Strict alternation based on beat subdivision

[silkfrog]

Oh boy, here we go again

Let's try to keep the whole raking vs strict alternation debate out of the way this time: I'm only trying to develop this technique because it seems to be what would work best for me (although I believe it's also what would work best for most people if they learned it from the start )

Background: I'm a long time guitar player and recently bass player who has never liked playing lead and has always preferred rhythm and prioritized good groove over anything else. I learned to always have a strict up/down right hand motion that subdivided the beat in 8ths, 16ths or whatever was appropriate, and it improved my rhythm tremendously, providing a good basis for most rhythmic figures. I would like to apply the same concept to bass alternate plucking to have a steady foundation to build upon.

The idea is this: index and middle finger subdivide the beat in a steady fashion, ie always use index for downbeat and always middle for offbeat if the beat has an 8th note subdivision, always use index for 1st and 3rd 16th and middle for 2nd and 4th 16th if the beat subdivides into 16ths.

As for why I believe this would lead to developing better time in a more efficient way (not putting aside the possibility of learning other plucking patterns down the line!), the reason is quite simple: it limits greatly the number of different patterns your fingers will play by removing raking, patterns with an odd number of notes, and so on.

The problem is this: how would you go about practicing this? Simply applying the concept to things I already know how to play or would already play seems to not be doing much. Unlearning raking is enough of a problem in itself, learning to not use different fingers when playing two quarter notes in a row within a complex pattern is another, and I'm sure you'll find many more by just trying it out.

Feel free to also share any thoughts you have on why this might generally be a good or a bad thing to learn, while also keeping in mind that I will most likely not change my mind about learning this as a basis for my right hand technique. However please refrain from comments such as "other technique is good enough for x". Most techniques are good if you take enough time to hone them. I'm talking about finding the fastest path to having a solid right hand foundation to build upon. We might also have different quality requirements of what is "good playing" and might value some elements differently.

 

[Jazz Ad]

What would be the benefits of such method?

Play with 1 to 5 fingers for the tone and feel you want at any time.
What do you do if your song goes from an 12/8 to 2/2 with a bridge in 3/4?
This methods only limits patterns if you stay on a single string.
WHy would you want to limit the number of patterns you use anyway ?

I never gave much thinking to the way my fingers moved other than to minimize injury and movement. If there is something to get out of a prefered method I haven't found it.

 

[silkfrog]

What would be the benefits of such method?

As stated in the first post: better rhythmic consistency through having to only practice a limited number of patterns with your right hand, or at least a faster time getting to rhythmic consistency.

What do you do if your song goes from an 12/8 to 2/2 with a bridge in 3/4?

Subdivide it like so:
12/8: imi imi imi imi or imm imm imm imm
2/2 (i'll assume 16ths subdivision): imim imim
3/4 (i'll assume 16ths subdivision too): imim imim imim

What do you do?

I never gave much thinking to the way my fingers moved other than to minimize injury and movement. If there is something to get out of a prefered method I haven't found it.

There's a reason jazz players play walking lines without alternating, even though it could be seen as not efficient.

 

[Jazz Ad]

I play with 3 fingers most of the time, IMRM or RMIR. I may go IMR or RMI on triplets or galops.
I often play with my thumb (down or double thumb) or index alone on the fretboard for fat steady lines.
I sometimes play good old alternating 2 fingers for fast staccato and octave playing-disco style.
I also flat pick thumb+3 fingers for melodic or solo stuff with chords and drones.
I rake most of the time although there are benefits to not do it for clean string skipping.

But yeah all of this comes from simple practical shortcuts and observations. I worked hard to achieve 3 finger playing or 2 from any of the 3 but otherwise never really thought about it.
I have played a few walking lines in my life though and never heard that alternating was not a thing to do. URB players alternate all the time.

 

[BrotherMister]

Honestly I feel like you may be creating a musical problem that doesn’t exist in order to solve a musical problem that doesn’t exist.

I, and a wealth of other bass players, use a strict alteration of two fingers. Some use 3 or 4 but the majority I’d say use 2. Whether that is in 4/4, 3/4,5/4,7/8,12/8 etc etc etc the alteration remains the same. Groupings of 3,5,7’s are still played with that alternation and it’s something I don’t have to think about. Let alone had any issue with. I’m equally as comfortable starting i m or m i.

