Techniques for a More Efficient Fretting Hand?

[Matthew_84]

My fretting hand is pretty basic. I pretty much play one finger per fret and whenever I go to play another note, I release my previous-fretting finger and plop down another finger on another note.

I don’t barre multiple strings, or keep one finger down and use my other fingers to play a close, higher note quickly (as I’ve noticed some people doing). My fingers just release and fret one note at a time. The only exception to this is with double-stops/chords.

I also seem to struggle with playing very quick passages with my fretting hand when there’s a lot of changing notes.

So does anyone have any other techniques they do in quick runs to make life a little easier?

Thanks in advance.

 

[dreamadream99]

The key to playing a long gig without fatigue is relaxation and economy of motion. This starts in the body and back, and moves all the way down, including the shoulder, forearm, wrist, thumb, and fingers. Things to consider with the fretting hand:

• Make sure thumb is pointing at your head or ceiling, not the headstock.
• Thumb tip should be centred on back of neck, not visible above the E string.
• For the most part, add fingers on the way up, and peel them off on the way down.
• When fingertips aren’t fretting, keep them hovering just above the string. You’ll never be able to play fast if each finger has to travel a few inches to come in and out of play.
• Don’t squeeze so hard between the thumb and fretting finger. It takes surprisingly little pressure if you are fingering right behind the fret (not between frets)
• Scales and arpeggios are an excellent source of practice material for speed and economy of motion.

 

[Mushroo]

Mushroo's advice for a more efficient fretting hand:

• "Economy of motion" is overrated nonsense. If you want my advice, practice "fluidity" instead. Trees are strong because they know how to bend and flex in the wind. It's more relaxing, less fatiguing, plus it sounds better to keep your hands moving throughout the set. By all means stand their motionless like a Buckingham palace guard if you want, but me? I'll be moving and grooving like my musical heroes, thank you very much.
• Ignore any book or teacher that tells you what you "should" or "must" do with your thumb. You can point your thumb toward the ceiling, you can point your thumb toward the headstock, or you can wrap your thumb over the neck, as you prefer. We all have different size/shape bodies, and the important thing is to be comfortable and pain free so we can continue making music.
• Keep your fingers as close together as possible for the song you are playing. Fingers touching each other is fine, unless the song requires big stretches.
  
• If you can play the song with just 1 or 2 fingers on your left hand, then it is perfectly acceptable to do so.
• It's often beneficial to fret with your 3rd and 4th finger together as "buddies."
  
• If you have the choice between stretching/spreading your fingers to reach a note, or moving your entire hand: move your whole hand.
• Look at your left-hand palm. Is it smooth and flat, or is your "life line" creased? Avoid any technique (such as the dreaded "death grip" or "claw") that compresses your palm into "butt cheeks."
• Use the bare minimum of fretting force that still sounds good. Many players squeeze much too hard. (Great advice by @dreamadream99)
• Study video of top players like Jaco, Flea, Victor Wooten, Paul McCartney, Sting, and John Entwistle (or whoever your musical heroes are) and study what they actually do (not what mere mortals on TalkBass say you should do).

View attachment 3052262

 

[Matthew_84]

Thanks! I do some of the things you stated, but not all...

• For the most part, add fingers on the way up, and peel them off on the way down.

That’s good to know. I’ve typically never played that way.

One reason is that I really like OFPF (one finger per fret), and it hurts my hand to maintain the spread of four chromatic notes in the lower positions. I played fretless for a few years and found that OFPF was beneficial for intonation as well as just keeping everything consistent and simpler. I had to sell my fretless and in the meantime went back to a 1,2,4 technique below the 5th fret. However, I have a fretless on order so I'm trying to go back to adapting OFPF universally. I think what I'll try to do is keeping OFPF in the lower positions (with rotations in my wrist to extend my reach comfortably) without holding down multiple fingers at once, but as I go higher up the neck I'll allow myself to hold multiple fingers at once. Most of my faster playing would probably be up there anyway.

