What technique did Cliff Burton use on the song, "Fight Fire with Fire?"

I'm not sure what Cliff plays in the song...I'm pretty sure he always played fingerstyle and seeing video of him he seemed to play with 3 fingers and sometimes a fourth...Metallicas video Cliff Em' All shows some great footage of Cliff playing

 

he used his fingers.

 

And now the question is, "Does it really matter?".

 

Then he used 15 fingers, if it helps you with your creativity.


2, 3 sometimes.

How could you not play with 3 fingers if you played what he did!

 

Nothing he played fingerstyle requires more than 2 fingers.

 

(shhhhhhhhh)


(Come on JMX,,, people are EASSSSYYYYYY, gotta lay low,,,,, stay out of Tech fourm for a while,,,,keep things fresh,,,, peace out, lata, keep it real)


...............

Thanks, I was hoping someone would say that right after my post, but I want the guy to go,,"Wow, he's right,," then look at JMX's post and go "***?"..."AWESOME".

Indeed, cliff was the man.

 

I'm just watching Cliff 'em all right now because of the Cliff threads lately.

I used to love the guy and Metallica (I even wore a black band when he died!).
But legend makes him larger than he was alive.

 

What? Jaco? Huh?

 

you could play what cliff did with 2 fingers, but it's more strain and work for those 2 than if you used 3,4, or 15.

 

cliff used fingers in all his songs. mainly 2,3 but i swear in cliff em all he uses 4

 

It would be interesting to hear the bass line from that song without the other instruments. I always been curious to hear how fast he really plays it.

 

I'm pretty sure he only uses 2 fingers for all of his songs.

 

what looks like him using 4 is really his ring and pinky finger muting the strings as well as them moving while he uses his index and middle.

for fight fire with fire, you should match the guitars. you can play it with two but the riff pattern makes it super easy to use three.

 

I don't know if it is just me, but when I play that song, it sounds different depending on if I use 2 or 3 fingers. I actually ended up developing a certain style for that song and some others.

The only 'hard' part of the song that I see would be a problem for anyone, is the main riff. So what I do is :
-During the open notes on the E, I use 2 fingers and for every note thrown in that mix(I think its G, F# and F) I use a third finger(in this case ring).

As for a recording of just the bass, I'll see what I can do

EDIT: When I think about it.. with some of this Metallica songs, the bass is a bit buried, especially with the distortion. So honestly, when everybody wants to play at 16th notes on some of those riffs, you can play 8th notes and no one would be the wiser, might even be able to pick out the bass more in the song.

 

He uses 3 and 4 fingers in that song. I can use 3 and do it fine. Try 3.