I’ve never seen any bass player, had any teacher, spoken to a bass playing colleague or had any student come up with this approach because I don’t think there is any need for it to exist. Rhythmic consistency doesn’t come from a pre-prepared number of patterns using your fingers. It comes from having a solid sense of time and articulating that clearly on the instrument.

Whoever told you that jazz musicians don’t alter their fingers playing walking lines on electric bass sold you a lemon.

I’m not saying not to pursue your idea, maybe it will work for you but I don’t see it solving any issue because it doesn’t exist. You may run into problems later on when you want to accent different parts of a rhythmic grouping and you have plugged in a static pattern that always accents particular parts. Then again, you might not.

 

[silkfrog]

Honestly I feel like you may be creating a musical problem that doesn’t exist in order to solve a musical problem that doesn’t exist.

I can see how one might think that. To be honest I think most bass players aren't precise enough rhythmically, but then again i like snappy 16th staccato ghost notes lines, so who knows.

Rhythmic consistency doesn’t come from a pre-prepared number of patterns using your fingers. It comes from having a solid sense of time and articulating that clearly on the instrument

You're practicing rhythmic patterns with your right hand fingers regardless when you practice, just like how a drummer practices sticking patterns whether he wants it or not when learning a song. Why not limit them to a set that allows you to play every rhythmic figure with similar ingredients? Another added benefit I can see is that you can add or remove notes from a line without changing your right hand fingering.

Whoever told you that jazz musicians don’t alter their fingers playing walking lines on electric bass sold you a lemon.

I meant upright bass mostly, although I think using upright right hand technique on electric sounds better for walking lines.

You may run into problems later on when you want to accent different parts of a rhythmic grouping and you have plugged in a static pattern that always accents particular parts. Then again, you might not.

Maybe. Check this thread again in a year.

 

[BrotherMister]

I can see how one might think that. To be honest I think most bass players aren't precise enough rhythmically, but then again i like snappy 16th staccato ghost notes lines, so who knows.

One might think that through years of practising, studying bass at college/university/many private tutors followed by years of being a professional bass player. With all due respect, as someone who is fairly new to the instrument (as I'm lead to believe from your post although sincere apologies if I'm wrong) I'm going to trust my wealth of in-depth bass specific experience over someone who is new to the instrument. Chances are you may just know some mediocre bass players? There are a lot of mediocre players around. My idea of good playing tends to fall into an extremely high quality set of boxes and I imagine the people who hire me also have the same quality control so I'm sure between us all we have a good idea of rhythmic precision. There is also a question of physics to consider. Bass sound waves move slower and take longer to bloom so anything fast we are wrestling with that as it's so easy for it get muddy quickly.

You're practicing rhythmic patterns with your right hand fingers regardless when you practice, just like how a drummer practices sticking patterns whether he wants it or not when learning a song. Why not limit them to a set that allows you to play every rhythmic figure with similar ingredients? Another added benefit I can see is that you can add or remove notes from a line without changing your right hand fingering.

Sticking control for drummers isn't a way of tackling subdivisions but by gaining control over their instrument. A double paradiddle is basically for us what something like a scale in 4ths is. It gives us control over our instrument as well as a pool of information to draw on that we can create ideas with. Bass players practise arpeggios whether they want to or not but I can assure you not every bass player knows all of their arpeggios inside and out. The reason drummers work on stick control starting on both hands is to create an evenness in both the dominant and weak hand allowing them to consistency in starting things on any hand. Every rhythmic figure can be broken down to a grouping of 2 or 3 (unless it's a single note in which case it's just 1) so that's reduced your concept to two patterns. Your concept seems to favour one finger for stronger beats and one for weaker beats so you'll have less control in your hand.
By simply not playing notes in your pattern you haven't removed the finger and still have to address the question of what to do with that moment. If it's silent then it's proved your theory doesn't really have weight since you rely on a sense of time to get it together and not a static pattern to improve it or if you have to play a ghost note you've created a lack of control since ghost notes are not always musically appropriate.

You already said in your first post that having the strict alteration of down and up motion improved things for your guitar playing and would like to apply that to the bass. What you've described is the opposite of that concept. Alternating fingers, wether that's 2, 3 or 4 is our version of a down/up motion.

I meant upright bass mostly, although I think using upright right hand technique on electric sounds better for walking lines.

As someone who plays and studied the upright bass for almost as many yeas as the electric I can tell you that players do both on that instrument, neither is right or wrong. In my experience of having played a lot of jazz gigs on both instrument, trust me when you get to walking fast tempos you'll want those two fingers up and running on electric.

Maybe. Check this thread again in a year.

I plan on it! Please keep us posted, and for the sake of proving whether or not this technique is valid I'd be more than happy to record myself playing the rhythmic patterns so we can A/B them. Again you could absolutely be right and have come across an idea no one has done before. However, it seems like you have already hit a few road blocks at the most basic material which doesn't fill me with confidence that when things get marginally more interesting you'll encounter a lot of other problems that have never really existed for the rest of us. You asked for arguments why we think it might be good or bad and I've given you a lot based on years of high quality experience. If you think that's meaningless then fair enough, I am more than happy to be shown new ideas.

 

[silkfrog]

Thanks for the reply.

Chances are you may just know some mediocre bass players

I meant actual big name players that people refer to.

Sticking control for drummers isn't a way of tackling subdivisions but by gaining control over their instrument. A double paradiddle is basically for us what something like a scale in 4ths is.

This doesn't seem like a proper comparison at all. I'm also talking about gaining control over the instrument. I actually plan on applying sticking patterns to my right hand fingers at some point.

Every rhythmic figure can be broken down to a grouping of 2 or 3 (unless it's a single note in which case it's just 1) so that's reduced your concept to two patterns.

Not sure what you mean here, mind elaborating?

By simply not playing notes in your pattern you haven't removed the finger and still have to address the question of what to do with that moment.

This is a good point. It reminds me of fingerstyle guitar picking where I feel like you still need to have some arm motion somewhat similar to up/down picking for it to groove well, even though your hand can remain static, and the movement can be entirely noiseless.

You already said in your first post that having the strict alteration of down and up motion improved things for your guitar playing and would like to apply that to the bass. What you've described is the opposite of that concept.

I don't think you understood what I meant then. The strict up/down motion is based on beat subdivision, and if I'm not mistaken it's quite common on bass too.

Haven't had much time to practice those past few days but it's slowly been becoming more natural, and I already hear the difference in the way the rhythms flow between this method and just alternating between index and middle regardless of notes. I guess time will tell?

 

[India_Sierra]

Reading this, it really strikes me that you have sought to develop a system which would ultimately provide little, if any benefit in the long run. If your intention was to formalise a set of rules that newer players can follow to have a 'solid right hand foundation to build up', I feel that your proposed system, which is extremely rigid, would do little to help a newer player.

So long as a newer player can accurately play the figures asked of them in a fashion that won't cause them injury, I see little point in enforcing a regime like this on them. Particularly since, a lot of players will figure out useful plucking patterns in an organic fashion. Raking is fine because sometimes it's acceptable and expeditious to rake the strings! Not playing with strict alternation is fine so long as you can accurately and evenly place the notes you want to. Plucking a particular pattern with one finger is fine if you're able to preserve the feel, tone and note length! You may find that plucking twice with one finger in a row allows you better access to the next note with the alternating finger, particularly if you're changing strings.

So long as the music gets made, that is the main thing. I have looked critically at a number of proposed 'rules' on strict alternation of two plucking fingers by adherents of that technique and found that, for all their focus on that technique, there was nothing they could play that I couldn't.

 

[BrotherMister]

I meant actual big name players that people refer to.

Care to name who? Please remember that some of the big names are big on the back of their song writing or bands music being popular rather than them as a bass player and their technique. Examples being Paul McCartney is a famous bass player but his fame comes from being in a famous band and a great songwriter and didn't get famous for being an amazing bass player. Sting is another example of that. Both are good players and have great ideas but they aren't say a Jaco Pastorius, Jeff Berlin, Stanley Clark etc where they gained recognition for their prowess on the instrument.

