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Is 'Raking' bad?

#61
Shadyskull24 said:
Sadly yes, if i find something to fast for my thumb i use my fingernail or a pick if i'm desperate.

Is that horrible tech? My instructor told me to quit it, but playing with my fingers aint the same. Doesn't have the same tone at all...
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It doesn't have the same tone today. But if you practice it for a couple months, it could. The key is to not get impatient and stop trying. That's why rakers hate SA people. They're mad because they didn't dedicate their time to learning SA and now they have to rake.

:hiding:
 
#62
In addition to all of this, if you alternate, do you pluck cleanly or does your finger land on the string below?

I've been struggling with this for a while. If I make no contact with the string below, the tone is much cleaner, but I have more trouble muting. If I do make contact with the string, the noise of me contacting the string is quite audible.

Can anyone comment on their take on alternating?
 
#64
Why do alternatists started by raking and then saw the light and worked hard on strict alternation? Ever thought on working as hard on raking?

I remember my double-bass classes... those little signs above the notes for pushing or pulling the bow. Sometimes you'd push pr pull several notes, or just one according to phrasing or plain convenience. I do the same with electric bass. I take the time to figure out the best right hand fingering according to phrasing, muting and convenience.

The problem with strict alternating is the strict part. Any technique with that word is silly at best.
 
#65
The search function works really well on this topic. ;)

I used to rake all the time. Heck, I didn't even know I was raking.

I looked into SA (strict alternating) and I spent an entire summer working making the switch.

Now, I do a lot of my playing using SA, especially on faster passages. My playing became more precise because of SA. I'm happy I spent the time on it.

However, I still rake. Sometimes I rake fast triplets and funky things. I do what feels right. If it needs a clean/precise sound, I will use SA.

It feels good to have both in my toolbox. In the end, it comes down to how it sounds. If it's sloppy, you need to look at what you're doing and make it better. SA may help.

Joe
 
#66
Erick Lam said:
Why do alternatists started by raking and then saw the light and worked hard on strict alternation? Ever thought on working as hard on raking?

I remember my double-bass classes... those little signs above the notes for pushing or pulling the bow. Sometimes you'd push pr pull several notes, or just one according to phrasing or plain convenience. I do the same with electric bass. I take the time to figure out the best right hand fingering according to phrasing, muting and convenience.

The problem with strict alternating is the strict part. Any technique with that word is silly at best.
Click to expand...

1st paragraph: Because anyone can rake. But it takes work to SA. Plus raking isn't precise. It relies as much on luck as skill. Go play something with a ton of quick 16th notes and string skipping and see how far raking takes you.

2nd: I take no time figuring out right hand fingering. I alternate and it takes care of itself.

3rd: If it makes you feel better Erick, I give you permission to drop the word "strict" and just call it "alternation." There, hope you're getting some warm fuzzies now!
 
#67
Erick Lam said:
I wonder if someone at talkdrum.com argues that single strokes are the only way to go.
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that's not a reasonable comparison, mainly because sticks can bounce quite readily on a drum head, making double-stroke and even triple-stroke rolls and rudiments not only practical, but in many applications, preferable. And the feel and sound between the three (single, double, and triple) is quite different.

plucking fingers on a bass don't bounce very well. Not only that, they're also quite important to use to create note durations (via fingertip muting techniques).
 
#69
I think you should work on both. I am working right now on SA, which I ignored for a few months lol. It does feel pretty unnatural yet fast, but I still feel like some parts sound better when raked.

When learning techniques, I think you should learn all possible variations you can, and the consciously implement them to get the right feel and sound.

And now that I thought about it, it is going to be a pain to learn SA and raking when I begin working on three finger style... and then three fingers and a thumb... with the possibility of a pinky... but that's a long way away lol.
 
#70
JimmyM said:
1st paragraph: Because anyone can rake. But it takes work to SA. Plus raking isn't precise. It relies as much on luck as skill. Go play something with a ton of quick 16th notes and string skipping and see how far raking takes you.
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Here's where I disagree - and I've got tons of recordings I've played on to prove it. I'm absolutely precise, and I rake all the time. As with any skill, you're as precise as you make yourself. I just happen to rake while doing it.
 
