Flat fretting fingers a good thing?

[tb-player]

Fingertips for me. However, there are times I use the flat of my fingers… usually for effect.

 

[mambo4]

I the video, David refers to contact on these black spots as "flat fingers"
That's how I've always played and I have always called it my "finger tips"

I think he's exaggerating a non existent problem.

 

[Cave Puppy]

Fingertips for sharper tone. "Meat" of the fingers for a softer and/or muted tone. And more for guitarists wanting to do "double stops," "Barre" chords, etc. I think it would take more energy and effort to use more of the "meat" of the fingers.

 

[Medicine Man]

Of note - these aren't mutually ezclusive. I generally play one finger per.fret with my thumb on the back of the neck (I play a six-string) bit even so, I fret with the pads of my fingertips and let my fingers bridge over the strings higher than the one I'm fretting.

Incidentally, responding to this thread has made me rralize that some of the fatigue I've had is due to trying to stay bridged for muting purposes. When playing on the lower stringa across a six-string, it's easier and more consistent to pivot the wrist around the thumb to preserve fingering technique. If you are trying to bridge by keeping contact between the index finger knuckle and the fretboard edge, it creates a slew of other issues. I hadn't even realized that I'd started doing this.

Yep. My exact reason. It saves fatigue for easier lines.

 

[Paul New]

I play with my fingertips.

However...a very good friend who is the best musician I've met, plays exclusively with flat fingers. He plays gospel, fusion, funk, usually on a five or six and makes an excellent case for the technique. And believe me, it's a conscious choice he's made.

 

[longfinger]

So I saw this youtube video today, which is of course clickbait BS, but it got me thinking about whether fretting the strings with tips is perhaps limiting in some ways.

I've always tried to stay on my fingertips. It seems it improves dexterity because the fingers have a natural curve. But is that true?

I understand flattening fingers for muting, barring across strings, etc.

But, is there also added expressiveness that slightly flattening the fingers allows?

This video is of course 6-string-guitar-centric (and maybe is more true there), but do you guys think there is there any reason to avoid playing on fingertips on bass?

Maybe it's style-specific, so bebop solos and the like need fingertips, but blues/rock/country type playing can benefit from flattening? Maybe?

I'd love to hear your opinions.

Absolutely.

My approach:
For guitar and ukulele: play on finger tips. It's needed to play chords and have all the strings ringing as they should.

For bass guitar and upright bass: play on finger pads. We need to mute all strings except the one string we are currently playing. Pad playing helps mute from the string we are on and thinner. The other muting happens with the right hand.

That's a key difference for me in left hand technique between playing guitar and bass guitar.

On all instruments, body ergonomics rule. Fingers are in line with the forearm, towards the elbow. (some instruction photos show fingers parallel to the frets, = bent wrist. I don't practice or teach that.)

 

[Barticus]

On bass it depends, both... depending on the music/style and tone I need.
On guitar, it's the same... depends on the music/style and the tone I need. If clean articulation is needed, it's fingertips for sure. If percussive, then pads.

Almost like saying 'which are the correct fingers to use on your right hand?' again it depends, I use all of them depending on what's needed.

If you've ever spent any time on Scott's Bass Lessons you may have come across Danny Mo Morris (Berklee College of Music), who actually teaches the technique of using pads of the fingers, muting, etc. for a particular styles of music.

 

[GrapeBass]

Be careful kids, flat fingering may cause some physical problems with your hand in the future.

 

[Fuzzbass]

So I saw this youtube video today, which is of course clickbait BS, but it got me thinking about whether fretting the strings with tips is perhaps limiting in some ways.

I've always tried to stay on my fingertips. It seems it improves dexterity because the fingers have a natural curve. But is that true?

I understand flattening fingers for muting, barring across strings, etc.

But, is there also added expressiveness that slightly flattening the fingers allows?

This video is of course 6-string-guitar-centric (and maybe is more true there), but do you guys think there is there any reason to avoid playing on fingertips on bass?

Maybe it's style-specific, so bebop solos and the like need fingertips, but blues/rock/country type playing can benefit from flattening? Maybe?

I'd love to hear your opinions.

I'll just jump in with my 2¢ without reading the entire thread or watching that video. (This is the internet, right?)