This doesn't seem like a proper comparison at all. I'm also talking about gaining control over the instrument. I actually plan on applying sticking patterns to my right hand fingers at some point.

You are the one who made the stick control comparison so unless I'm mistaken can you clarify what you mean by that? Taking a drum rudiment and applying it to the bass only really generates different accents. Anthony Wellington has a video where he uses a paradiddle to generate a slap pattern.

Not sure what you mean here, mind elaborating?

Sure thing! A beat can be broken down to a grouping of 2 or 3. In 8ths or 16ths these are groups of 2. For triplets or tunes in 6/8, 12/8 etc these are clearly groupings of 3 per beat. So a bar of 7, or a grouping of 7 can be broken down and felt as 123,12,12, or 12,12,123. Count this right now and clap on the 1's and you'll have a solid pulse in 7. A grouping of 5 can be 123,12 or 12,123. A bar of 11 can be 123,123,123,12 or whatever. Take 5 by the Dave Brubeck Quarter is clearly grouped as as 123,12. Mission Impossible theme is the same.

This is a insanely common way of counting and feeling odd times or dealing with odd groupings of notes but literally any rhythm you'll ever play can be grouped in this sense. A bar or 4/4 is usually grouped in 2's but we seldom think about it that way because we have such an easy time playing in 4 anyway.

Honestly I'm still at a loss as to what you are planning to accomplish with this, you may need to elaborate it more clearly for me. From where I am sitting though it is starting to feel like you are creating a system to compensate for a weak sense of time and internal clock. This problem has been solved ages ago by counting rhythms and musical time. Your approach might give you a result but it doesn't tackle the fundamental issue of the time feel. It's far from the most efficient right hand technique although applying drum rudiments and other things will give you interesting ideas, Anthony Wellington has a video where he takes a paradiddle and generates a bunch of slap stuff using that concept, but he's still playing 8ths or 16ths (I can't recall which sadly). So he's not strengthening his subdivisions based on a pattern but using a pattern to generate new ideas.

 

[sean_on_bass]

I think your methodology is too rigid for no reason. You also seem to ignore a very important variable that is tempo. You are also ignoring the benefit of tonal consistency where an opportunity presents itself. Why would i alternate pluck a line if the tempo is slow and i could easily do it with just one finger? It would sound more consistent with a single finger rather than two.

Instead, i recommend expanding your scope and practicing all common permutations of plucking every day as your warmup. The goal is to develop flexibility, not rigid uniformity. You can do this very easily with scale work. Play a two octave scale with just your index. Then play the scale with just your middle. Then play alternating but starting on your index, then the same but starting with your middle. Do this with a metronome on, and vary the tempo and note subdivisions of the scale. For example if you have the tempo set at 100 bpm, play the scale first with whole notes, then half notes, then quarter notes, then eighths, etc within that tempo. IMO YMMV blah blah

 

[Schonbrun]

Is there a song that when played with your method, demonstrates its veracity? I want to try your method, because on paper, it seems far less efficient than normal alternation with raking. I can't see how limiting finger patterns increases efficiency.

 

[joeri]

I understand his point of view.
It’s like playing with a pick, use a downstroke for the downbeat and upstroke for upbeat.
You keep your right hand going in 8s,16’s/... above the strings and hit the beats/notes you want to play.

If you transpose this system to fingerstyle you get:
Index for downbeat,middle for upbeat.
Tried to play like this years ago but stuck to the pick.
There also was too much thinking going on. Index? No this note should be played with middle finger
I got lost and my playing suffered from too much focus on technique.

 

[Jazz Ad]

The only example I can think of that'd come close to this vision is Matthew Garrison's 4 finger style, that he uses for fast 16th notes sequences.
It's very efficient and systemic.

