Adam Clayton?? Wow! Who knew? Betterhittheshed tonight then...I clearly have some unexpunging to do.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Pain - Am I doing it wrong or is this part of learning?
- Thread starter Skyl3r
- Start date
That is an old school upright bass technique that mostly has no practical use on a fretted bass guitar. It was taught to help a player know precisely where their fingers were relative to their hand position on an unfretted neck. But it was combined with Simandl Method position shifting techniques in order to prevent discomfort or injury. So first thing to do is stop doing that.
Bottom line, your hands shouldn't hurt after practicing. Pain is nature's way of telling you something is not right. If something is hurting you're either doing something wrong or you're repeating it too often. Which brings us to the next point, which is that while some practice is good, more is not necessarily better. As a new player with just two months under your belt, a one hour practice session is pushing it. And a two hour practice session is definitely too much for a single session. I'd suggest limiting yourself to a focused half hour of practice at a pop. If you feel the need to put in more time than that, break it up into half hour sessions with at least and hour or so between. If you can manage it, a half hour morning and 40 minute evening practice session is a schedule I found especially beneficial when I was first starting out
On the inside of your fingers, close to the palm, or on the back of your hand.Hello,
The problem I'm experiencing is a pain in my fretting hand when I extend my fingers and then close my hand into a fist or curl my fingers again. The pain is at the base of my fingers and between the base of my fingers and my knuckle. I did not play yesterday to give my hand a break and the pain still exists about the same today.
I'm a fairly new player to bass - I've been playing roughly 2 months and I've been playing around an hour or two per day. I've been practicing keeping my thumb on the back of the neck and parallel to my middle finger. I believe the pain may have started after doing this and practicing scales. My fingers never had to stretch this much to reach scales on guitar
So I guess what I want to know is, for a new player to bass, I'm assuming there's muscles in your hand that you should expect will be sore after extended practice sessions and of course your finger tips must develop callouses - but what pains should I expect and is there any golden rule to know if a pain is in the wrong spot or lasting too long to where I should be very cautious so as not to cause myself any serious injury?
Thanks,
Skyl3r
Is it just a general sort of ache or something you can message or treat with heat?
And is this your fretting hand, plucking hand, or both?
Muscle pain in your palm can be a breaking in period, but you could also be squeezing the neck to tightly, or at a weird angle where it is digging into your skin.
Joint or tendon pain on the back of your plucking or fretting hand usually means poor position or technique. You want to nip that before you develop habits that will hurt you later.
It may be a delicate question, but how old a person are you? As we age our joints and muscles aren't as flexible as they once were. If you are taking up music in your 40s or older, you may need to spend more time warming up before going all out.
A huge part of avoiding any pain/discomfort is having a relaxed hand (fretting and/or plucking). Also, I'm not sure how you have the action set up, but high action will cause you to be pressing down harder to fret notes. That will ultimately lead to strain on parts of your fretting hand. There is much to be learned about plucking and fretting technique. I learned much of this from reading related posts/suggestions here on TB. It's a great resource!
Thanks again everyone for all the input!
I've been trying to pay close attention to the feeling I'm getting and I believe it's only my ring finger and the reason I thought it was my hand was just that when my other fingers move, it moves my ring finger a little. I'd say the pain/feeling I'm getting concerns me a little to where I'm afraid I'd cause a serious injury if I continued playing until this heals.
@socialleper It's my fretting hand on the inside where my ring finger meets my palm. I'm in my 20's.
My plan at the moment is to take a (hopefully) short break until my hand feels normal again, then proceed with shorter practice times punctuated with breaks. I'll take a look at some of those bassists @Mushroo mentioned and try to adjust my technique to be more comfortable and hopefully pain free.
I've been trying to pay close attention to the feeling I'm getting and I believe it's only my ring finger and the reason I thought it was my hand was just that when my other fingers move, it moves my ring finger a little. I'd say the pain/feeling I'm getting concerns me a little to where I'm afraid I'd cause a serious injury if I continued playing until this heals.
@socialleper It's my fretting hand on the inside where my ring finger meets my palm. I'm in my 20's.
My plan at the moment is to take a (hopefully) short break until my hand feels normal again, then proceed with shorter practice times punctuated with breaks. I'll take a look at some of those bassists @Mushroo mentioned and try to adjust my technique to be more comfortable and hopefully pain free.
If you're coming from guitar, you might need to think differently when playing bass. Some things, like one finger per fret might make sense on guitar, but on a longer scale instrument, may or may not work well. I have ginormous hands (I have trouble finding gloves with long enough fingers), and I shift all over the place, all the time. Some of that has to do with playing a lot of double stops (which are tough to do without shifting), some of it is staying on the same string at times for consistently of tone within a run of notes, and some of it is just keeping my fingers in more relaxed positions.
One finger per fret is great for some things, like fast single note shreds on guitar. I don't shred, I don't play guitar, and speed isn't as much of an issue for what I play. I shift.
One finger per fret is great for some things, like fast single note shreds on guitar. I don't shred, I don't play guitar, and speed isn't as much of an issue for what I play. I shift.
Besides the technique, make sure the bass is set up properly.
Just to add to what's already been said by JeezyMc: when I started out I found out that I was using my thumb to push the neck to my fingers to help them fret a string instead of pushing the string down to the neck with my finger and keeping my thumb relaxed. That created a lot of tension in my hand and made it cramp.
Some tension can be started in the palm, sometimes. Analize how relaxed it is.
There's something extremely important and a bit weird. The tension in one hand connects to the opposite hand. So maybe some of tension has its origin in your plucking. Make sure your right hand plays softly (you can compensate putting your amp louder).