Another reason I didn't like playing like this, is that I found when I was holding down multiple fingers, I was applying too much pressure on the fretboard and would have to put more my pressure on the back of the neck from my thumb to counteract that and that caused pain in my thumb, which leads me to a question...

When you fret multiple notes at once on the same string, do you maintain enough pressure on the lowest finger to fret the note clearly at all times, or do you ease up a bit as other fingers are placed on higher notes?

• When fingertips aren’t fretting, keep them hovering just above the string. You’ll never be able to play fast if each finger has to travel a few inches to come in and out of play.

This is definitely something I struggle with. Do you have any tips to help correct this?

Thanks again!

 

[Matthew_84]

Thanks @Mushroo - great points!

I did touch on the OFPF or 1,2,4 fretting techniques in my response above. I'm curious what your thoughts are on that? Basically, I prefer playing OFPF with a slight rotation in my wrist to make the spread more manageable in the lower positions. This doesn't hurt my hand, and I find it is better for my intonation on a fretless; but at the same time, I can't hold down multiple notes at once in the lower positions when using a OFPF technique without pain.

 

[Mushroo]

Thanks @Mushroo - great points!

I did touch on the OFPF or 1,2,4 fretting techniques in my response above. I'm curious what your thoughts are on that? Basically, I prefer playing OFPF with a slight rotation in my wrist to make the spread more manageable in the lower positions. This doesn't hurt my hand, and I find it is better for my intonation on a fretless; but at the same time, I can't hold down multiple notes at once in the lower positions when using a OFPF technique without pain.

I don't play many songs that require holding down multiple notes at once in the lower positions. Every once in a blue moon, I will play a root-5th double stop (for example F at the 1st fret, C at the 3rd fret), fretting with my 1st and 4th fingers.

 

[old spice]

I use open strings whenever possible.

 

[Zooberwerx]

Do a search on Simandl. Here's a great overview which builds on the basic tenets of the technique:

Up Yours! Simandl Positions Up the Neck

Economy of motion, conservation of energy, and efficacy are paramount.

Riis

 

[JimK]

My fretting hand is pretty basic. I pretty much play one finger per fret and whenever I go to play another note, I release my previous-fretting finger and plop down another finger on another note.

...how far (off of the string) are you releasing the previous finger?

I'm no speed demon...when I did complain about wishing I could play faster, a far better player than me said-
I needed to "think faster". Ouch.

 

[SteveCS]

The real key to speed is left/right synchronisation. The string should be stopped by the left at the precise moment the right strikes to start the note. To ensure each note gets its full value, the current note needs to end as close as possible to the start of the next note. A note will only sound if the string is stopped/fretted and has been set in motion. Anything else results in dead air - lifting off, placing on, preparing your right hand for the next strike, etc... All of these things take time - time when there is no sound. Assuming things go well, this is no big deal. But what if your string is not stopped when the right hand arrives. Or your right hand is late. One way or another you have been using time that belongs to a note to create dead air. For most people, errors in timing are fairly constant. Say your right hand consistently plays 10ms late, so after you fret a note. For quarter notes at 60bpm, so what - its about 4% of each note, so not too bad. But with 1/16ths at 120bpm, that 4% is suddenly 32%. Go to 180bpm and we are looking at almost 50% dead air, and just because your right hand pluck arrived late. Add on the time for getting the previous left hand finger out of the way, and a bit of natural variation, its pretty easy to run out of time for the actual note.
IME it doesnt matter what left or right hand methods you use - if they are not synced up with minimal dead air then you will never play fast.

 

[Matthew_84]

...how far (off of the string) are you releasing the previous finger?

I'm no speed demon...when I did complain about wishing I could play faster, a far better player than me said-
I needed to "think faster". Ouch.

I’d say somewhere from 1 to 2.5”, which can be pretty significant.

