Left hand technique

[Fergie Fulton]

Until he develops tendonitis and is unable to play, that technique has enough credibility to support the statement that the standard technique today is having the thumb as a pivot behind the neck. You are right, over time the standard of the bass playing technique might change, but you can't teach that until you prove yourself, there is nothing to back it up.
You can't teach what you think is right if only a handful of people in the bass community thinks its right.
Im not telling you that you are wrong, but if you want to teach something like technique, there must be a proven method. How would you feel if someone was teaching you how to build a car and they told you "if it has 4 wheels and you feel that this car is safe for you then go ahead and make it" ... you won't be selling many cars.

Again, this comes from the teaching pov, there has to be a concrete idea to teach technique. If there is something we can take from the history of string instruments it would be from the classical guitar technique. Its the same technique for ages.

Now, you are right when you say that everyone is different. But in that sense its not ok to tell them to put the thumb anywhere they want, they could be doing more damage to their hands and be very bad in the long run.

Opposable thumbs are what separates us from most animals, why not use it to your advantage.

And there is the first flaw the history of stringed instruments.
The issue on the history is based on a finger board not a fret board, so comparisons are flawed.
As for up-right bass the issue is one of plane.
The up-right bass as the name implies is a vertical plane on a finger board, a bass guitar is a horizontal plane on a fret board.
Add to this the construction values that means an up-right bass needs size to maintain its sound and the stability of the neck joint, then the neck thickness is based on the materials available at the time to the tension of the strings to the overall size of the instrument.
Take into consideration that the up-right bass is designed on looks rather than any ergonomic design and again the techniques developed are based on dealing with all these issues.
A modern bass guitar has none of these issues, so any of the so called correct techniques of an up-right bass cannot apply.

I completely understand the idea that they can, but the reality is they do not. Our body and it's mechanics work better in a vertical plane than a horizontal one.

It's not about teaching what is right, it's about adapting what can be done to be the most efficient.
What is efficient for one is not efficient for another, we know that, this is not up for debate. The amount of injuries that present themselves with the same symptoms between musicians and none musicians are comparable to sportsmen and non-sportsmen.
I know players that have "tennis elbow" and have never played tennis in their lives.
The issue of correct technique for the vast majority of players is about comfort first and foremost.....after that we wait and see what presents itself then deal with that.

As you say with the Matt Garrison until something happens it is the proven application of technique for him...and that technique came about because it was the only way he could cope with the demands of what he wanted to play, not because it seemed like a good idea.

 

[Jazzkuma]

historically, classical guitars don't come from the same family as the violin family. It comes from the middle eastern lute which was fretted. So there is a connection when we are talking about the evolution of instruments from the same family as the guitar/bass guitar.

 

[MostlyBass]

The 'perfect' left / right / bow / finger / any instrument hand is the one that is the most natural. *Usually* the one that feels right but many people become accustomed to incorrect position.

Stand up with a good but relaxed posture.
Let your arms hang naturally.
Gently raise your left arm without moving or tensing your hand or fingers.
There is your left hand position.

The thumb parallel to the fingers works a bit better on upright. On electric it will probably fall between the first and second fingers with a slight angle.

 

[Jazzkuma]

The 'perfect' left / right / bow / finger / any instrument hand is the one that is the most natural. *Usually* the one that feels right but many people become accustomed to incorrect position.

+1, learning correct position is easier than unlearning an incorrect and learning the correct later. Habits are difficult to break.

 

[Thumpy McGroove]

In my opinion hand position is causing less difficulties than how you "wear" your bass. The push to look cool and have your bass hanging to your knees forces the thumb wrap in order to keep the wrist strait. When i took lessons my teacher told me to "wear my bass like a bow-tie" . my wrist stays strait and all my fingers can apply equal pressure.

On the other hand, f%#$ it, just play. You're gonna know if something is not working and change when that time comes.

 

[Clef_de_fa]

But classical guitar is here for longer than bass or electric guitar and they have an awesome technic and it is an almost flat fretboard not a fingerboard.

 

[Fergie Fulton]

The 'perfect' left / right / bow / finger / any instrument hand is the one that is the most natural. *Usually* the one that feels right but many people become accustomed to incorrect position.

Stand up with a good but relaxed posture.
Let your arms hang naturally.
Gently raise your left arm without moving or tensing your hand or fingers.
There is your left hand position.

The thumb parallel to the fingers works a bit better on upright. On electric it will probably fall between the first and second fingers with a slight angle.