Also you might try your thumb rather behind the index finger.
And you can base your technique on the "one tone" concept. That's playing only three frets and stretching the index when needed. It will help to keep the hand relaxed. Obviously, as stated by many, keep the setup low and comfy, and try a low tension string set.
There's something extremely important and a bit weird. The tension in one hand connects to the opposite hand. So maybe some of tension has its origin in your plucking. Make sure your right hand plays softly (you can compensate putting your amp louder).
Also you might try your thumb rather behind the index finger.
And you can base your technique on the "one tone" concept. That's playing only three frets and stretching the index when needed. It will help to keep the hand relaxed. Obviously, as stated by many, keep the setup low and comfy, and try a low tension string set.
Great point! This illustrates the unnecessary pressure a lot of beginners apply. It's like a "squeezing" action... something that definitely should be avoided. Tendentious can also be associated with this type of technique, as well as cramping.
@Kipp Harrington well, per what you said about Tendentious, I looked up Tendinitis. Something happened over the weekend two weeks back where I woke up in the middle of the night and my ring finger would not bend with the rest of my fingers (fretting hand). I would try to straighten my fingers and it would stay locked in a curled but not quite clenched position until it would snap open. And when trying to close it, the same thing would happen. It would close to a curled position then snap to closed.
I had slept on my arm funny and thought this had to do with cutting circulation to my hand off - especially when I had full mobility when I woke up that morning.
I found something called "Trigger Finger" while searching that. I don't mean to be an armchair doctor, but the symptoms seem about right and I'm not sure how many other things it could be. The treatment appears to be just don't use it heavily and wait for it to heal. So that's what I'll do.
I had slept on my arm funny and thought this had to do with cutting circulation to my hand off - especially when I had full mobility when I woke up that morning.
I found something called "Trigger Finger" while searching that. I don't mean to be an armchair doctor, but the symptoms seem about right and I'm not sure how many other things it could be. The treatment appears to be just don't use it heavily and wait for it to heal. So that's what I'll do.
Wow, thanks for the quick and detailed responses.
I'll probably take another day off of playing today to see if the pain is gone tomorrow.
@Mushroo I'll see if I can get a video running through a scale or something to show what I'm doing. I did notice that when I first started playing and I was not paying attention to posture, I was just holding my hand how I felt comfortable and I did not get pain apart from just developing callouses. I just am not sure if this pain I'm experiencing now is from extended use over the last month or from bad posture over the last week or two.
I'll take your advice and study how some of those bassists do posture.
@seilerbird I did play guitar for a decent amount of time with a teacher, and I'm holding the bass essentially the same way as I'd hold a guitar. I don't really have to look for fretting or anything, so I think where I have the bass itself positioned is likely not the issue. I probably should have mentioned that in my first postThanks though.
@RichardW I'm sure you're rightI've just been hoping to avoid spending the money, but perhaps it'd be worth it to set me off on the right track.
@SteveCS Thanks for the images. I'm unsure if I was doing that, as I wasn't really thinking about it while playing. I'll focus more on what my hand is doing to try to see.
Thanks everyone!
Another bass-playing guitar player here. There are some ways in which playing guitar helps your bass playing a lot, and some ways in which it doesn't. I remember seeing one video that suggested that during your switch from guitar and bass you only use two "fingers" on your fretting hand, your first finger, and your third and fourth finger together (I play 1st, 2nd, 3rd+4th), and you should move your hand around the neck rather than stretch. He also said that, at first, you should use only one finger for playing fingerstyle. It was one of those short, very decisive vids that's extremely helpful because it doesn't pull any punches, and even if you think that some of the recommendations are ridiculous, it still helps. I can't find it, of course.
Take both these recommendations with a grain of salt, but they helped me build stamina on the bass.
Good luck! My only comment is, make sure you study some of YOUR favorite bassists (not just my favorites). For example if you hate U2, feel free to ignore my Adam Clayton suggestion.
Do not stiffen your hand in any way - if your hand is stiff when you have to reach notes, I second the notion to shift your hand. Which means that your thumb should be loose for shifting; what I find is pain free technique even though I practice for 1-2 hours is making sure 1) your hand is always loose and 2) try putting just your thumb TIP on the back of the neck, in a comfortable location that ensures your hand is always LOOSE. Putting it behind the middle finger constantly will make for a lot of stretching, and your fretting hand stiff - you want it loose.
Last edited:
+1. I have short fingers (There. I admitted it and feel better...). Spanning that extra fret is always a challenge for me. I had a similar problem when my instructor first explained the "ideal" of the perpendicular thumb. My hand hurt. I found that driving my finger pressure from my forearm was far more important than using my thumb to squeeze the neck. Those forearm muscles are the most important to your fretting (i suppose unless you have giant hands).
Hang in there and don't give up till you stop what's hurting you. Just about any human hand can fret a bass if you find the right way to do it.
You will eventually get the hang of pressing the strings down with the minimum amount of pressure required to fret the notes. There's a good chance you can get strings with a lower tension than what you're using (either brand or gauge) also. I'll pile on the reducing the length of practice sessions as well.
This sounds like stenosing tenosynovitis or trigger finger.
Trigger Finger: Practice Essentials, Background, Anatomy
Short of a steroid or surgery you can also rest and try an anti-inflammatory like Aleve or ibuprofen. If you take an anti-inflammatory then take it regularly. You can PM me if you want to discuss your symptoms more or the treatment options.
Also, your symptoms probably have nothing or very little to do with your technique.