 

[Maims]

Super interesting topic!
I was wondering about this identical thing as a jazz guitar player of 30 years, picking up bass and hoping to jump the line toward advancement by practicing something that I’d assumed advanced bass players developed through experience as opposed to working specifically on doing. Which is developing a natural bias towards one finger on downbeats and the other on upbeats. Similar to a guitarist who strums favoring the down stroke on down beats and the upstroke on upbeats. (Which I teach my students).
I do know however, that for soloing at an advanced level, a guitar player wants to be just as rhythmically astute from either down stroke or upstroke and keep the superfluous motion down to almost nothing. This is at the very highest levels. We want to keep our hand relaxed, evenly positioned, responsive to any direction and not bound by a rhythmic pendulum. (Although this is up for debate as well now that I think of it, damn).
I’ve been practicing plucking in the way Silkfrog describes and it has helped my playing, but I wonder if it’s because my right hand technique is pretty basic anyways.
What I am getting from the convo is that the approach of favoring a finger for down and upbeats is not something that experienced bass players are aware of necessarily, in terms of something that developed over time, but not necessarily through focusing on it. Because that’s what I’m wondering….Is it something that develops over time, but not necessarily through focusing on it?
Amazing discussion. Hits right on the nail.

 

[Papageno]

I believe what one needs to strive to with respect to right hand fingerings is not having to think about it while playing, no matter whether what one plays a regular string of 8th or 16th notes, or syncopated 16th-notes funk stuff, or other rhythmically varied stuff, with or without string crossing (up or down), etc.

To achieve this fluidity, it is useful to practice all kind of fingerings: strict alternation (leading with index, or with middle), strict repetition (index only, or middle only), raking, other patterns (eg. iimm, etc.), etc. It is important to work on being able to achieve the same sound with any finger. If any note can be played equally well with any finger at any time, then right-hand fingering choices are no longer something one needs to worry about while playing; it can be left to autopilot.

 

[JonathanPDX]

Advice to newbies: in the time it takes you to write a dissertation on your world-changing (and completely unproven) method or approach, you could learn actual proven techniques and get much closer to being able to actually play music.

 

[Papageno]

Advice to newbies: in the time it takes you to write a dissertation on your world-changing (and completely unproven) method or approach, you could learn actual proven techniques and get much closer to being able to actually play music.

Well observed.^^^

It is noteworthy that the OP (a novice bass player) started this thread not to ask for advice, but seemingly to try to convince people of his/her views on right-hand technique (without much success). And then disappeared for ever after having spent less than a week on TB...

 

[Les Fret]

This beat division approach works for rhythmic pick playing or double thumbing (not scales or solo lines). But for regular fingerstyle I think it is not really a good approach.

 

[juggahnaught]

You can do this. I do this sometimes (although it's not really a "system" for me as it seems to be for you, it just happens when I play a line and throw in a lot of ghost notes), but I definitely don't do it consistently and have never intended to. If you do, you will probably want to play ghost notes for the notes that you don't play. You may also want to choose the basslines that you play so that you can make the most of that style.

It's worth noting that in drumming, there's a similar concept called "linear drumming" - it's not the same thing, but the philosophy is similar.

This may not be a bad thing to learn to do, but I think that as a technique it'll only really shine with specific basslines. Stuff like "Kuru" by Jaco, or stuff with a lot of ghost notes - those might be great candidates. But there are a lot of basslines where something like this might not work so well. You could make it work, but you might be putting in more effort than necessary. ("Runaway" by Jamiroquai is a great example - a heavily syncopated bassline at tempo. It'd be easier to play it without your technique. "The Trooper" by Iron Maiden is another - your technique would require more stamina to play at tempo because you'd basically be ignoring the rests. Finally, any basslines with tuplets would break the system as you've described it.) Similar to linear drumming, you'd have to craft your bassline around the technique, not the other way around.

I'm only trying to develop this technique because it seems to be what would work best for me (although I believe it's also what would work best for most people if they learned it from the start )

Maybe this is the thing that will work best for you, but I doubt it's the best thing for most people. Developing good time is more than just developing your fingers - if you have good time, the technique you use to play notes doesn't really matter as long as you execute well. As an example, drummers practice rudiments in tempo and in meter, but these rudiments specifically go outside of strict alternation in a subdivision - specifically, they involve rests. This means that they aren't limited to using a specific hand for a specific set of subdivisions, allowing them to achieve maximum expression with less effort. Drummers develop hand execution independent of the meter and subdivision - essentially, they learn how to execute rests while still maintaining efficiency - and bassists should do this as well. If I had to teach a student to play bass guitar, I personally would never tie their plucking hand execution to a timed subdivision; that would be a limitation, not a benefit.