I'm finding that i can not play 1/8 notes or slow 1/16 notes with two fingers consistantly. So, i now use my middle finger for slow - mid tempo, using the first finger to add necessary strokes of quicker timing or when doing an arpeggio as part of the bass line. I'm finding this to be a natural transition. I am also incorporating picking into my practice. I seem to pick consistantly well.

Being that this is a hobby, not a profession, i'm not going to worry about becomming an accomplished pro. In order to enjoy myself and make progress i just have to employ what works best for me. Because of this technique i find i also use the amp by cheating with hammer-ons for "in-betweeners". All i can say is, many years ago i went to a B.O.C. concert and was flabbergasted to watch lead guitarist Donald Rosier play all his licks with his first and third finger, hammer-ons/offs, and downstroke picking every now and then. Guess he doesn't play acoustic too often, but i don't think anybody could say he isn't one of the better sounding Rock guitarists of the 70s.

I'm making my excuses now expecting to hear, "that's wrong", or "you'll never be good", etc. posts.

Oh, and there is a simple riff that i have always had difficulty playing on bass with fingers or pick no matter how many times i practice it. It's a coordination thing. Now i use hammer-ons and i can do it first try.

Hey, thats wrong and you'll never be any good . If you research, you'll find that for every "correct method" player out there, there is an
incorrect player who has just as much impact in music, so don't worry about and experiment with what works for you. Not to long ago, slapping and popping where "wrong" and bass players who atempted it were burned at the stake (I believe this is still true in traditional country and blues circles). Have fun and invent a new method all your own (pick taped to elbow, etc.) and we'll call it the plastic method.

Well, you said the technique was born out of necessity. Well I imagine that's how most techniques are formed. When practicing, I am always very proper, alternating 1st and 2nd fingers and so on. When I'm on stage playing a gig, however, I find myself using any means necessary to play what I need to. My main gig is in a blues/rb bar band playing the usual standards but we improvise alot, doing instantaneous medleys, playing at way too fast tempos, throwing out weird rhythms, etc... anything to make it interesting. You can only play "Mustang Sally" so many times. If the drunken crowds didn't love it so much we wouldn't play it, but that's another story. Anyway, I find myself incorporating hammer-ons where I don't usually, and using my thumb alot. I use my thumb and first two fingers in a kind of modified banjo-style where I strike the E with the thumb and A with the first and D and G with the second finger. I also use my thumb and first figure to play 16th note octave figures. I hold the thumb and finger in a "U" shape and rotate my wrist to strike the notes (used on the "Mustang Sally" V-IV part!!!)

Remember, necessity is the Mother of Invention... or is that Zappa?!?!

Plastic Nut,

Funny how necessity works. I'm not a bass pro either, and I've been working on more hammer-ons myself. (Maybe because I like the easier speed?) But yeah, my middle finger is doing a lot more work too. I like the fatter sound it imparts, and besides, I'm always jamming the knuckle on my index finger cleaning things or being careless. When that happens, that index finger needs a rest. Meantime, my middle will do a lot of traveling...

Qualtiy comes from necessity,
You would be supprised on what you can come up with method wise when you have a drummer that is so appalingly stupid as to "invent" new time signatures in the middle of a song without any forethought.
That brings to mind a joke:
Q: How do you know when a drummer is knocking on your door?
A: The knock keeps speeding up

badfish,

HILARIOUS!

I got enough trouble with a drum machine, to say nothing of what you're talking about.

Now hang on there...a drum machine is a whole 'nother thing. Playing well with a drummer is apples, and playing well with a drum machine is oranges.

No visual cues, no inflection, and a rigid adherence to perfect time regardless of what is called for in a song are the trademarks of a drum machine.

A real drummer is such a different thing, this is an apples and oranges comparison...

- Christian
Budapest, Hungary

xtian,

I wasn't comparing, only acknowledging some excellent humor -- and tying that in with my own troubles with time against a machine that keeps an unwavering tempo.

When I was very young I took piano lessons for five years. Scales. Arpeggios. Proper fingering. Technical exercises. It was good stuff, and formed the basis for the concert pianist that I never became because I was so damned bored that I quit piano.

In my teens, I bought a used bass and amp and started playing. In the spirit of the times (late 60s) I never worried about technique - went out and started gigging. It was all about the music, and the band, and the counter-culture, not about being a bass whiz. 30 years later, that's still my approach, although I am finally learning to read music all over again.

When one reads Bass Player magazine - which I subscribe to and read and enjoy - if you are not careful you can get the idea that there is only one "proper" approach to playing bass: i.e. you should be young, want to be a pro, go to music school, sight-read music well, play a 5 or preferably a 6 string, spend a lot of time playing scales and arpeggios, take a gig whatever the type of music in order to make a living, learn the top 300 jazz standards, learn the top 3 dozen popular chord changes.

There is nothing wrong with this approach (it's the way jazz journeymen did things throughout the 30's and 40's and 50's), and I have a tremendous amount of respect for the very capable players who can do all these things (not the least our very own Ed). But it's not the only way.

Personally, I am old, definitely amateur, learned by dubbing around for decades, play mostly by ear, read poorly, play a 4, practice songs rather than arpeggios, gig sparsely, "play the music I love and love the music I play". I don't want to be a pro, I want to have fun. And I am!

Amen, Ben!