Regarding the second paragraph, I’m definitely not a quick thinker and because of this, I’m sure I’ll never be a great improviser. I’m smarter in areas where I can have a few minutes to think logically and I believe I may be a little above average in that regard, but yeah, my reactionary processes are lacking. For the music I play though, I’m never really making it up (or have to think about it) on the fly - it’s mostly playing covers, or pieces I’ve written and doing it well and quickly if required.

 

[Matthew_84]

The real key to speed is left/right synchronisation. The string should be stopped by the left at the precise moment the right strikes to start the note. To ensure each note gets its full value, the current note needs to end as close as possible to the start of the next note. A note will only sound if the string is stopped/fretted and has been set in motion. Anything else results in dead air - lifting off, placing on, preparing your right hand for the next strike, etc... All of these things take time - time when there is no sound. Assuming things go well, this is no big deal. But what if your string is not stopped when the right hand arrives. Or your right hand is late. One way or another you have been using time that belongs to a note to create dead air. For most people, errors in timing are fairly constant. Say your right hand consistently plays 10ms late, so after you fret a note. For quarter notes at 60bpm, so what - its about 4% of each note, so not too bad. But with 1/16ths at 120bpm, that 4% is suddenly 32%. Go to 180bpm and we are looking at almost 50% dead air, and just because your right hand pluck arrived late. Add on the time for getting the previous left hand finger out of the way, and a bit of natural variation, its pretty easy to run out of time for the actual note.
IME it doesnt matter what left or right hand methods you use - if they are not synced up with minimal dead air then you will never play fast.

That's a very smart post. I'd like to think I don't have this issue, but I probably do. I'm going to have to pay attention to this. Thanks!

 

[JimK]

I’d say somewhere from 1 to 2.5”, which can be pretty significant.

Yeah...see if you can work on tightening that distance down...
Example: Say you're playing from C-C#-D-D (using 1-2-4), keep fingers 1 & 2 down on the string as you play D-D with the 4th finger.
John Patitucci's spider exercise is great, IMO. IIRC, that's been posted around here before.
Some of this is seemingly mindless muscle memory. I'll get ripped for this...but this seemingly mindless muscle memory stuff? I used to do it while watching the NFL/NHL...for hours.

Regarding the second paragraph, I’m definitely not a quick thinker and because of this, I’m sure I’ll never be a great improviser. I’m smarter in areas where I can have a few minutes to think logically and I believe I may be a little above average in that regard, but yeah, my reactionary processes are lacking. For the music I play though, I’m never really making it up (or have to think about it) on the fly - it’s mostly playing covers, or pieces I’ve written and doing it well and quickly if required.

Well, congrats. You're in the same boat as the rest of us 98%-ers.

 

[Matthew_84]

Yeah...see if you can work on tightening that distance down...
Example: Say you're playing from C-C#-D-D (using 1-2-4), keep fingers 1 & 2 down on the string as you play D-D with the 4th finger.
John Patitucci's spider exercise is great, IMO. IIRC, that's been posted around here before.
Some of this is seemingly mindless muscle memory. I'll get ripped for this...but this seemingly mindless muscle memory stuff? I used to do it while watching the NFL/NHL...for hours.


Well, congrats. You're in the same boat as the rest of us 98%-ers.

Thanks! Maybe I'll just do this kind of stuff as I watch TV as well.

My fingers bouncing so far off the neck is also likely because I rarely have more than one finger down at a time, so they are all kind of bouncing all over the place. I'm really going to try and work on holding multiple fingers down as well and see if that helps.

 

[JimK]

Also...how much arch do these fretting fingers have? If they're too flat, that can slow you down.

Here's an easy one-
Finger-per-Fret, do this at the 9th-10th-11th-12th frets on the G-string.
All 4 fingers down?
Now move only the 1st finger...up/down (not a lot of air between the finger & string). "In Time" would be nice (get a rhythm/drum beat in your head. Knock out two birds with 1 stone).
Then move only the 1st finger to the D-string (9th fret)...then back to the G (9th fret)...& so on.

