Left Hand Finger Position

[Inverse Kinetix]

I'm just looking at the image of an electric bass being played at the top right of every page on this site, yep that's the one up there.

Is this finger positioning ok?

I'm trying to keep my fingers parallel to the frets and it's really hard, but my fingers will do the above pictured position easily.


Thanks for any advice.

 

[Mark Perry]

You could probably get away with playing like that for a while... But when you keep your thumb at the centre of the back (if that makes sense) you get a bigger reach from each of your fingers and that proper position is much healthier for your fingers. - You're less likely to run into problems when you start gigging heavily.

 

[Jeff Bonny]

It's a real mistake to think there's one optimum position and try to hold your hand there.

 

[Tupac]

Yep. But the players who do use it have no issue switching back and forth to classical fretting, so learn that for sure.

 

[deste]

As a classicla trained double bass player ("italian" fingering: 1-3-4) I tend to play and teach bass guitar this way: thumb opposed to middle finger, index and little finger widened, always one finger per fret, even if I don't have a big hand.
Sometimes I close my hands playing like a double bass, but I'll never confess this crime.
Using four fingers of course gives more chances to play more notes without position shifts, and the right position of the thumb is the key to a correct speed and clean sound (and intonation when playing a fretless).
Anyway, each one has his own hand and his own head....