Righteous left wrist angle.

What is the riff? That might help us figure out your problem.

edit: hmmm, it looks as if you're playing a B on the E string. Maybe move that note to the A? Or shorten your strap? As the neck gets closer to your face your wrist will naturally straighten out.

 

Can you play it sitting down with your bass resting on your left thigh? Low slung basses are the common cause of that. I played the lick in 2 positions and the only way I can duplicate your problem is if my bass is down too low.

 

Looks like your bass is too high?

I'm sorry, man, but I just went and played that on a 5-stringer without any trouble. It's most likely the position of your bass that's causing the bad wrist position.

 

Looks about where I hold it (albeit, the neck is a fair bit more vertical).

Try holding your fingers on the frets and just pull your wrist in as much as possible. You should be able to have it pretty much straight.

 

Perhaps try making your bass a bit more perpendicular to your body?

 

Three things:

1) Get your goddamn elbow away from your body. You should never pull your left elbow in that far until your in 12th position or higher. It creates VERY awkward wrist angles.

2) You don't have to have perfect classical hand positioning for every riff. Move your thumb closer to the bass side if you hit something that puts your wrist at an uncomfortable angle.

3) You don't have to fret all the notes at the same time. Making that F on the G a thumb-rolled position switch would make things much easier on your wrist.

 

Someone smarter than me will probably point out I'm doing something wrong, but this is how I would fret that (yeah, my pinky's crooked... it's a short little blighter, and I'm farther away from the frets, blah blah blah blah):





Yeah, they're pretty bad pictures, but it's late and the lighting is fail.

 

Yes, it is, actually.

BB615.

^_^

 

All right, so the key sometimes is to not worry so much about having the thumb behind the neck all the way. Classical guitarists do this all the time, they move the thumb under the neck and anchor it essentially below it. I'm not quite going that far, but you notice my thumb is way lower here than a lot of you with the extreme wrist angles have it.



And the back.

 

It's your elbow. Far too close from your hip while it should be away, floating in the air to help keeping the forearm lined with the wrist.

 

hey HaVIC, your bass is backwards dude.

 

Nuh-uh!