Should I learn to play with fingers?

[Old Fart]

In the before time (1970s) I played with a pick exclusively and I was good at it. I could sound like I was using fingers. The bands I was in included a 9-piece funk band. I often used a thin white pressed felt pick. Then life got in the way and I stopped playing bass for about 30 years.

When I returned to playing bass about ten years ago, I resolved to leave the pick on the table and learn finger. It was hard at first to not cheat because I was not skilled at finger but still pretty good at pick playing.

I am glad I did because I have both options, and sometimes the song calls for a specific plucking technique. In fact, not sometimes. Every song has its own optimum plucking technique. In fact I have a chart on stage telling me what I need to know before the song starts, including plucking technique. The chart shows I use finger about 40% of the time. Various kinds of picks the rest of the time. Rock songs are usually pick. Much of the very modern music calls for pick. Blues - funk - disco - slapping and popping - these usually call for finger-style.

Sometimes both. Fly Away....Chorus is pick, verses are finger because they are a type of slap/pop. The hard part is getting the pick out of my mouth in time for the chorus.

 

[BassicJazzy]

In the before time (1970s) I played with a pick exclusively and I was good at it. I could sound like I was using fingers. The bands I was in included a 9-piece funk band. I often used a thin white pressed felt pick. Then life got in the way and I stopped playing bass for about 30 years.

When I returned to playing bass about ten years ago, I resolved to leave the pick on the table and learn finger. It was hard at first to not cheat because I was not skilled at finger but still pretty good at pick playing.

I am glad I did because I have both options, and sometimes the song calls for a specific plucking technique. In fact, not sometimes. Every song has its own optimum plucking technique. In fact I have a chart on stage telling me what I need to know before the song starts, including plucking technique. The chart shows I use finger about 40% of the time. Various kinds of picks the rest of the time. Rock songs are usually pick. Much of the very modern music calls for pick. Blues - funk - disco - slapping and popping - these usually call for finger-style.

Sometimes both. Fly Away....Chorus is pick, verses are finger because they are a type of slap/pop. The hard part is getting the pick out of my mouth in time for the chorus.

Very versatile, great to have both options if you can do it. Remember though, Eddie Van Halen claimed that holding metal picks in his mouth contributed to or was source of his tongue cancer. Who knows, that might have been delusional, since it was Eddie? Stick with plastic or felt, but Chris Squire used a coin.

Personally, I don't trust myself with a pick. I like my basses too much, and a few of them lack pick guards.

 

[Micha84]

For any question that begins with "Should I learn..." any negative answer would have to make a very convincing case. Learning is never a bad thing.

Everything you do you do for yourself. If you feel no need to learn fingerstyle, if it doesn't interest you, if you are not missing out on anything, then you don't have to learn it. Everybody who claims that you can't be a real bassist playing only with a pick is, excuse the frankness, just plain wrong. If you are playing in your basement only there is noone with the right to judge you.

But, life happens, interests change and situations come up. If you are half curious about playing with fingers, do it! Maybe next week someone comes up to you and says "Hey, I heard you play bass, I have a band and we are looking for someone". Maybe learning fingerstyle you'll discover that the music associated with it brings you great joy.

Learning is never a bad thing, who knows what fruits it will bear at some point?

 

[Old Fart]

Chris Squire used a coin

Respectfully, he is said to have mostly used a Herco heavy gauge pick. He was likely a better pick player than I but we'll never know. He often held the pick with only the very tip poking out from between his thumb and index finger. This gave him much more control over the string tone and decay. By touching a string twice (first with the pic, then with the edge of his thumb as it went by), he could get an interesting growly tone. And....holding the pick this way allows you to do other things. You can pluck, the deaden. Or deaden, then pluck (like what happens with finger style). Plucking with a pick can be more expressive than finger style. Then again, sometimes the perfect technique is finger style.

I don't think I have ever even heard of a metal pick until today. I've tried to use a coin and it doesn't work. Matchbooks work, but they only last about two songs. Those plastic clips on bread loaf bags can be used if there is no alternative but it is best to scratch them across a concrete sidewalk just to take the burr off the very corner edge.

At gigs, I have a thin plastic pick, and a medium plastic pick, and a felt pick, on a tray on my mic stand and I use them all.

 

[Old Fart]

When it comes to pick I am very picky. (see what I did there) Plastic picks are readily available in all shapes and thicknesses. Sourcing the right felt pick is the hard part, for me. It has to be the right balance of soft and firm. It also has to have a beveled tip, and those have now become almost impossible to find. If I find a source, I'll probably buy a hundred of them. They last a good while but they do wear out. Below you can see the beveled tip, and a pick that lacks the beveled tip.

 

[coyote1]

Picks worked for plenty of people (Kaye, McCartney, Squire, etc.). Unless you find you need another tool, no reason to.

Paul most definitely did not always use a pick. Check Baby’s In Black, along with I Feel Fine and Yesterday:

 

[porkynuggets]

Do what makes you happy. Personally, the switch to fingers happened when I couldn't find a pick and was just too lazy to go get more (pre Internet days)...

