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How fast is your picking hand?

#41
Started off playing bass with three fingers, suddenly went to two fingers, which lasted for years, and now I've been working on three again for a couple of months. So far so good.

Not sure how fast I am precisely, but my main band is a thrash band, and the other band has a lot of tremolo-style riffs, and I accurately keep up with both of them, fingerstyle.

I guess a good description of my speed/skill would be that I can now comfortably play 'Megadeth - Holy Wars', fingerstyle. Taken me a lot of years of pushing boundaries to get to this point, though.

As for playing with a pick; I prefer not to.

I started off as a guitarist, and started playing bass about a year later, but I've always kept them seperated as much as possible. Played guitar with a pick, bass with my fingers. Still keep it that way even though I've taken a break from guitar because otherwise it just becomes too easy playing bass and I don't like going easy on myself :roflmao: .

It's really just a matter of playing often, and making your movements as efficient as possible.

Also @cheechi , common misconception, but Steve Harris definitely only plays with two fingers. It's why his hand moves the way it does when he's playing all those gallops.
 
#42
Bodeanly said:
I simply mean that I want how hard I play to affect the dynamics of how the music sounds. When a song is coming out of the bridge and I'm beating the crap out of my strings to match the crescendo of the drums, I want that to be louder instead of adjusting my gain so that I don't have to.
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I get it. My point is that I can accomplish that with my fingers ( or pick strokes), I don't need arm motion to play triple forte.
 
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#46
(While saying this, he realized IF he would practice more diligently . . . . .)

What catches me out, is my fingers on the strings or the pick is faster than my other hand on the fingerboard.

Woodshed, son, woodshed . . . . .
 
#47
When I was developing my downstroke on guitar I focused on duration instead of speed. I needed to be able to maintain 8th note downstrokes at 210-220 BPM for the better part of 7-8 minutes, so I'd just sit and downstroke at a moderate tempo until I had the stamina to go 10 minutes straight, then I gradually increased the speed until I played fast enough for full duration.
 
#48
My speed test is swing. At a certain speed, walking the bass loses that syncopated swing and starts to sound "even eights" once again. Once when I was hanging out with musicians and jam and so on, we tried to see how fast we could play a piece before it started to lose its swing. It stopped way sooner than 150 BPM. That's when I did walking on the bass. If you play "walking" bass too fast, it's just ain't walking anymore. It's running.
 
#49
rmayer said:
Find a slower band.
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Actually this. Agree.

Since my post earlier that everyone has their limits. I have sort of made a deliberate decision not to play any kind of speed metal, or fast musicians music such as in the vein of Return To Forever, Mahavishnu, Dixie Dregs and the like. Because I know I will never ever get that fast, no matter how much I practice, and even doing everything right ny the book regarding fingering, stretching and methods. It's like I said before, I can't get to work as a cattle auctioneer either, because my speech is too slow. I don't know anyone practicing their "speed speech" or "speech speed". You're just that fast, or you're not. Of course, anyone can hone in it, refine it a bit but not that much.

It's a cause of what comes first, but I know very well that if I was invited to join any such band, I would decline just because I knew my limitations in that regard. Getting in there wouldn't ever get me faster or trying to practice more to get faster. It would be a drag for me. I've discovered this too, that it was way more important to me to practice slow and spacey stuff. I had some multitrack going on with the drums, and I recorded my bass track WITHOUT listening back to the drum track, which was automatic and metronome click to it. Then I started the drum track to play along to my bass line, and boy was I off! Took two bars then I rushed it, and never found my way back. After a year or so (inluding Kropinskis book, Getting In Time) of woodshedding practicing real slow with long pauses between notes, I finally nailed it. The worst thing live, is of having just finished a fast song, and then directly go to a slow ballad. One always tends to speed up slow ballads, but not the other way around. Say if the ballad came first, followed by a fast number. The fast number goes fast. It's the adrenalin and reaction of the crowd of course that always speeds you up.
 