I'm having fun too. I liken my sight reading to what I could do reading English in the first grade: it is (was)...really...re-ally....slow. For me right now, my priorities with bass are: (1) keeping accurate time, (2) playing clean notes, (3) learning the fretboard so I can improvise more confidently (4) inventing bass lines for my piano songs.

I'm having a blast with it. And I love bass! I think that explains why some of my piano songs take me off the edge of the keyboard. As kid struggling to care about learning piano, I kept wanting to play the songs down an octave. It just sounded better to me. My teacher never bought it, though.

Being primarily a piano guy, one thing I've missed on the bass is knowing what each fret sounds like before I play the note. So as part of my practice routine, I'll go a little slower and mentally conjure up the pitch I expect to hear when I fret the note. That's helping a lot -- wish I'd thought of it sooner.

Who knows though; I probably read about that somewhere.

Ben,

Your story sounds so much like my own (I got bored with sax instead of piano). What you might acknowledge is that the bits of music theory that came out of formal learning was put to good use playing bass. Along with being part of a Christian theatre group, I play in (what my daughter refers to as) an "old man band". We play stuff we like from the 60s and 70s. Each year, we have a picnic at the guitar players house so we can play in front of an audience (admittedly a friendly one). We're in it for fun and the great feeling of making music.

Since I don't have a lot of time for personal practice, I've had to use whatever technique works easiest. Often this involves changing parts so I can sing and play at the same time. When we started doing "Brick House", I had to really study what was going on down low. I'm sure what I'm doing is not the best in technique, but it seems to cover the part...

Tom

Tom, you are absolutely right, the early classical music training did give me a good foundation for later bass playing. I take it so much for granted that I didn't even remember to make the connection it until you mentioned it.

<>

Ben,
I see your point, and it's true that most of my instructional writing tends to go in that direction. But think of it this way, do I (or anyone else) have to write a story telling people to approach things the other way? Most people will probably have done that on their own anyway. I think there is a lot of value in coming up "by the seat of your pants". It trains you in the instinct that bassists need. But there wouldn't be any point in writing an article telling people to "dub around for decades, play mostly by ear, read poorly..." Please understand that this is NOT a negative value judgement! Looking at what we do at BP though, you can see why the instructional stuff leads you in the other direction. In order to educate as well as entertain, we will focus on the skills people need to expand their possibilities. It is of course optional for anyone to follow or not.

On the other hand, there are always articles on players that take the non-intellectual approach, Fieldy, the guy from Tool, Adam Clayton, even Rocco Prestia, who while being a totally instinctual, non-educated player, has managed to inspire the greatest bassists in the world! With something as broad as BP, I think it's possible to look and see what you want. If you want to see only people telling you to play a 5 or 6 string, learn standards, read well, play scales and arpeggios, etc. You'll find it.
If you want to find people telling you "It doesn't matter what note you play, as long as the groove is phat!" (Fiedly) then you'll find that too!
Hey, something for everyone.


------------------
http://www.edfriedland.com

Ben, thanks for the post, it was very insightful.

I think BP, being that it is a high quality publication, has a responsibility to encourage bass players to strive to be the best. As ED said, artist articles can deal with individual's preferences about technique or theory.

So many people consider playing music a hobby... and because of time constraints, and commitments they take a "lighter" approach to learning to get maximum enjoyment in a minimum amount of time.

Well, I don't have much to say on this topic; I would actually like to be a highly trained player who plays completely instinctively LOL...

My own story is that after playing guitar righty for a number of years my left hand and arm sustained some nerve damage so that I ultimately had to switch to playing lefty. My left hand is pretty good but not 100% so I have often had to innovate. BTW, playing bass is helping that left hand like therapy, too...

Parenthetically: I'm happy to see I'm not the only "grizzled veteran" on this board! And Tom Capasso, I also play both in my church's worship band (it's why I started playing bass) and secularly. "Brick House"?! Praise the Lord and get up offa that thang! Now if somebody can e-mail me a transcription of the bass line to "What Is Hip?"....

Lol, Ed! Each year, for the April issue, Road and Track magazine tests something outrageous and presents it as a straight article. Sort of an April Fool tradition. One year they tested a locomotive, another year the Goodyear blimp. I can just imagine you doing your Bass Player column next April telling people to relax, have a few beers before playing, reading poorly is OK, stop worrying about fingerings...

Just to be clear, I intended no criticism whatever of the magazine, and I am the first to admit I would be a much better bass player if I had better skills and discipline.

What I sometimes wonder about, though, is how many young bass players want to emulate the astounding chops of someone like Victor Wooten vs. how many want to learn to be good musicians who happen to play bass.

Ben,
No criticism taken! You know, you got me thinkin' (I smell smoke) about April's issue. I never have done an April Fool's column, that should probably change. I don't know if I'd suggest having a few beers and relaxing, most people wouldn't get that joke (hey, it's NOT really a joke!), but something could be done in that spirit. Thanks for the idea.

In my own teaching I always emphasize the ethic of "strive for competency". There is a lot of super-hero-bass-god worship out there and while it's important to have heros, it can be crippling if you try to compare yourself to them. Better a player should choose being competent as a goal first, if there's any greatness within, it will come out once you've attained THAT!

------------------
http://www.edfriedland.com

Use as few as you can?

As few beers before the show?

I have been finger picking with my thumb and 1st and 2nd fingers. It happened by mistake. i was trying to nail a line and just found my fingers doing it by themselves. It has become a great tech. and I am doing it better then I ever imagined I could.