Now I like not having anything in between me and my instrument. I feel like I can get a wider variety of sounds with my fingers than I can with a pick, and that makes me happy.

Whatever makes you happy; rock on, sir.

 

[Stylee Mousse]

Back when I played more aggressive music I felt I could get more grunt with fingers that with a pick. I could get right up to the line of how strong a note could be before it was choked, drove the amp somewhere unpleasing etc. And, of course, had all the lower dynamics on tap!

 

[bassdude51]

Should I learn to play with fingers?​

Not really.

One of the greatest session bassist, Carol Kaye uses a pick. Paul McCartney uses a pick. There are others!

 

[SteveCS]

I voted "mostly no" because you don't have a need in the foreseeable future.

IME, the problem with this approach is that the foreseeable future is intrinsically entwined with the unforeseeable future which, if one is not prepared, quickly becomes part of the past without ever being part of one's present!

 

[dougjwray]

First of all, Paul sometimes uses his thumb or fingers. He's NOT strictly a pick player, although I'd say the pick came to dominate.
Anyway, I find it kind of odd that someone who is playing bass strictly for fun at home, alone, would come here seemingly to ask permission not to work on something different. (Sorry if that sounded harsh.) It's not like you're asking "Do most producers prefer bassists who use fingers?" or something.
If you're curious about fingers, try it.
If you don't care enough, don't.

 

[iqi616]

IME, the problem with this approach is that the foreseeable future is intrinsically entwined with the unforeseeable future which, if one is not prepared, quickly becomes part of the past without ever being part of one's present!

True - all part of the risk one takes. Personally I'm betting I'll have no need of tapping skills in the foreseeable future!

 

[TheDuff]

I like to use a 2 mm pick. Dunlop with the aligator on the pick.

I learned to play with my fingers when I first started. I rarely used picks then and only used flat wound strings.

Today I play both with pick and fingers. Mostly with pick. I have rounds and flats on bass guitars for tonal variance.

Developing new skills and techniques is important but it is most important to play in the way that is most enjoyable for yourself, from your own point of view.

As a hobbyist the player is free from the demands to play in any specific ways.

Make sure that playing is fun and enjoyable.

 

[T McClure]

My dumb reason for answering yes is because it gives you a second way to play if you do something like sprain your thumb or tweak your wrist.

But still mostly play whatever way makes you happy.

 

[Metal Sombreros]

Get good at both for sure

 

[Zooberwerx]

I drop picks...I have yet to have my fingers fall from my hand.

Does not necessarily hold true at a leper colony.

Riis

 

[JKovax]

I'm almost entirely a finger player, but there are a couple of songs (mostly metal) where I just can't get the right bite on the notes even with fingernails, so I switch to a pick. If you were just starting out, I'd recommend learning one style decently and then build at least a passable level of skill with the other, but if you know you're not going to be playing stuff in the future which requires a different style, there's probably little point in learning. I gave a neutral response: entirely your call.

As a lefty playing a bass upside down (it makes perfect sense to have the "low" string on the bottom, right?), slap-bass is a non-starter, since "thumb-slapping" on the G string really doesn't cut it, and pinky-slaps on the low-E are kind-of wimpy. I refer to it as "bass-ackwards" playing.

As has been said in the past, REAL bassists play with a bow. Finger and pick styles are just a passing fad.

 

[dbsfgyd1]

About me:
Been playing for about three years. Right now, I play 100% pick.
Why? Because I like the sound, it's easier to control, and virtually all of the music that I like to play can be played with a pick. (Rock, metal, and occasionally country.)
To be honest, I don't even like the way my fingers sound. (But that may just be because I'm really bad at it.)

Nothing against Flea, Les Claypool, and Davie504, but I have no desire to do the slappy and poppy thing. Not knocking it--it's just not my cup of tea.

Also--I'm 46, not a musical professional, and not in a band. (I might join one someday, but it's not currently on the radar.) I just like to rock out in my bassment and pretend I'm Geezer Butler.

So.....should I even learn how to play with fingers? Or don't fix what ain't broke?

(edit) Some people may ask, "But Greenman - how do you play jazz fusion? Or funk? Or Motown?" The answer is surprisingly simple--I don't play those types of music. Again--just not my thing.

It wouldn’t hurt, but as an artist this choice is yours to make.

 

[DavidEdenAria]

It wouldn’t hurt, but as an artist this choice is yours to make.

Yep
..for me I get bored......I want to make as many sounds as possible on bass and since I'm retired and play for my own amusement I don't have to conform lol.

Play what inspires you and makes you want to play with whatever technique you prefer.

 

[Wez Yo Bice]

In this zoo, mandolins get picked. Guitars and banjers get fingers and thumb. Bow on a fiddle. When I sit, I use my thumb on e-bass. When I stand for upright, I use fingers. I never thought about it. If it's what I want coming out of the monitor, that's correct for me.