The other fingers should be stationary!
Use your plucking fingers to hold down the fingers that want to plop off the neck!

Then repeat by doing the same with the 2nd finger, etc.

The ring finger will probably be painful.

 

[Matthew_84]

Also...how much arch do these fretting fingers have? If they're too flat, that can slow you down.

Here's an easy one-
Finger-per-Fret, do this at the 9th-10th-11th-12th frets on the G-string.
All 4 fingers down?
Now move only the 1st finger...up/down (not a lot of air between the finger & string). "In Time" would be nice (get a rhythm/drum beat in your head. Knock out two birds with 1 stone).
Then move only the 1st finger to the D-string (9th fret)...then back to the G (9th fret)...& so on.

The other fingers should be stationary!
Use your plucking fingers to hold down the fingers that want to plop off the neck!

Then repeat by doing the same with the 2nd finger, etc.

The ring finger will probably be painful.

That sounds like an exercise I should have done years ago, but probably thought "meh, I'm okay holding down one fret at a time". I'll try to really work on this. Thanks!

Also, about how hard should I be fretting the notes - for example, say I'm doing this and am on the last finger (pinky), when I am fretting with the pinky, should the three lower fingers be fretting with enough pressure play their respective note cleanly, or can I ease off the pressure a little?

 

[JimK]

FWIW, I am not a light touch guy...I would be interested in hearing what the others have to say about it.

 

[Clef_de_fa]

I also did a lot of permutation exercice that guitar player do and scales like classical musicians does ... like doing the scale in broken 3rd,4th,5th and sometimes 6th and 7th and most of the time in one position.

 

[TheIndieKid]

I take a page out of Adam Neely’s book, and I’m sorry if it goes against what any of you are saying here.

He states that:
-The thumb should be pointed towards the headstock. This keeps in line with the neutral position, which is the tension and the shape of the hand when you place it out completely limp in front of you, and flip your arm over.
-The bass should be angled out and away from the body, when sitting down.
-The thumb should be to the left of the fretting fingers.
-Use the tips of your fingers.
-Keep the wrist as parallel to the neck as you can. This may mean angling your bass out a lot from your body when sitting down.
-Don’t worry about stretching in the lower positions. Just use shifting and the Simandl technique (Fingers 1-2-4).
-The thumb is NOT a counterbalance to the force of the fretting fingers. Notice how when you take your thumb off the neck, you can still play? Keep as little tension as you can on your thumb when playing.
-You will notice as your hand moves up the neck, staying relaxed, your thumb will move closer to and in between the fingers. Let this happen.
-Pinky strength doesn’t come from any form of spider exercises or hand strengthener. It comes from the muscles in the arm and shoulder, which is why boxers focus on the power delivered from there, and not the fingers. Keep a straight wrist and a relaxed shoulder. To prove there is strength in your pinky, do something Gary Willis tested a while ago. Lock pinkies on both fingers together and pull opposing ways. That should show the strength in each.

 

[SteveCS]

Thanks! Maybe I'll just do this kind of stuff as I watch TV as well.

My fingers bouncing so far off the neck is also likely because I rarely have more than one finger down at a time, so they are all kind of bouncing all over the place. I'm really going to try and work on holding multiple fingers down as well and see if that helps.

It won't, IME. Going back to my thing sbout syncronisation, if your technique ascending is different to descending, ie asymmetrical, then it is prone to timing errors that lead to dead air.
Small movements made as quickly as possible are the key. The problem is that this asymmetry can create an illusion of fluency. Ascfnding you do not have to move the previous finger out of the way, so any dead air associated with that element is eliminated. But decsending you do. If you play the string before your left finger has cleared the way then ypu get a dead thump. If it gets out of the way in time but does so by stealing time from the previous note, your playing become staccato.