#50
Let me preface my post by saying before joining this band, I played primarily with fingers. I have had to work on my picking technique to play the songs. Most of the material is in my finger plucking ability, but I don't have the stamina to play for a whole practice at that speed. So my picking speed has been improved greatly. The idea isn't to shred on the bass. It's to improve my playing abilities so that I can do my parts better.

The band isn't a speed metal band. It's progressive rock or alternative metal. 3/4 of the time I follow the kick drum and there are occasional parts where he's hammering out some double bass stuff. For instance, we recorded a song this weekend and there is a pre-verse part that is 8 measures long and it's 16th notes at only 122 BPM. That's within my playing speed, but the chord changes don't fall on the downbeats and it throws me off every time. Even though my picking speed is up to 140 BPM, I still struggle with the part. It's around 115 BPM that it starts to fall apart. It took me much less effort to bring it up to 100 BPM with 3 fingers. If only I could play it faster that way.

I think one thing that is slowing me down is that every measure, beat one starts with a different finger, and I need to work on
 
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#52
I've found that the following works for me when I worked to increase my speed on my slap technique. It transferred to finger style as well for me. It's not a quick, easy row to hoe, but I've had success with it.

Figure out what the fastest comfortable speed to play something accurately for you is. Dial it backwards by ~5%-10% for a day and just monitor your accuracy over a duration. Repeat a few times until it becomes rote. Next day, start again where you were the previous day. When you can do that easily, dial the metronome up a little and see what you can do there. If you can do it accurately for a satisfactory (to your needs) duration, push a little further. If you can't, dial it back to where you were last accurate and work there. Keep repeating that process, building a little, starting slower, working faster until it's unsustainable, then dial back to where you could. Always end working for a period where you could do it accurately, not where you pushed to and couldn't. It'll build your confidence, your accuracy, and your endurance. Endurance and confidence to play with speed isn't recognized enough. It goes hand in hand; endurance supports you being able to maintain speed. Pushing your speed and holding a duration increases your endurance. And if you don't have the confidence to do it, you'll always get thinking throwing up road blocks in your playing.

All that said, I'm no speed metal merchant with my fingers. I do work this to a point where I can easily perform a lick that requires quick, accurate bursts. In the styles of music I play, that lightning speed isn't really required.
 
#53
I've been playing death metal since I started on bass. Usually single finger technique I can get around 220bpm single finger and double if I use both fingers. I use both index and middle finger to speed pick, just started working on ring finger. However I have found for the music to sound better only speed pick on parts that call for it. You don't have to follow the guitar tempo all the time. Heavy accents on just the bass drums or technical fills sound way better then speed picking through out the entire song. However at time speed picking is absolutely necessary to achieve that sound you want.
I use a technique where I barely hover around the string, almost rubbing it more then plucking. I started doing the same with my middle finger to match an octave jump on the guitars. Most of the time I use trem picking to accent certain parts (more of a speed metal or black metal part) then jump into a punchy part to give more girth to the arrangement.
So practice, practice, practice. Slow at first is not always an option. You also usually aren't grinding the entire song so you can take breaks. Practice speed techniques on a desk corner or the edge of the steering wheel. Just keep your fingers close and consistent. the further you move your finger away from the string the slower you will trem pick.
 
#55
I will try to set up a go pro and get some vids. All the vids I have are from headstock mount so you can't really see my picking hand.
I actually was curious on why they don't have a fast hands comp. for bassist. Guitarist have them, there are several youtube vids of people who claim to be the fastest but not verifiable source to have a fair competition. There is a band called Origin (now this is death metal and won't be very enjoyable unless you are a fan, trust me on this and don't flame me if you hate it when you find it) but I learned my picking technique from watching how there bassist (Mike Flores)would play. Its almost a flicking technique. You can also find vids of him playing live however sound quality is almost always horrid.
 
#56
Finger picking, when we are talking speed on single notes and not speed of skipping strings?:

Way too slow!

Playing with a pick, when we are talking speed on single notes and not speed of skipping strings?:

Pretty God damn fast!
 

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