Love pick playing. Fingers, tap n slap. Its all good. Dont discriminate techniques bassists!!
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Playing with a pick: why so unpopular?
- Thread starter OldSchoolFlats
- Start date
I think finder style has more attack, live, less so for flat pick. I sometimes like a pick when the bass part has to lay in the background and blend in. I played a few sessions where a pick and mute was preferred because of the reduced attack. This let the engineer dial back on the comp / limiter. Carol Kaye's work is a great example. But you can get fonky with a pick, for sure - Sly's High on You, for example
Funny...
I view it the exact opposite, I feel a pick has a way more clear and present attack, Mr. Squire for example.
Ditto. Since I never use my fingernails (Nathan East does for a pick-like attack), for me, playing with a pick is like a drummer using sticks, and finger-style is more like a drummer playing with brushes.
Probably because I play finger style so slow, and brush the soft part of my finger over the string and come to rest on the next lower string. My best, accurate, finger-style 16s are little better than 80 BPM...
AU CONTRAIRE my friend! i’m also a lefty playing righty, and played finger style for about 14 years before i started playing with a pick. i had the same reservations you do, and it’s honestly the reason it took me so long to pick up playing guitar. it’s going to take PRACTICE, but i promise you can absolutely master playing with a pick.
as someone who had written off EVER being able to even get passable with a pick, i’m currently playing guitar and recording bass lines in a band that is full shred at all times. tons of speed picking, palm mutes, triplets, legato runs, pinch harmonics and soloing all over the place and it still kinda blows my mind that my hands can do it. i’m currently playing everything short of sweep picking and even that i’m finally figuring out.
my best advice is to practice with a metronome. start your lines slow and then build up speed in little increments. id even recommend taking one or two lessons with someone who hs really good pick technique so they can address and positioning issues and set you up to play as efficiently as possible.
ahh, now i’m excited for you to play with a pick. if i can do it, you can do it!
I'm a finger player, using index, middle, and ring in alternation or interchangeably without thought. ...But for stuff that goes past a certain requirement for speed and attack, I switch to a pick out of preference and pure physical necessity. I'd like to do it more often actually.
Some really great players and iconic basslines came our way with a pick. I've never thought of it as "looked down upon" at all.
Some really great players and iconic basslines came our way with a pick. I've never thought of it as "looked down upon" at all.
I started entirely fingerstyle but decided it was important to be able to play with a pick pretty early, and now pretty much equally comfortable on both. While I can play with pretty much any pick, lately I've been on a quest to find the perfect pick (for me), which has been both fun and I'll admit a little OCD of me.
It makes no sense to me whatsoever why anyone would look down on using a pick to play bass; as lots of people here have noted, many of the greats are/were pick players. Frankly, I think it makes the pick critics look ridiculous. So, you're saying Carol Kaye, Chris Squire, Anthony Jackson, etc. weren't real bass players? Yeah, OK, buddy.
The stigma for slapping here on TB is much worse. Don't link to any demo video where anyone slaps, you're guaranteed someone will bitch about "I don't care what it sounds like slapped." Yeah, well, there are other people who don't care what it sounds like with a pick, so suck it up. There's a certain tendency on TB to look down on anything that isn't something Jamerson might have done in 1963, which does sometimes get a little tiring. Oh, look, another NBD thread which is a sunburst P bass with tort, zzzzz. I have additional conjectures about why slap in particular is largely unappreciated here, but they're not very flattering so I'll keep them to myself.
Despite that, I decided I needed to learn to slap. That's taken even longer to get up to speed than using a pick, and I'm still not all that great at it. I can do it enough for some songs, but I'm not going anywhere near, say, any Level 42 for a good while yet.
I will eventually learn to tap. Tapping can sound really, really cool when done well. Why not have access to all the tools? Oh, right, because Jamerson didn't do it and bass isn't a lead instrument anyway...
In defense of people who don't learn these things, I think a lot of folks on TB play exclusively covers, and the covers they play don't require picks or slapping or tapping so people figure why bother? It'd just be time spent learning something they won't use, and that's certainly understandable. But why that creates a need to look down on people who have taken the time, that's the part I don't get.
It makes no sense to me whatsoever why anyone would look down on using a pick to play bass; as lots of people here have noted, many of the greats are/were pick players. Frankly, I think it makes the pick critics look ridiculous. So, you're saying Carol Kaye, Chris Squire, Anthony Jackson, etc. weren't real bass players? Yeah, OK, buddy.
The stigma for slapping here on TB is much worse. Don't link to any demo video where anyone slaps, you're guaranteed someone will bitch about "I don't care what it sounds like slapped." Yeah, well, there are other people who don't care what it sounds like with a pick, so suck it up. There's a certain tendency on TB to look down on anything that isn't something Jamerson might have done in 1963, which does sometimes get a little tiring. Oh, look, another NBD thread which is a sunburst P bass with tort, zzzzz. I have additional conjectures about why slap in particular is largely unappreciated here, but they're not very flattering so I'll keep them to myself.
Despite that, I decided I needed to learn to slap. That's taken even longer to get up to speed than using a pick, and I'm still not all that great at it. I can do it enough for some songs, but I'm not going anywhere near, say, any Level 42 for a good while yet.
