Great Bassists with "BAD" Technique

[the_hook]

I wasn't sure what I'd learn from this thread, but I see there are a lot of differring opinions.

I have two approaches to finger work as I'm learning my way;

I started a learning bass book a few weeks ago and was very aware of following the finger technique outlined in the book. Often there were positions that just did not work for me, but I kept with the rules.

I did find, as I'm working on songs I want to learn, that initially all those rules seem to go out the window as I focus much more on getting the right notes and sound.

I try to find and reach the notes the best way I can. Once I understand what the notes are and where they are located, I make serveral passes to 'smooth things out'.

Only then do I focus on which fingers I should use where, so that I can move safetly (and accurately) at the speed I need to for the song, and that things sound like I think they should sound. I try to stick with the book's rules, but if I can't get it to work I use my own ideas.

There are some songs that for some reason I need 3 right hand fingers to get right, using 2 just doesn't cut it. And some others I can get away with using 1 finger instead of 2. And sometimes the sound of the 3rd finger sounds better than the other 2, etc.

 

[COOL AND DEADLY]

cool and deadly-we posted the same thought at the same time....

Wow! That was weird. You must have ESPN or be psychotic or something!

 

[Kingkananga]

let me put it like this:

Would the best dressed executive at a business interview get the job? Or maybe it would be the guy with the most impressive CV? That doesnt mean you'll definately get the job, but it may help.

Maybe its just that famous musicians, great players and our favourite bassists write great music.

 

[Alan Vorse]

From Nels Cline's website:

When I was 18, I went to a series of "Master Guitar Seminars" with some leading guitarists - mostly jazz guys. Only 2 things from that experience really stand out to this day: One negative and one positive. The negative one involved acoustic session guitarist and onetime Gabor Szabo collaborator (and former Guitar Player Magazine columnist) Jimmy Stewart. He was appalled first that we didn't all have guitars with us (things were pretty unstructured). He then (after handing out several photocopies of his GP column) proceeded to show us all HOW TO HOLD THE PICK. I was pretty much sure at this point that I wasn't going to get too much out of this session! I'd love to accumulate photos of "guitar greats" and focus on their picking hand (those who pick, anyway). It would very quickly become apparent that it's a highly personal matter. Why? Because guitarists quite often are self-taught maroons?? Partially. But also because (I think) that our physiology differs. Look at how Pat Metheny holds the pick ("correctly", in Jimmy Stewart terms) and how John McLaughlin holds the pick (coincidentally very similarly to yours truly). Which one has achieved the greater technique? Who cares! It's obvious that while a few guidelines are OK (to avoid the pifalls of tendonitis or scoliosis perhaps),it's a very individual choice - or accident. To my mind, this holds true for almost all aspects of musicmaking - indeed, of life. One thing that made the Jimmy Stewart Incident so lame was the second, positive thing I came away with at the seminar: Howard Roberts, the late, great jazz and session guitarist (I was already a fan of his wacky records like "Equinox Express Elevator" at the time) had addressed an aspect or two of this very issue weeks earlier. When asked about pick/hand/arm technique, he said (behind his everpresent dark glasses) : Suppose you want to write your name REAL SMALL. You'd probably only use the tiniest finger movements (he went to the chalkboard and wrote his name as tiny as possible - indeed Mr. Roberts' technique with the pick often really did resemble someone handwriting, so this was no empty doctrine). Now, suppose you want to write your name REAL BIG. You might need to use your WHOLE ARM to do it! (He then, with his arm stiff, wrote his name in letters 3 feet tall, using huge, arcing motions) You see?!!? Heheheheheh!!!! (He had a crazy person laugh).I loved Howard Roberts for this moment.

 

[bassman10096]

I always thought those guys who played with their basses on their chests just look dorky as hell. I tried playing that way once and it was horribly uncomfortable unless I was playing on the 7th fret or higher. I like my picking-hand wrist to be level with my belt-buckle. That's comfortable to me.

Makes sense to me physically if you are playing with a pick. I'm a fingerpicker who played lowslung when I was a kid, took a couple decades off, and came back. When I started up again, I was lucky to have a teacher (an accomplished jazz player) who insisted I try hitching my bass up above my waist. That change, along with a lot of structured exercise made me a way better player than in my youth. EVerything is easier to finger and no stress on the wrist. Sure, I don't look as cool as I did when I was 23, but that's every day and whatever I'm doing (LOL).

Jamerson and the other single-finger guys continue to amaze me. No knock on their "bad" technique - what works, works. I find my self gravitating a bit to single finger plucking on gigs where I want to play around with the focus and percussion using the claw can get you.

 

[Altitude]

Les Claypool.

Sounds awesome but...some of the positions he puts his hands in scare me...