+1 so if the hand is relaxed the thumb is to the side, not in front of the fingers.

Lift your hand up as in an upright bass and the wrist and elbow put the hand in position to access the finger board, but on a bass guitar it is horizontal so the elbow and wrist cannot compensate.
When you play a bass guitar the shoulder is the axis, so when the hand gets further away from the body it has to turn in or the worst has to flex to keep it on plane.
This is a variable that can be height influenced and the bass guitar hangs on the body so the hands do little if nothing to support it.
An up-right bass there is no axis the movement is up and down the hand stays on plane for longer and better because the shoulder, elbow and wrist better define that up-right plane. The body can be used to influence that up-right plane because the up-right bass sits on the ground independent of body movement and posture.

The two techniques have have different criteria, so application from one to the other negates any techniques that may look like they could be applied. So again there is no correct technique we can say is definitive, that will come in the future once more information and the passage of time allows the correct information to be applied.

Of we then consider how the bass guitar was first played and it's designs to accommodate them, then we see that really it is only the development of a small amount of jazz players that needed a new technique, and that really is a 60s/70s development.
So the techniques we see today have really in all fairness been developing over the last 50 years, so what works and what does not cannot be judged because the passage of time is not long enough to judge the merits.

I can debate the ins and outs of any point about playing because I can relate it to the body mechanics involved, not just a single application.
I have been playing over 40 years now, have studied the body mechanics for over 30 of those years.
As well as talking with such players as Jack Bruce to Billy Sheehan, Jeff Berlin to Stanley Clarke to name a few, we all agree and lean towards technique as a development to play the music you want to play....it has to be functional and if the function works then the technique is sound for that player....as in the Matt Garrison technique.

But correct.....even those fully trained and orchestral players suffer injuries that are a direct result of their training to deal with playing their instruments. As a youngster I had two different teachers argue over the merits of French and Greman bow techniques...that was left to the player to decide.

 

[Russell L]

I think technique often gets overanalyzed. No one ever taught me how to learn to play guitar when I was 13. But, I figured it out. Trying to do certain things required certain actions, positions, etc. It was logical to do what felt the most comfortable. Anything I kept trying that caused discomfort eventully got straightened out naturally. That's not to say that there isn't some good advice about some obvious things, though. But, I do find that I play better when my hands are relaxed, rather than in a contorted shape due to what someone else thinks is right for me. I'll try it, though, to evaluate it. I played some killer lines tonight at the jam just going 124 and letting my hand jump around some to make up for it, rather than stretching out the whole time ready for those 1234 lines that came only occasionally. My thumb was generally about half-way between the center of the back of the neck and the E-string, although sometimes it was all the way around to the fingerboard's edge. When I needed to, though, I could always still jump into a different position to accomodate whatever was coming.

Sometimes it's just better to go ahead and play without thinking about it.

 

[aidan784]

All I know is my wrists ached just watching a few Garrison videos!!

 

[Fergie Fulton]

I think technique often gets overanalyzed. No one ever taught me how to learn to play guitar when I was

+1
Part of the problem is that those who are taught a certain idea, will refuse to accept any other if it undermines there own. It is almost an acceptance that what they have done and invested time in has been wrong, so they do not accept it.
This is as much as being a part of being a musician as other things in life...the need to justify ones own actions or beliefs......because it leads to the breakdown of other held ideas and beliefs.

The fact that such people never look outside their own "world" they fail to see any comparisons that may dispute their beliefs.

After all when you play a bass, how do you know you are playing a bass when the actions are similar in part to that of many other things?

When we accept that the motion is related to playing a bass, we make up a narrative to accompany our actions to justify our time and effort.
We even look to the end of that narrative and see the finished results, we see problems that may or not be there, we even refuse to believe problems that are actually there.....we look to others to vindicate what we do. We see this all the time on TB, players posting physical problems looking for someone who had a similar experience and got over it...they dismiss those who had an negative experience because that is not the narrative the want.

So it is with techniques, players will accept what they want to accept, rather than accepting what applies to them.

In the talks, articles and clinics I do on the purpose of techniques, I am no longer surprised by some of the logic I hear from new players that work it out themselves, and i am certainly never surprised by those who have had formal training.