#71
Like a lot of guys in my generation, I learned to play bass leaning over a record player, sometimes at half speed, picking up the licks and ruining every record I every bought by moving the needle across the coolest parts a million times.

I was already a pretty good player by the time I took lessons, read instructional material or eventually video material. I even remember a time when Guitar Player had a phone number you could call to get short bits of their lessons over the phone.As I tried to pick up the "secret techniques" that really good players, I was usually flummoxed by their explanations - it was hard to figure out what they were trying to get across. More often than not, it finally turned out they were explaining something I already did without thinking about. At that point I quit worrying so much about how I was playing and went back to songs.

I think I might address your broader question about raking like this - I still think of the bass as a rhythm instrument. I do all kinds of things with my right and left hands to get everything out of the bass and out of the line. Think more like a finger drummer and less like a typist.
 
#72
I find that raking and strict alternating both work well but in different situations. For punchy running semi-quavers I find alternating sounds best, but if I want to get a smooth semi-slur sound while crossing strings I find raking is better. Perhaps there are others that can get both those sounds with just one technique but personally I need both.
 
#73
JimmyM said:
1st paragraph: Because anyone can rake. But it takes work to SA. Plus raking isn't precise. It relies as much on luck as skill.
Click to expand...

Make your mind up - can anyone do it, or not? If they are imprecise, and lacking skill then they obviouly haven't put the work in to play proceisly and reliably. Those people clearly CAN'T do it.

You could equally argue that SA can be done by anyone, but is imprecise, and relies on luck.

I do have SOME agreement with you that IF it's done imprecisly it doesn't take much skill, and can lead to sloppy playing. Much like the drummer relying on double bounces rather than "playing" every note - that doesn't mean that double bounces are bad - just that you need to be in control of them. To Rake and be in control, so the notes are in time, and PLACED rather than the physical mechanism being in control of the timing takes work.

Ian
 
#78
Well obviously I'm not going to go to Montreal to kick anyone's ass, and even if I did, who's to say I could? But I'm perfectly capable of an online ass-whooping. I've done it before ;)

Anyway, jokes aside, this notion that I didn't practice raking so I didn't get good enough at it to make a judgment about it is ridiculous. Raking takes a minimum of practice to get good at it, and any bass player with a year's experience can do it. Sorry, but it's true. By the time I was 15, I could rake just about any Motown song except the hardest. And by the time I was 16, I got those, too. And I raked for years and nobody complained.

But the one thing I never got good at no matter how hard I tried was raking down to a lower string and coming back with the other finger to pick up the beat quickly and in time. For example, a song like "Blu Bop" by the Flecktones, which is all 16th notes and string skipping. If you rake on something like that, you're dead in the water because it keeps taking your fingers out of the rhythm of the 16th notes, and that's why I could never play it until I started alternating. All of a sudden, I could play it perfectly in time every time. And even harder lines than that as well. So I decided to stop raking, even on tunes you'd think would work better with raking like Jamerson stuff. And everything I played sounded even better and more in time than ever before.

So you'll have to forgive me when I get testy over someone who knows nothing about me makes completely wrong assumptions about me. I played professionally for 18 years before I ever considered sticking to SA.

Anyway, my point is don't knock SA unless you've tried it. Everyone's tried raking, but very few make a real commitment to learning SA because it's hard at first and they like raking. But I liken it to being a really good golfer who plays well enough where he doesn't see the need for technique lessons until the one day he forces himself to take a couple lessons. Then he discovers something about his stance that's been holding him back, works on it, sucks at first but gets better at it with every subsequent swing, then sees his score start improving after a couple weeks. That's what raking did for me.
 
#79
As long as you're playing what your trying to play, I don't see how it makes a difference in the long run. I didn't even know about "raking" and "strict alternation" until I saw this thread, and I have no idea which I do. One thing I saw that bothered me was this. Someone said that "raking" was a much luck as skill, and also said that it didn't take practice to be good at. But maybe if you DID practice it, it would be all skill and no luck.
 

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