today's fast paced society!!
There's only time for results in today's fast paced society!!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Kids are so funny!
This ain't Guitar Hero here. This is the real world where if you want results, you have to work for them. It's serious business getting good on an instrument. And then you can have all the fun with it you want. But until then, get to work, you young ruffian, you!
Practice only as fast as you can and CLEARLY ARTICULATE each note i.e. consistent volume and notes start and finish when YOU want them to. Speed will come. When your fingers hurt, STOP!!! or you risk doing permanent damage.
If you feel you must be doing something while you're not playing, work on transcribing lines by ear without an instrument in your hands. Not as impressive in the music-shop but a much more useful skill in the real world than being able to blast a load of non-stop 64th note slop
If you feel you must be doing something while you're not playing, work on transcribing lines by ear without an instrument in your hands. Not as impressive in the music-shop but a much more useful skill in the real world than being able to blast a load of non-stop 64th note slop
Don't tense up. Tension is a speed killer. The less energy you waste the faster you can go. This is true for pretty much anything in my experience.
Record your play at the computer software at slow tempo, then playback it at high tempo.. Voila!! Speed! 
Just kidding....
Seriously:
Practice from slow tempo and increase the metronome tempo bit by bit, days, weeks, months or even years.
But at the end: Speed isn't everything.
Good luck and happy practicing
Just kidding....
Seriously:
Practice from slow tempo and increase the metronome tempo bit by bit, days, weeks, months or even years.
But at the end: Speed isn't everything.
Good luck and happy practicing
There isn't much to add from what has been said.
1: Practice makes perfect. Boring but true
2: Don't run before you can walk. A metronome is not an option, it's a necessity. Start slow without tension in your fingers @ 60 bpm to really get timing and clarity right, it's harder to play in time slow than it is fast. Work up slowly to playing as fast as you can. When you make mistakes you need to go down a notch in bpm & start again
3: Learn using all four fingers - 1 finger per fret as you'll play properly over time without the need for fumbling around the fretboard.
4. Do finger excercises, finger stretches & chromatic drills before you play to loosen up fingers
5: Get a Gripmaster, this exercises all fingers individualy, gaining strength & agility
6: Cod liver oil tablets, they can help to keep joints agile
7: Practice
8: Repeat from step 1
1: Practice makes perfect. Boring but true
2: Don't run before you can walk. A metronome is not an option, it's a necessity. Start slow without tension in your fingers @ 60 bpm to really get timing and clarity right, it's harder to play in time slow than it is fast. Work up slowly to playing as fast as you can. When you make mistakes you need to go down a notch in bpm & start again
3: Learn using all four fingers - 1 finger per fret as you'll play properly over time without the need for fumbling around the fretboard.
4. Do finger excercises, finger stretches & chromatic drills before you play to loosen up fingers
5: Get a Gripmaster, this exercises all fingers individualy, gaining strength & agility
6: Cod liver oil tablets, they can help to keep joints agile
7: Practice
8: Repeat from step 1
I think we all know that there is no magic pill for getting good at somethingthat we'll have to practice to learn how to do anything.
I think, instead, that most people are looking for guidance. Anytime anyone asks a question about how to get good at something, people say "practice makes perfect." The problem is that people don't know what to practice, or how to practice. (I'd very much like to know how people built their speedwhat their routine has been.)
Definitely, but it certainly matters when you're trying to keep up with the genre you want to play.
I think, instead, that most people are looking for guidance. Anytime anyone asks a question about how to get good at something, people say "practice makes perfect." The problem is that people don't know what to practice, or how to practice. (I'd very much like to know how people built their speedwhat their routine has been.)
Definitely, but it certainly matters when you're trying to keep up with the genre you want to play.
You'd be surprised at the amount of people who dont know ( or are reluctant to accept) this fact. Countless times I have come across threads like.. "What's the quickest way to do XYZ"... or "I have being palying bass for a month now, and I still cant play (insert some complex/fast piece of music)". Most times they know how to go about a task, but are looking for short cuts.
Patience is a virtue.