Best description I heard came from Darryl Jones in an old GP/BP interview. Darryl said he would use proper fingering -- one finger per fret, fingertips, thumb behind the fretboard -- when doing challenging songs with Miles, etc. However when he tours with the Rolling Stones, he uses what he called the "monkey grip": four fingers over two or three frets, flattened, thumb often wrapped over the top of the fretboard. He says it just feels better; helps him groove better with Stones songs that are all relatively simple, and "loosely tight" (as is true for most rock/blues/country, etc).

Glenn Letsch had a lesson in BP saying about the same thing. I believe his term for "monkey grip" was the "cup": four fingers together over 2 or 3 frets.

I enjoyed reading their comments because I had already adopted both of those techniques without really thinking about it. I had heard exhortation to use finger-per-fret in all situations, so it was nice to know that non-formal techniques had their place and weren't "wrong" per se.

So, I go with what works. If I'm playing a technically challenging song (for me that's often Geddy Lee), then I use fingertips. If I'm just grooving over easy standards, the monkey grip works and feels better.

And obviously you can go back and forth between techniques within the same song.

 

[Ric5]

I prefer my fingers to be round wound

 

[BarfanyShart]

The stuff I'm doing now is very chordal, and the choice of whether to bar something with a flat finger or double-stop it with curved fingers (or both) is something I spend a lot of time on. It mostly depends on what comes right before or right after the double-stop, because the safe position for you wrist is different depending on how curved your fingers are. So, if I need curved fingers for the bit right after the chord then I'm going to keep my wrist up and my fingers curved; but if the passage is a bunch of little bars one after the other then it's way easier to keep the wrist down and fingers flat for the whole passage. Then you gotta think about how it sounds, and make a choice based on that ... it's not an either/or thing, it's very situational.

 

[Kipp Harrington]

Not sure what I do. Whatever it is that I am doing (or not doing) is working for me.

 

[Joebone]

I'm a constant student of technique (not to say that I have great technique). I've revamped the way I use both hands several times, and I'll keep evolving. I know about "good" technique, but on a new instrument like electric bass we are still discovering what proper technique is.

I do use flattened fingers and bunch-o-bananas fingers, and even the infamous baseball bat grip at times. If nothing else, it keeps me interested to make playing feel a bit different, and perhaps sparks some different playing ideas.

"Bunch o Bananas" - is that fretting with your pinky and the other three fingers also pressing the string? This is something I've experimented with, to get a really fat tone.

 

[DwaynieAD]

What ever works for you is correct. I do both.

 

[BarfanyShart]

"Bunch o Bananas" - is that fretting with your pinky and the other three fingers also pressing the string? This is something I've experimented with, to get a really fat tone.

You watch McCartney play on some videos and he is moving his whole hand around to fret each note. If you saw a high school kid doing that, you'd suggest he get some lessons, but Sir Paul obviously has his reasons for playing a particular song like this.

 

[MonetBass]

OK I'm changing my answer. After observing my technique, I can confidently say I'm in between. Rolled slightly off of the fingertip, but not quite on the pad of the finger. Probably came from my DB technique.

 

[BlueTalon]

Reading this, I'm wondering what exactly people mean when they use the term "fingertips." When I play on a 6-string guitar (not a bass), I use my actual fingertips, with the ends of my fingers at about a 60-90 degree angle from the fretboard when I'm playing chords. When I play bass, the angle of the ends of my fingers range from flat to about 30, maybe 45 degrees from the fingerboard. Although I often play at the ends of the pads, close to the tip, I never actually use the fingertips the same way I do when I'm playing guitar. Bass strings are just too big for that to be comfortable.

 

[ThudThudThud]

I was recording a bass line on an original song the other day. Sort of lounge-y/jazz-ish type affair.
I found myself turning down the tone, and playing the basic parts quite flat-fingered to emulate a (sort of) upright feel.

Weirdly, I was playing over the neck with my right hand, but found myself drifting back to the bridge pickup out of habit...but that's hardly important here! I guess old habits die hard.

Anyway...the flat fingering helped to round out the tone to a more muted thump I was looking for. For that song [always play what the song needs, not what you need]. It's just a technique. It's not how I play usually.

Guitar? All fingertips unless it's a barre chord. Everything else I want as clean as possible since I do a lot of open chords in all positions.

 

[shoulderpet]

No idea, have never even given a thought as to whether I use flat or arched fingers, never even occurred to me that there were 2 ways you can fret a note

 

[bassrique]

I flatten out for min7ths, 4thsq and extensions. Muting.

Also, if you play fretless, you can get more "mwah" if you play with the fleshy part of the fingers, especially if you play with high action to avoid that effect mist of the time.