+1. Even aside from his technique, I find it hard to consider him a good player - even though I do like a little Primus now and then. He seems to have little regard for harmony, and what he really seems to be is some kind of drummer who happens to be playing a bass. I just don't think a lot of what he does sounds musical, at least not in the way I define it.

Having said that, what Claypool does is innovative, interesting, appealing to a lot of people, and has fueled a very productive career for him. Whether or not he is successful is not in question.

 

[-=DanAtkinson=-]

Time to resurrect this thread of mine. Just came across this video of JPJ. At the 1:50 mark he talks about using only 2 fingers on his left hand. Later in the video, he uses only 1 finger on his right hand (like James Jamerson).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMYkl6sE6qU

If any student showed up at a bass lesson playing this way, the teacher's first goal would be to correct such bad technique.

I really think it gets down to one thing: The only "bad" technique is the technique that prevents you from expressing yourself on your instrument, or keeps you from getting the music in your head to come out of your instrument. Roadblocks are bad. If you can play what you want to play using only your pinky on each hand, go for it.

 

[LM Bass]

In my somewhat-joking opinion, bass guitar isn't a "proper" instrument (thank God!). Therefore there are many ways to play it. All of them "proper". In my opinion bad technique is only doing things that hurt, or will hurt you, down the line. With so many great players expanding what the instrument can do, the way we all play is evolving really fast right now.

I feel completely the opposite about double bass, though. Bad technique on that instrument will hurt you, but it also shows that you haven't studied seriously.

 

[Oreomeister365]

I've always said that creating good music is what makes (non session) musicians great. Technique matters if you do it for the sake of making money, but not for the sake of making music. If you can play what you want to hear, what else matters?

 

[nocontrols]

I haven't read this entire thread but I've read enough to know that every bass player on the planet could, arguably, be called out for having improper technique.

Why? Because there's no hard-set guidline as to what is proper for the solid-body electric bass guitar. There is no historical precedent for this mutt instrument. It's not an upright, it's not a guitar, it's a hybrid and we're inventing the rules as we go along. Duck Dunn, James Jamerson, Carol Kaye, Larry Graham, Paul McCartney, Bootsy, Flea, Les Claypool, Dee Dee Ramone, Robert Trujillo, John Entwistle, Matt Freeman, Marcus Miller... you can argue about who is better than whom all you like but they all have their own playing style and they're all doing what you and I should be doing... making it up as we go along. Bass as we know it is still a young instrument, don't forget. We're writing the "rules" as we go.

In fact, I like to think of electric bass guitar as the instrument with NO rules. We tend to accept anything and everything, trusting that it sounds good to someone, which is the open-minded spirit I think should inform ALL music. There is a very strict set of laws regulating classical music... double bass players who play classical know what they should and shouldn't do. Electric bass guitar welcomes slappers, poppers, pickers, pluckers, the suave and sophisticated, the rough and fast and hard-hitting, the complicated, the simple, the loud, the quiet, the show-offs who like to be out front and center, the support players who prop up others, the funky, the crazy, the conservative, the excessive, the safe... there are just so many playing styles and attitudes that there is no "BAD" technique, is there? I like that liberal attitude, that egalitarianism. I say forget the rule book.

PS - Don't listen to Jeff Berlin. That attitude is death to the soul.

 

[Doelle]

I like my picking-hand wrist to be level with my belt-buckle. That's comfortable to me.

How high/low do you wear you pants then? >.<

 

[Mike M.]

Maybe it's been said; it's not how they played, it's what they played that sets them apart from the rest of us.

I've heard players (locals) throughout the years who may not have had the greatest technique per say, but they floored me with thier imagination.

 

[Doelle]

its like saying you can only make a baby in the missionary position

You can? If she is on top won't all the future babies fall out again?

 

[ysand]

This "proper technique bashing" thing is getting annoying.

Do you feel fine playing what you can play with your technique? Fine!
Do you want to be able to play more? Then yes, there is PROPER technique for that.

and last but not least, having a good technique and following some rules DOESN'T MEAN that you can't write good music or that your inspiration is limited and/or guided.

My opinion is that one should be having options. You won't be playing (and listening to) the same music for all your life.

 

[nocontrols]

This "proper technique bashing" thing is getting annoying.

Do you feel fine playing what you can play with your technique? Fine!
Do you want to be able to play more? Then yes, there is PROPER technique for that.

and last but not least, having a good technique and following some rules DOESN'T MEAN that you can't write good music or that your inspiration is limited and/or guided.

My opinion is that one should be having options. You won't be playing (and listening to) the same music for all your life.

What you consider proper technique is a legit option. It's valid and I won't take away from that. What you consider improper technique is also valid, as long as people enjoy it. Sorry, that's just how it goes.

It makes the concept of labeling subjective taste in music as either "correct" and "incorrect" about as stupid as telling you that if blue is your favorite color you're right and if green is your favorite color, you're wrong.