Thanks for the advice on the forum earlier this week on a Precision bass. I've now got it, and am trying to learn some basslines, coming from mostly playing electric guitar in the past.
This is a 4 string fretted bass, and ignoring pick / plectrum playing for the moment, for fingerstyle, alternating index and middle seems fairly standard? I've seen some stuff suggesting using mainly a rest stroke, and others 'free' stroke (in classical guitar language, I suppose). Any thoughts on this, or when to use these?
Also, when playing on say the bottom 3 strings, my natural inclination was to play with the thumb on the low E - is this a bad habit?
Thanks - I did consider whether to post in the 'technique' area, but as this is specific to bass, thought here may be better?
Comments
Thumb over fretting is valid for chording. I stole the Billy Sheehan Hipshot D-Tuner idea. With the bottom string dropped to D, the lowest three strings form a one-finger root-fifth-octave power chord.
Thumb, index and middle finger picking works for arpeggiated lines.
I like to practice at using just the middle finger. This helps for Geddy Lee impersonations. It also helps to get the middle finger picking strength more or less equal to that of the index finger.
But normally I just use the first two fingers - not necessarily alternating unless it's a very fast pattern, just whatever fits with the rhythm. No rules really.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Someone tried to teach me how to use thumb, index, middle and ring, but I didn't get the same even attack, so I went back to the above.
Depends how fast you need to play, as you can normally get away with just 2 fingers.
I really struggle with a pick/plectrum, as it wants to move around and I find it hard to get a good angle.
I struggle more to use a plectrum on bass, I think after guitar the gaps between the strings are all wrong!
My left hand is mostly thumb behind on bass and mostly thumb over on guitar, overall I play them quite differently. Although both quite simply...
And played some of the most memorable basslines ever.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein