Fretted techniques that are harder on fretless?

[fearceol]

The advice..."do what works best for you..." is good.....up to a point. For example, playing with a bent wrist(s) works for a lot of people...presently. However, a fair portion of these people with suffer with the likes CTS if they continue playing this way. A lot of these types of injury problems take time to become apparent, by which time, in a lot of cases, the damage has been done. Granted, some people will get away with no problems, while others won't. It is not worth taking the gamble in my opinion.

 

[ProbablyTooLoud]

Both are perfectly valid and both are, as you have discovered, present chalenges on the fretless bass. I thought about looking at each in turn, but actually they both boil down to the same thing: having a hand that is not 'locked in'. For a lot of people they get caught up in the idea that you have to keep all fingers in position all of the time, even those that are not playing notes. This is true of both 3-finger and 4-finger players. The books will all tell you to keep your fingers over the adjacent frets at all times, and some even go so far as to say keep the lower fingers down on the strings behind the stop. This is not necessary. I've said it before but it is worth re-iterating - check out the left hands of some top-class cellists (Yo-Yo Ma, Jacqueline DuPre or Sheku Kanneh-Mason) and see how fluent and free the left hands are, how they glide between tip and pad, how they use the thumb to establish position and how the fingers lead each other around the fingerboard.

IME the Barre is is just a question of alignment. The most tricky part is freeing your hand to facilitate alignment of the finger for perfect intonation at both contact points. Dont be afraid to lift the other fingers away from the locked-in position. You can still do this and maintain good handshape.
In this first picture, Barre with Index, it looks like by middle finger is pressing down on top of index but it isn't - there is no contact:
View attachment 5067245
Likewise, in this next picture it looks like Index and Middle are supporting the stop from behind but they are not - all other fingers are lifted:
View attachment 5067246
Again, in this final picture, only Pinky is touching the strings - the others are lifted: View attachment 5067247​

With separate fingers it is still about alignment, and for that you need to create space to accomodate both stops. So try to play with as much of the fingertip as possible - this creates the space you need to to get both fingertips down side by side. As before, Index and Middle are off the strings:
View attachment 5067248
And once more, playing the 4th with Middle and Ring - Index and Pinky are not doing anything, but they are 'ready' to drop into position for the next note, whereever that might be. In this particular image the index was playing the low octave, but has lifted to enable the hand to realign for the double-stop: View attachment 5067249

Thanks Steve, great examples.

 

[Groove Doctor]

For both those examples you need to adjust you wrist angle/position by moving from the shoulder.

1. Palm up.
To get finger parallel with fret for barring, bring your elbow of fretting hand in slightly as if to face the palm towards the sky (full supination). The higher up the neck, the more the elbow moves in towards your navel. Twist the bass around to you plucking side of hip (point neck forwards) to make higher access easier.

2. 1-3-4, and turn palm more downwards and elbow AWAY from your body slightly. The opposite of above.

 

[SteveCS]

...
Or do I just need to keep working at them?
...

If you want a bit of practice material, try this. It is one of many variations on the bass part to 'I Wish I Didn't Miss You' by Angie Stone.