I will eventually learn to tap. Tapping can sound really, really cool when done well. Why not have access to all the tools? Oh, right, because Jamerson didn't do it and bass isn't a lead instrument anyway...
In defense of people who don't learn these things, I think a lot of folks on TB play exclusively covers, and the covers they play don't require picks or slapping or tapping so people figure why bother? It'd just be time spent learning something they won't use, and that's certainly understandable. But why that creates a need to look down on people who have taken the time, that's the part I don't get.
I started entirely fingerstyle but decided it was important to be able to play with a pick pretty early, and now pretty much equally comfortable on both. While I can play with pretty much any pick, lately I've been on a quest to find the perfect pick (for me), which has been both fun and I'll admit a little OCD of me.
It makes no sense to me whatsoever why anyone would look down on using a pick to play bass; as lots of people here have noted, many of the greats are/were pick players. Frankly, I think it makes the pick critics look ridiculous. So, you're saying Carol Kaye, Chris Squire, Anthony Jackson, etc. weren't real bass players? Yeah, OK, buddy.
The stigma for slapping here on TB is much worse. Don't link to any demo video where anyone slaps, you're guaranteed someone will bitch about "I don't care what it sounds like slapped." Yeah, well, there are other people who don't care what it sounds like with a pick, so suck it up. There's a certain tendency on TB to look down on anything that isn't something Jamerson might have done in 1963, which does sometimes get a little tiring. Oh, look, another NBD thread which is a sunburst P bass with tort, zzzzz. I have additional conjectures about why slap in particular is largely unappreciated here, but they're not very flattering so I'll keep them to myself.
Despite that, I decided I needed to learn to slap. That's taken even longer to get up to speed than using a pick, and I'm still not all that great at it. I can do it enough for some songs, but I'm not going anywhere near, say, any Level 42 for a good while yet.
I will eventually learn to tap. Tapping can sound really, really cool when done well. Why not have access to all the tools? Oh, right, because Jamerson didn't do it and bass isn't a lead instrument anyway...
In defense of people who don't learn these things, I think a lot of folks on TB play exclusively covers, and the covers they play don't require picks or slapping or tapping so people figure why bother? It'd just be time spent learning something they won't use, and that's certainly understandable. But why that creates a need to look down on people who have taken the time, that's the part I don't get.
I have not seen folks so down on slap on TB, but that is just my experience.
My ideal slap is something like Detroit or Power by Marcus Miller. Seeing Marcus Miller play with a full orchestra is bass nirvana for me.
A slap-jam in E, with mostly ghost-notes does get kind-of old though. I tend think of the bass as more melodic/chordal than drum-like, but realize if you don’t have rhythm, you don’t groove.
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When I played finger style I used to joke that I didn’t need a pick, I had five of them right here at the end of my arm. Then I amputated my index finger at the knuckle. To keep playing I had to use a pick and even that was a struggle to learn how to hold it especially since I have almost no sensation of touch in lil stumpy (my shortened digit). I recently started finger style with middle and ring finger and it has come along nicely. Now I’m mostly pick but I can do some Steve Harris triplets with fingers when I want to.
Since I started on guitar as a kid it was practical to use a pick when I switched to bass. As soon as I could get my fingers up to speed and accuracy I switched and haven’t used a pick since the early ‘70s. I just don’t care for the sound they make on a bass.
Have you tried Dunlop Stubbies? I use them on guitar - 3mm. They feel great and have a much fatter tone than thinner picks.
I use a hybrid technique ala Bobby Vega, and move the pick to another finger when I want to go fingerstyle. With a little practice it's a smooth move back and forth. Thumb, first finger and pinky are the active right hand fingers when holding the pick.
If I'm covering a song, and the original bassist used a pick, then so do I. gets the attack just right imho on this songs. I prefer finger style, but am never opposed to pick playing. I make sure a few songs every practice I use a pick to keep the skillset fresh.
For everyone that has said they weren't aware that some people are against playing with a pick - I hope you never have to experience it. I've been playing since about 1983 - I only heard it here and there (stopped playing for a while from 1996-2002). I have heard it a lot more in the past 10 years or so. One example was someone here who started a thread saying that playing with a pick vs. fingers is like a harpsichord vs. piano - can only get one sound by playing with a pick, unlike fingers which has much more variety - 100% ignorant. I think I got him to shut up. I also have some videos on my YouTube channel, and every now and again a troll comes along and makes a comment, insulting my playing in the process. Rather than respond, I just block them.
Again, I hope you never have to experience this, it sucks.
Again, I hope you never have to experience this, it sucks.
- Apr 1, 2000
- 17,406
- 9,859
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: Roscoe Guitars, DR Strings, Aguilar Amplification
If you want to get your fingerstyle together, I suggest not practicing unplugged. As you've noticed, it's difficult to tell if your articulation and note lengths are good because even in a quiet room it's difficult to hear. Also, it makes it tempting to dig in too hard in order to hear yourself, and you don't want to practice that way. I practice unplugged with a pick sometimes, because I can hear it better, but for practicing fingerstyle I either plug in or (more often) use an ABG I keep handy in the living room for that purpose.