A metronome is essential in the sense that you can quantify where you stand speedwise. Practice at a tempo at which you're absolutely comfortable. Increase the tempo in really small increments (1, 2 or at most 3 bpm at a time), then try to get comfortable at this higher tempo. By increasing the tempo in really small increments, you won't feel any abrupt stress. In the long run, this approach helps cover a lot of ground really fast, IMO.
Just like everyone says practice practice practice, I find it easy to gain speed by playing scales and while your at it, say the note names out loud as you play, I got that from my grade school days learning treble clef for percussion. Its not for everyone but its helping learn how to read, learn the fingerboard and yes, its upping my speed and precision, and now when I try to write, I have what I want the music to sound like in my head and I just know where the notes are. But I still know I need to keep practicing, just practice and the skills will come.
Ok... yeah more practice lol!
But this is a really interesting subject!
To put a different spin on it check this out...
Put your picking/plucking hand out in front of you (yes that means you reader
)... Wiggle your index and middle finger back and forth as fast as you can (making sure your fingers and hand are relaxed). Wow... they're fast!!! Now do the same with your fretting hand. I'm gonna bet a million $$$ that you can pretty much move both hands at exactly the same speed - no matter how long you've played the bass. In fact I bet that John Patitucci, Janek Gwizdala, Hadrien Feraud, Gary Willis etc etc can't do this ANY FASTER THAN YOU CAN!!!!
Now, this is pretty much the same muscle movement as playing the bass except when playing the bass there's a string in the way.
So your thinking... 'I need to practice hours and hours a day to build up my finger strength so my fingers can move that string out of the way'... WRONG!
This is a cognitive task, not a muscular one. Your BRAIN needs to figure out for itself how much pressure to apply to each finger to get the note to ring out. Or... how much pressure it 'DOESN"T HAVE TO APPLY' to get the note to ring out! What you should be aware of is that the least amount of pressure the better. Obviously there needs to be enough pressure to get the note to sound, but that's it, no more pressure than is needed. Concentrate on getting that pressure down to a minimum. - The less pressure, the faster your fingers are going to move.
So... your muscles are fine (no more finger push ups, phew!). It's your brain that you need to train.
Now don't get me wrong there's lots of exercises that you can do to get your speed up but they all revolve around finger and hand relaxation, control of movement and making sure each finger is 'balanced' meaning one finger isn't dominant over the other one (this is super important and also has NOTHING TO DO WITH MUSCLE TONE).
It's all in the brain!
Easy guys,
Scott.
Free Online Bass Lessons - Scott's Bass Lessons
Link Removed
But this is a really interesting subject!
To put a different spin on it check this out...
Put your picking/plucking hand out in front of you (yes that means you reader
)... Wiggle your index and middle finger back and forth as fast as you can (making sure your fingers and hand are relaxed). Wow... they're fast!!! Now do the same with your fretting hand. I'm gonna bet a million $$$ that you can pretty much move both hands at exactly the same speed - no matter how long you've played the bass. In fact I bet that John Patitucci, Janek Gwizdala, Hadrien Feraud, Gary Willis etc etc can't do this ANY FASTER THAN YOU CAN!!!!Now, this is pretty much the same muscle movement as playing the bass except when playing the bass there's a string in the way.
So your thinking... 'I need to practice hours and hours a day to build up my finger strength so my fingers can move that string out of the way'... WRONG!
This is a cognitive task, not a muscular one. Your BRAIN needs to figure out for itself how much pressure to apply to each finger to get the note to ring out. Or... how much pressure it 'DOESN"T HAVE TO APPLY' to get the note to ring out! What you should be aware of is that the least amount of pressure the better. Obviously there needs to be enough pressure to get the note to sound, but that's it, no more pressure than is needed. Concentrate on getting that pressure down to a minimum. - The less pressure, the faster your fingers are going to move.
So... your muscles are fine (no more finger push ups, phew!). It's your brain that you need to train.
Now don't get me wrong there's lots of exercises that you can do to get your speed up but they all revolve around finger and hand relaxation, control of movement and making sure each finger is 'balanced' meaning one finger isn't dominant over the other one (this is super important and also has NOTHING TO DO WITH MUSCLE TONE).
It's all in the brain!
Easy guys,
Scott.
Free Online Bass Lessons - Scott's Bass Lessons
Link Removed
