+1
True. I'm not saying everyone has to master the instrument and have a working knowledge of theory. As a matter of fact, the people that refuse to learn just make it that much easier for the rest of us to get the few good jobs that are available.
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Is This A Major Problem?
- Thread starter Mr Cheese
- Start date
True. I'm not saying everyone has to master the instrument and have a working knowledge of theory. As a matter of fact, the people that refuse to learn just make it that much easier for the rest of us to get the few good jobs that are available.
It did right up until the moment it didn't. And Carol's pick method felt unnatural for a good couple months. But I've never had pain using a pick since, and now it feels so natural I don't even think about it.
You made possibly THE most important point in this thread...change feels unnatural at first, and then you get used to it and it begins to feel natural. If I had a mic in my hand, I'd drop it on your behalf
Jimmy, you've posted so much gold in this thread that I don't know where to begin. Thanks again (this ain't the first time). For the first time in 27 years I am really working on alternating after having unconsciously raked for tens of thousands of hours.
Oh, and when I started teaching my 11yo son bass this summer (after three years on guitar), I took your previous comments on the matter into consideration and insisted on strict alternating. It cued up a line of "why is raking bad?" questions, which I was tempted at some point to answer with, well son, there's this Jimmy guy on TalkBass ...
Edit: for the record, here is our regimen:
1) play along with fun songs on YouTube;
2) read bass clef, sing every note;
3) simple major scales, practicing strict alternating;
4) good posture, hand position/fingering, and "engagement with the instrument" (approach it with deliberate intent to be musical).
His progress in three months has been astonishing, and he's really into it.
Oh, and when I started teaching my 11yo son bass this summer (after three years on guitar), I took your previous comments on the matter into consideration and insisted on strict alternating. It cued up a line of "why is raking bad?" questions, which I was tempted at some point to answer with, well son, there's this Jimmy guy on TalkBass ...
Edit: for the record, here is our regimen:
1) play along with fun songs on YouTube;
2) read bass clef, sing every note;
3) simple major scales, practicing strict alternating;
4) good posture, hand position/fingering, and "engagement with the instrument" (approach it with deliberate intent to be musical).
His progress in three months has been astonishing, and he's really into it.
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Jimmy, you've posted so much gold in this thread that I don't know where to begin. Thanks again (this ain't the first time). For the first time in 27 years I am really working on alternating after having unconsciously raked for tens of thousands of hours.
Oh, and when I started teaching my 11yo son bass this summer (after three years on guitar), I took your previous comments on the matter into consideration and insisted on strict alternating. It cued up a line of "why is raking bad?" questions, which I was tempted at some point to answer with, well son, there's this Jimmy guy on TalkBass ...
Well thank you, 31! And it's not such a question of raking being bad. I used to think it was for a long time after Dave LaRue disallowed it in his classes, but it's less a question of that for me these days and more that it stunted my development with strict alternation. And there are lines I couldn't play smoothly with raking that completely cleared up once I went with SA.
Agree totally, and same here -- there are a number of fast passages that I have never been able to play cleanly because of my inability to NOT rake, for example. I'm working on it, too.
I tell my son that there's nothing wrong with raking as long as it is an active decision -- if you are stuck with it as an involuntary default, it's a deficiency.
I tell my son that there's nothing wrong with raking as long as it is an active decision -- if you are stuck with it as an involuntary default, it's a deficiency.
Wow, didn't know my post would cause a huge discussion!! To be clear, I know I'm not Geddy, I agree that there is bad technique, and I'm willing to try as hard as need be to fix it. Thanks all!!
Well it must be gratifying to see how many people argued for you to continue as you were. That's always the way on here...people want to improve and others argue for them not to improve. Then it all just goes to pot
Well it must be gratifying to see how many people argued for you to continue as you were. That's always the way on here...people want to improve and others argue for them not to improve. Then it all just goes to pot
Then there are the ones who post saying they want to improve then spend the rest of the thread arguing themselves out of doing this that or the other thing. They make excuses for not taking on board any of the suggestions, then come back a year or two later with the same question...
So dang true, Steve! Well I'm sure Mr. Cheese isn't one of them. He seems genuine about wanting to improve and I think he will take the good suggestions to heart.
Well raking vs alternating is a totally different topic which has been discussed on Talkbass over and over. Let's say that's a matter a preference not a bad vs good technique thing. What the OP is asking is different because he could not start or lead with his index finger.
Another thing with the Geddy technique is that he uses his index finger up and down. So strictly he is alternating. So that's a totally different technique altogether.
I think your judgement is good here. The giveaway for me is the OP asking a specific question distilled from careful analysis or observation of a specific issue, to which specific answers may be given or discussed Generic questions are more often the ones that attract the generic "whatever gets the job done" or "if it sounds good it is good" answers. YMMV.
It's just another way of saying I suck just generally.
