help with my fingerstyle

Well theres a few things that could be causing this.

My first guess is your bass porbably isnt set up correctly. If your action(how high or low the strings are from the frets)is too low then you will get rattle from your strings hiting on the frets while they vibrate after you pluck them, also your neck might need to be adjusted. I suggest you take it to get it set up, almost any local guitar store should be able to do this for you for a few dollars.

Also, you might not be fretting the strings right, if you dont put your fingers close enough to the fret the string will rattle.

My third guess is that your plucking the strings like a maniac, but I doubt youre being too forceful. So my advice is going to get your bass setup properly and then make sure youre fretting correctly and not being too forceful on the strings.

As far as video, I dont know of any off of the top of my head but you might want to do a search on here in the "Technique" forums and see what you find. If you have to a little googling should find you some results!

Hope this helps, welcome back to the world of low end pal!

 

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zIhrcAHGubU

YouTube is your friend. Look for other famous bassists playing solos and stuff, they tend to zoom up on the plucking hand.

 

This video has been recommended a few times when the question of right hand technique comes up:



Enjoy!

 

Yeah the teaching deal is a shame, its easy for somone who JUST started to get discouraged because their teacher is a hack haha. Oh and by the way, you arent still putting your fingers under the string and plucking up on them are you? Thats called popping a string, it isnt fingerstyle. In fingerstyle, typically you lay the pad of your finger on top of the string and pluck across the string, kind of. Wow its so simple and so hard for me to describe accurately haha. Umm kind of the same motion of when you do an imprssion of someone who talks alot with your hands you know? Wow I would be a terrible teacher haha.

 

Very true, I played trombone and baritone in highschool....maybe thats why I like bass so much?haha.
Anyways, you might want to make sure that you are getting just PAD on the string and not arching your fingers alot when you pull upwards, that might make your fingernails scrape the string. Try to keep your fingers more or less perfectly straight when you pull off of the strings to keep your nails from contacting the string. I wish I had a camera set up in your house to see how your holding you hand on the bass haha. The most used way to hold your hand on the bass is to rest your thumb on the top of the pickup, the area between your thumb and index finger will sort of resemble a C. Keep the fingers relatively straight. Also for the D and G string alot of people rest their thumb on the E string to make it easier to hit the D and G string, resting it much like they do on the pickup.

 

Thank you! Even after playing for nearly 20 years... this helps!

 

Also check out Todd Johnson's forum here at TB. Todd is a former student of Gary's and is now a sought after clinition and instructor himself.

I think you will find that studying both floating thumb and learning to soften your attack probably will help to resolve your issues. If you have practiced control sufficiently I don't think you will find yourself hitting your nail ever. A softer attack will also gain you speed, greater control over dynamics and greater stamina overall.

 

I can't take any credit. Another TBer recommended the link way back when. But it's still nice to be thanked

 

I've been looking for that for a while! Really opened my eyes and improved my technique a LOT!

Thanks for posting the link again. I couldn't find that a while ago and had to explain that video to someone in words... :/

 

Here's a site mostly geared towards beginners but the video and slideshow clearly show how to pluck properly.

http://www.studybass.com/lessons/bass-technique/plucking/

 

What's 'proper form'?

 

Well it was ok until about slide 10 and then I start to disagree with its instruction. I suppose this is all in the eye of the beholder so these are IMHO. First I am not familiar with the use of "Wandering Thumb" instead of "Floating Thumb" but in essence they are the same technique. I suppose on a four string for someone just starting out the whole tutorial is probably useful. I would recommend considering Floating Thumb (or Wandering if that is really a term) right off the bat as it, combined with fret hand muting, is the best approach overall for bass and why start anywhere else.

All in all a good recommendation just think it needs some tweeks.

Spin

 

Relaxation is key I feel. Whatever technique you use, make sure that enables you to be as relaxed as possible.

 

wow that gary willis youtube stuff is very good to have!

great lesson!