Ties, slurs, slides, notation and fingering...

I was taught that a slur should be played as a hammer-on or pull-off, i.e. you strike the notes with your fretting hand while not doing anything at all with your plucking hand.

Bird finger, you mean middle finger (F-U finger)? I think you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't try to learn the index-middle fingering. Even better is to learn how to pluck with ALL your plucking hand's fingers (I tried this myself, but my little finger is too small, so I just use T-1-2-3). You will limit yourself in terms of speed and expression if you just use the old-school thumb technique. If you want to become a technically skilled player, I'd advise you to jump off the thumbs-only-route quickly!

Haven't quite analyzed my approach... I think I just listen and imitate, and keep trying until I get it right.

 

Alex-
Yeah, your notated "Let's Groove Tonight" 'looks' correct...remember, though, that the bass SOUNDS one(1)octave LOWER than WRITTEN.
In other words, get rid of the ledger-lines & write it out an octave higher ON PAPER!
(The OPEN "E" will have but ONE ledger-line).

 

This may certainly be correct, but I keep coming back to George Porter, Jr, who is pretty much a thumbs only player, and he definitely has expression. Listen to the session work he did on Tori Amos' "Under the Pink" "From the Choirgirl Hotel" and "Little Earthquakes."

Interestingly enough, I have recently switched to index finger only, and it's increased my speed. Well, the bird finger shows up on occasion, but it's really rare. I know the fundamentalists will probably be outraged by this, but it's working for me so far.

 

That's pretty weird. I suppose one finger might assure a more consistent attack, but I could definately not play a 16th-note groove with only 1 finger!!

/lovebown

 

I use my thumb for string anchoring and muting only. i started with the traditional index, middle, index, middle. but ive found that im using my index about 70% of the time now. i just try to let it be natural, if it sounds and feels good, do it. i could NEVER be a thumb only player, i dont have that kind of skill.

 

I know this has been discussed may times before - but I tend to see everybody agreeing here. I think the point is that there is stuff that is (almost?) impossible to play with one finger - but most normal basslines are quite possible - so I often find that at a gig I am playing maybe 70% of the time with one finger for consistent sound and also because I am thinking about a 100 other things that are going on. I know there are parts where I have to concentrate on speed though and only the alternating finger technique will work. I always try to practice this way because one finger is just too limiting.

The other thing is that I often find that I am using my thumb and one finger for some lines - so my thumb will play notes on the lower strings B & E and the finger will play the others. This can work very well for patterns that involves a lot of octave shifting - and for things like "Tumbao's" where you're going for a feel and a rounded sound, but speed/technique is not vital. In a lot of "Latin" music the consistency is more important than anything else - to keep people dancing!

 

I know I know. I've been playing with two fingers for years, but for some reason I have never developed that grace or ease that I seem to have now. Nor, did I ever have the speed. Of course, this doesn't mean that I won't continue to try and work out what works best for me. It's not that I will refuse to use two fingers now, but for some reason this one finger thing is working, but I'll stress the "for now" part.

Sorry for hijacking the thread.

 

playing with the thumb (+palm muting) is just what you need to get a deep fat muted sound for -typically- reggae. but it is difficult to play fast or syncopated lines that way.