 

[Russell L]

It's the same with holding a pencil. In grammar school we were shown/taught the "proper" way to hold it. I, being rather artistic, really paid attention. I figured that the teacher knew way more than I did, and that it meant something to go the way of the learned. Well, I do still use that method, but have always noted how others hold their pencils. I have studied calligraphy, and to my surprise found modifications to the standard way that help me. Then, when I see someone holding theirs differently, my first response is to think, "Pshaw, what an idiot," until I see what beautiful writing they do, bad form notwithstanding. So, see, while there can be certain things that might be of use, learned by those who have done it most, there are other things which an individual may apply to themselves only as a modification.

While there is nothing wrong with keeping your thumb perfectly on the center of the back of the neck with all four fingers spread evenlyand hovering over their own respective fret, to me it is more of an idea rather than something I must do all the time. The reason being that it makes my hand hurt after awhile. Naturally, my mind tells me that pain is something to shy away from, so I devise my own means to the end product instead...keeping in mind that sometimes I will need that "proper" technique on occasion.

Bowing on upright...there is a "proper" way to hold the bow for "best" results, but after four pages of constant eighth-notes while playing Bach I have actually seen (I'm not kidding) the entire bass section in the orchestra holding their bow with all fingers and thumb wrapped around the handle like it was a baseball bat...due to fatigue.

 

[Fergie Fulton]

While there is nothing wrong with keeping your thumb perfectly on the center of the back of the neck with all four fingers spread evenlyand hovering over their own respective fret, to me it is more of an idea rather than something I must do all the

Well this is the point there is plenty wrong with it when the thumb is centred upright behind the fore/middle finger.
First and foremost is reduces the sides of the Carpal Tunnel, making the space tighter, so the friction cause by the moving parts using the tunnel causes damage and will lead to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome as the side weaken.

But it is for those that use it a fact to ignore, a price to pay for using a technique that promotes it all the time. This is what happens when the thumb moves over, it creates a "valley" in the palm where the Carpal Tunnel is situated, that valley is the sides of the Carpal tunnel being brought together. But because the effects are a long term slow process for many the ignore this feature till it produces a problem.

The a symptoms of a condition like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome are promoted by the feature in the palm being present, not the use of it to play bass.......electricians that hold and used a screw driver suffer it, because the valley is present in there working lives, but these days with cordless tools the feature off the valley can be reduced or eliminated, as can the rotation of the wrist that accompanies it.

It is again this idea that the physical symptoms of a technique only applies to a player because he is playing bass, the symptoms present themselves because of the physicallity involved not the application.

 

[Russell L]

Well this is the point there is plenty wrong with it when the thumb is centred upright behind the fore/middle finger.
First and foremost is reduces the sides of the Carpal Tunnel, making the space tighter, so the friction cause by the moving parts using the tunnel causes damage and will lead to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome as the side weaken.

But it is for those that use it a fact to ignore, a price to pay for using a technique that promotes it all the time. This is what happens when the thumb moves over, it creates a "valley" in the palm where the Carpal Tunnel is situated, that valley is the sides of the Carpal tunnel being brought together. But because the effects are a long term slow process for many the ignore this feature till it produces a problem.

The a symptoms of a condition like Carpal Tunnel Syndrome are promoted by the feature in the palm being present, not the use of it to play bass.......electricians that hold and used a screw driver suffer it, because the valley is present in there working lives, but these days with cordless tools the feature off the valley can be reduced or eliminated, as can the rotation of the wrist that accompanies it.

It is again this idea that the physical symptoms of a technique only applies to a player because he is playing bass, the symptoms present themselves because of the physicallity involved not the application.

Great point there, Ferg. You can easily see the effects of such on a short-term basis after, say, screwing in 100 screws by hand, especially when it's not something you do every day. You will hurt some afterwards. But the analogy isn't perfect, for with the screwdriver there is no other way to hold it (for the most part) in order to do the work, whereas on bass there are often alternatives. My examples of using 124 when 1234 would be recommended, and holding the neck more in my palm, illustrate this fact. Perhaps my ways aren't as efficient, but they nonetheless get the job done. As a matter of fact I am so used to playing 124 that if it weren't for also playing guitar I would have practically no callous in my ring finger at all.

 

[Jazzkuma]

i think i know why some of you would feel that having the thumb behind the index/mid feels so uncomfortable. It probably is how low you have the bass hanging while playing (strap length). I personally play with the bass higher (same position as when sitting down). I know some people like to have the bass hanging very low near the waist area and in this height having the thumb wrapped around the neck would be the most comfortable position.

In that sense then yes, having the the thumb behind index/mid becomes a strain to the wrist while the thumb wrapped around straightens it. As for me with my strap length, the thumb behind index/mid keeps my wrist straight and the thumb wrapped around strains my wrist the opposite way.