OTOH, I don't gig anymore - mainly because of hearing damage - so it's ok to continue to suck at least partially. I enjoy the challenge of the FL and since I've been playing it for so long, I've stuck with it even though I ultimately don't sound any better on it than on a fretted bass. And even though in some ways it makes my life more difficult rather than less.
Now, if I were still gigging somehow, I wouldn't have quite the same liberties. Then I'd have the responsibilities to the music and the gig, the other musicians, the audience, and hopefully whoever would be writing the check. So I'd have to rearrange my priorities accordingly. Namely I think sucking on the FL is worse than sucking on the fretted bass - on the FL there's the angry donkey sound, whereas on the fretted bass you'll mostly just clink and clank and tinkle and rattle but at least you're in tune. The band and the audience are more likely to overlook the latter than the former. So if I were playing out, I wouldn't really have to even think about it: I'd use a fretted bass for that and the FL only if it's explicitly called for for whatever reason.
If it were a gig where the volume was low enough not to aggravate my hearing problems, or if I were recording in low SPL conditions, then I could use the FL here and there probably a lot more. But even then I might prefer a fretted bass just to make my life easier...
L
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Sorry man, but it's a big world out here on the internets, and I think you might have meant to respond to someone else.
@Mr Cheese You might want to have a crack at this exercise that I conceived a couple of years ago when another TB member asked a similar question. I don't normally include TAB with these things, but here it serves an important purpose, which is to juxtapose various LH fingerings for the same thing whilst maintaining AP with the right. Each 'phrase' gets played 4 times, mixing up combinations of LH 'templates', leading first with 'i' and then 'm'. Be careful to avoid raking* the 1/4-note arpeggios in measures 2, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10 & 11.
* Not because I have an opinion on raking, but because it would undermine the purpose of the exercise, which is to promote L/R and 'i'/'m' independence.
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+1
I think you could say that about many techniques. I wrap my thumb over the neck when necessary; I've slid up then neck from note to note with one finger when that's the sound I wanted; I've played right over the bridge and right over the fingerboard.
I guess one way of saying it is bad technique is using the wrong technique to achieve your goals because it's the only way you know how to play.
Having said what I said, I'd have to agree with this too. There's certainly nothing wrong with trying different techniques for doing the same thing - you may find that there was a better way to accomplish your goal all the time but you just never knew about it until you tried to learn it.
I do think, though, that you learn fairly early on whether another technique is better than what you currently have. It's not a precise thing, but at some point you realize you've given it enough of a trial to see whether the bang/buck ratio is worth continuing on with it.
OTOH.....there are certainly cases where it's not at all clear at first what the "right" way for you to do something is. I'm going through this right now: I'm presently learning "Dave's gone fishing" (Toto) and using my tony franklin to learn it on. In one of the parts, there's an awkward descending double-stop from an E on the A string to a B on the E string. The way I learned this type of thing on the fretted bass is fret the E with, say, the ring finger, and then flop the middle finger over next to it to fret the B on the E. That works quite fine on the fretted bass, with only a small cost in economy of motion, but it's not so good on the FL. The difficulty is frequently the B is flat, and it makes a pile trying to get the fingers in the correct spot. You can fudge that on the fretted bass because of the squish area you have behind the fret. But you can't get away with that on the FL. Another way is to barr the two notes together with just the ring finger which makes it easier to intonate both notes, but that costs more movement of the finger into position over both strings. A third way is to just hop over to the other string with the same finger, but that has severe limitations in terms of speed. So that one I've already ruled out.
This is a hold over from my days as a fretted player, where the two finger thing doesn't work quite as well on the fretted. I'm having to devote some practice to both of these techniques to see which does the job better. It's a surprising amount of work and it's actually difficult to tell which is going to end up working better.
So it's also good to not give up on a "correct" technique prematurely either: it might be that you have to work harder to master a new technique, but it will pay dividends later, even though at first it might not seem that way....
L
If what you're doing doesn't hamper your playing, then don't concern yourself with fixing it, because it's not a problem. There's not much of a rule book. But be conscious, if it does hamper your playing, then change it, and practice the change to make it memory. I noticed lots of goofiness about my plucking hand, where I'd get my fingers twisted around each other, or trying to pluck two consecutive notes/skip strings far faster than my one finger could do, making me do things the hard way. So I sat down and figured out a different way to pluck, reversing the order of which fingers I was using etc, and my problem was solved.
The problem with this is that it might not hamper your playing now but it might hamper your playing later when you want to play more advanced stuff. By then it is very hard to unlearn your bad habits.
I'm already making considerable progress with strict alternation using the exercises TB members have provided here. Haven't tried to use strict alternation on songs yet; but I hope to start in a couple months. Thank you everyone for all the help! EDIT: Actually, I have been using it on Metallica's Fade To Black. The last riff has quick-ish triplets, so I'm starting on a different finger each time. Going well too, I can play that song no problem.
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