What caused you to change your technique?

[c-level]

Dropping the pick - from a more rock/punk influenced style in my teens to a more grooving and deeper tonal style with fingers now. Though my picking skills really dropped off after shunning picks and playing nothing but bass for 5 years i try to flatpick alternate and travis picking forms bluegrass style on an acoustic guitar and weep at what i used to be able to do.

Getting a fretless electric and dabbling with an upright with brief lessons from my room mate led to me implementing a more vertical thumb position on the left hand as well as 12-4 fretting and simandl movements for more accurate intonation on fretless. Tho it doesnt take more than 10 minutes after i pick up a fretted precision and playing along to certain ingrained rock tunes for me to revert to hangin my thumb over the top of the fretboard.

 

[HardNHeavy]

Many of us developed some bad technique as beginners. Some of us have cleaned up our act, so to speak.

Was there some event that happened in your bass playing past that forced you to adjust your technique?

playing too fast for many years in punk/core/metal band.. I left that situation only because i wanted to be more melodic or progressive...Dont get me wrong, i love that music and loved my bandmates, but i felt as a musician i wasn't really going anywhere with that style.

 

[lfmn16]

Wish I'd have said all that. But don't worry...I will elsewhere

I’m sure you’ve said it at one time or another.

 

[Rip Van Dan]

Many of us developed some bad technique as beginners. Some of us have cleaned up our act, so to speak.

Was there some event that happened in your bass playing past that forced you to adjust your technique?

About the only thing I can think of was when I first moved to Washington in 2015 and had injured the wrist of my left arm. I had to wear a pretty substantial brace and was worried whether or not I would be able to still play bass while wearing it. I had to angle up the neck just slightly more than normal but found that I was basically playing close to spot where I could keep my wrist straight and still play.

 

[RoyBatty_1984]

Tuning 1 whole step flat on my 5 string (ADGCF) and playing difficult songs on standard tuning without transposing them... I use the bass riff from Muse's Hysteria as a warmup, which uses pedal notes in the A, E and D open strings on standard tuning, but instead pedaling on fretted notes with my index and fretting the non pedal notes with middle, ring and pinky fingers. It used to be cramp city when I first started, but helped my LH strength and agility tons... playing a root with the index and a flat 7th with the middle finger used to be tricky, now its a breeze.

Also, one poster mentioned getting a Wal bass and being exposed to his own technique faults, which I'm kinda going thru lately after acquiring a MM bass... the hotness and higher fidelity of the pickups are making my technique shortcomings stick out like a sore thumb, so I'm trying to improve on that as of lately... and I thought I had my muting down to a T

 

[JimmyM]

Ha. I’m doing Joe Hubbard’s Foundations course (Highly recommended) now, and one of his rules is “always rake”. I stopped raking years ago so I was doubtful, but I’m starting to really like it. He also touts movable anchor rather than floating thumb, and that’s working well for me too. More tools for the toolbox.

Never hurts to be able to do both, but rare do I find the need for the rake these days.