 

[Russell L]

i think i know why some of you would feel that having the thumb behind the index/mid feels so uncomfortable. It probably is how low you have the bass hanging while playing (strap length). I personally play with the bass higher (same position as when sitting down). I know some people like to have the bass hanging very low near the waist area and in this height having the thumb wrapped around the neck would be the most comfortable position.

In that sense then yes, having the the thumb behind index/mid becomes a strain to the wrist while the thumb wrapped around straightens it. As for me with my strap length, the thumb behind index/mid keeps my wrist straight and the thumb wrapped around strains my wrist the opposite way.

Nope, not for me. I wear my bass in the middle, a bit on the high side. And sometimes angled up a bit to boot.

See, everyone's just different. That's all.

 

[Fergie Fulton]

i think i know why some of you would feel that having the thumb behind the index/mid feels so uncomfortable. It probably is how low you have the bass hanging while playing (strap length). I personally play with the bass higher (same position as when sitting down). I know some people like to have the bass hanging very low near the waist area and in this height having the thumb wrapped around the neck would be the most comfortable position.

In that sense then yes, having the the thumb behind index/mid becomes a strain to the wrist while the thumb wrapped around straightens it. As for me with my strap length, the thumb behind index/mid keeps my wrist straight and the thumb wrapped around strains my wrist the opposite way.

+1

But again the for the benefit of the instrument you put strain on your upper back, you may have to raise your plucking arm to off-set the height to allow the hand correct access to pluck the strings, so you have the rotor cuff area under strain.
But I can see you understand some of the problems related to the instrument and that is all I try and do.

To many people give advice without really understanding the problem on forums, that is why a good teacher is worth their weight in gold, they should personalise your technique to where you are now, and keep on refining it till you get to where you are going.

Again, players use a narrative to justify many things, such as "the height of the bass could cause......"
The height of the bass is a compromise to the fact we are not designed to play the bass.....not the cause of any problem.
Like the example of the screwdriver, the need to hold and turn was the issue because there was no technology or other tool to do it.
Now we have the technology, now we have the tool, so the hand stays still and the tool turns, and the screw is driven home.

Bass playing is going the same way, because of the amount of players now taking it up. We have a wealth of information to draw on and new understandings of the how, why and where of it all. Add to that the Internet, and the data is there to review and compare. But rather than compare what is working we need to look at what is not working, that's where the problems will present themselves. Add the wonderful instruments we see from the long scale to the short scale, to the 4 string to the multiple string and we add new problems....but the symptoms will be present in other tasks away from playing and in people that have never played.

The one thing that still makes me smile is the player that smokes. They worrying about injuries to their hands and any long term effects of wrong technique, that may inhibit their playing in the years to come.......well death pretty well stops your playing.....dead. The idea of giving up the cigarettes if they are that worried about the future seems not to be an option at this time.

 

[Jazzkuma]

yeah I never was the kind that strapped the bass very low. Having it around the waist area hinders my agility around the bass (significantly). I know it can be a bit of a fashion thing to have the bass that low but i guess if it works for what you are playing it becomes up to you. I for once wouldn't be able to play with the bass that low.

 

[Clef_de_fa]

+1

But again the for the benefit of the instrument you put strain on your upper back, you may have to raise your plucking arm to off-set the height to allow the hand correct access to pluck the strings, so you have the rotor cuff area under strain.
But I can see you understand some of the problems related to the instrument and that is all I try and do.

I think you think we hold our bass horizontal and need a 90degree bend. I have a position like Bunny Brunel. Almost upright. Everything isn't bend and I play with my thumb in the back of the neck.

 

[Jazzkuma]

I think you think we hold our bass horizontal and need a 90degree bend. I have a position like Bunny Brunel. Almost upright. Everything isn't bend and I play with my thumb in the back of the neck.

Yep, thats the sort of technique I talk about (as far as left hand) although I don't generally hold it THAT upright (ala Alain Caron or Brunel) but its def not 90 degrees. That looks like the appropriate height too. As opposed to this:

And its pretty much impossible to have your thumb wrapped around a 6 string and still be able to play on the E-B strings (and even sometimes A). And if I'm playing past the 12th fret then wrapping the thumb around would only allow me to play on the G-C strings (neck gets wider near the body). Its ok for smaller necked 4 strings though.

 

[Jazzkuma]

and I'm not flaming any blink 182 fans out there! just a picture to illustrate the different technique.