• 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.

Pick Rant!!

#104
I played guitar with a plectrum before I played the bass. Chose fingerstyle to differentiate between the two instruments and to avoid any bad habits being transferred from guitar to bass. Tried to play guitar fingerstyle. Stunk. Tried to play bass with a plectrum. Stunk. After forty some odd years I finally am able to say I don't stink as much as I used to. So there.

The sound of a picked bass used to be a staple in the studio "for definition". The recorded sound seemed to be easier to capture. That was decades before digital equipment. Must have had something to do with the EQ in the hopes of AM radio airplay.

Sometimes the gear used inspires you to employ a plectrum. A jazz ballad on a fretless calls for fingerstyle, but crank up the rock and plug in the Rickenbacker and you automatically find yourself hunting for a pick.

The whole concept of bashing musicians for their choice of tools, gear, or technique is disturbing. If you want a reason to find fault with another bassist there are plenty of other targets. Cleanliness, tardiness, laziness, poor hygiene, and unpreparedness are all areas where a person can willfully improve. Failure to do so equals apathy. Don't waste your time trying to forge a musical business partnership with apathetic people. You will always regret it.
 
#105
jamro217 said:
Cleanliness, tardiness, laziness, poor hygiene, and unpreparedness are all areas where a person can willfully improve. Failure to do so equals apathy. Don't waste your time trying to forge a musical business partnership with apathetic people. You will always regret it.
Click to expand...

Why bring drummers into this conversation?

:roflmao:
 
  • Like
Reactions: jamro217, edro, ak56 and 1 other person
#106
JimmyM said:
I don't see it that way at all, really. A lot more difficult to do down and upstrokes with your finger. Besides, you're usually only playing one note at a time...how hard is that?
Click to expand...

The Dixie Dregs' album for The King Biscuit Flower Hour is not exactly one note at a time, and most of their stuff is involved. Andy West plays a lot of Steve Morse's lines note-for-note. Doing that all with a pick, on bass, isn't the easiest thing.
 
#107
matante said:
I'll put it another way. If you want the most versatility you need to know how to play with both techniques, but versatility may or may not matter to you depending on what you want to play. I play both ways but find that as I get older I greatly prefer the sound of a pick with flats for my personal originals. So I choose a pick for that sound I can't get any other way. This is a creative/artistic decision that I'm making that has nothing to do with craft or technique. As a musician I'm ultimately concerned only with sound, and I need to use a pick to get that sound. It would be highly ignorant and immature for anyone to say that my music was inferior, my bassline was inferior, or my ability as a bassist was inferior because I'm using the technique necessary to achieve the sound I want.
Click to expand...

that's not what I was saying at all. you stated neither technique was less than the other but one clearly is. you can do just far more with your hands than a pick. tone has nothing to do with what I was replying to and stated as much. no one said your music or technique was inferior.
 
#108
songwriter21 said:
The Dixie Dregs' album for The King Biscuit Flower Hour is not exactly one note at a time, and most of their stuff is involved. Andy West plays a lot of Steve Morse's lines note-for-note. Doing that all with a pick, on bass, isn't the easiest thing.
Click to expand...
Well some of that stuff I can't play with fingers at all like my old friend Dave LaRue, but I can play it with a pick, although there's still plenty of stuff Andy did that I can't play at all :D And yeah, I'm not saying we never play more than one note at a time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: iriegnome
#109
JimmyM said:
Well some of that stuff I can't play with fingers at all like my old friend Dave LaRue, but I can play it with a pick, although there's still plenty of stuff Andy did that I can't play at all :D And yeah, I'm not saying we never play more than one note at a time.
Click to expand...

Dave's awesome...love his lines with Petrucci's solo stuff, too. I met Andy at NAMM years back, and asked him how he got so fluid and effortless playing music like that with a pick. He simply answered, "LOTS of practice!"
 
  • Like
Reactions: iriegnome and JimmyM
#111
jnuts1 said:
I really don't care either way and some of my favorite players are straight up pick players and get some amazing tone BUT pick playing is inferior to finger style just in dexterity/versatility alone. your hand's dexterity are amazing and are definitely limited as what you can do while holding a pick. but there is nothing wrong with using one
Click to expand...

So you think you are a superior bass player just because you don't use a pick? That's pretty arrogant. It may be the case for some songs but for others i know for a fact that some pick player will make you and your fingers sound inferior.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JimmyM
#113
BAG said:
So you think you are a superior bass player just because you don't use a pick? That's pretty arrogant. It may be the case for some songs but for others i know for a fact that some pick player will make you and your fingers sound inferior.
Click to expand...

That was a classic case of responding to part of a sentence rather than the whole... the point he was making is that a hand is superior in dexterity to a pick, which it is - fingers are inherently more dexterous than a solid piece of plastic. That doesn’t mean the fingerstyle player is automatically superior.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jnuts1
#114
ficelles said:
That was a classic case of responding to part of a sentence rather than the whole... the point he was making is that a hand is superior in dexterity to a pick, which it is - fingers are inherently more dexterous than a solid piece of plastic. That doesn’t mean the fingerstyle player is automatically superior.
Click to expand...
I don't agree with that at all. What operates the pick?
 
#115
JimmyM said:
I don't agree with that at all. What operates the pick?
Click to expand...

Fingers of course :) But they are tied up holding the pick, well at least two of them... the point is dexterity, fingers are bendy and independently dextrous.

I’m not saying either style is superior btw, try doing fast evenly-spaced staccato 16th notes fingerstyle...
 
  • Like
Reactions: MordBass
#116
My use of a pick in certain styles has to do with the tone. With my finger, I get more low end warmth..which is great... but the pick lets you really crank the low lows without becoming boomy... and thats just rad on a stage with a big sound system.
 
#118
ficelles said:
That was a classic case of responding to part of a sentence rather than the whole... the point he was making is that a hand is superior in dexterity to a pick, which it is - fingers are inherently more dexterous than a solid piece of plastic. That doesn’t mean the fingerstyle player is automatically superior.
Click to expand...

But that is exactly what he said.....
"pick playing is inferior to finger style just in dexterity/versatility alone" which I disagree with. It is different..... in some cases for some songs the pick is superior.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Lobster11

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back