Consider this excerpt of little catchy riff from a band I'd rather not mention to avoid litigation. It's a repeating pattern that I have not notated correctly in terms of repeat marks (since it's not the whole riff), and I may have notated this one octave in the wrong direction (the first E is supposed to be the 7th fret of the A string) but you'll get the idea if you play it:



In the circled portion, would you play the A:

1) on the 7th fret of the D string? if so, how would you finger it to make the jump over one string to the E? Do I just jump my index finger on both the A and the E, or do I barre them to anticipate the E?

2) on the 12th fret of the A string with my pinky and jump down the the 7th fret?

Thanks. As you can see, I have not made much mechanical progress in two years, but I'm working on it...

I wouldn't shift.

I would play this with either 1 or 2 (depending on whether I decided to play the c# on the G string or pivot on the D string) and then I'd play the A and E with the same finger. This anticipation, formally called "bridging," is so common and necessary that in one of the editions of Simandl there is actually a bridging exercise.

This is one of the harder fingering jumps, but IMHO I would suggest you do as you mention in 1), i.e. hop from the D-string to the A-string with the same finger. Practice this across all 4 strings, up and down, it may never feel natural but your speed and precision will improve.

Davo

Oh Yeah. As shown, do the string cross, bridge or hop what ever works for you, at the 7th fret.

Played this comortably from a few spots. Starting at 7 on the A then grabbing the c# on the D seems to work best.

BUT The dedciding factor is the NEXT note.

Is this complete loop? Yer post sugests otherwise.

Dave Brown with the Simandl save!

I would definitely bridge/bar across.

Nanny sudent here. Same message.

You could also try the whole thing with your pinky on the 12th fret if you can manage to reach all the way over to the E string like that.

I agree with your example in 1.) Seems to me to be the best option, but I wouldnt bar it, I would jump, just to get that tone. But then again I'm young and stupid!

I'm just a weekend hack, but this looks pretty simple (in terms of range), being primarily a 1-octave E-major riff, with one teensy reach up to the 2nd above the top E.

While I've never had a lesson on bass, I too would use the "barre" approach. Even some very simple riffs don't have that nice "legatto" (smooth/connected) sound without the "barre".

I now await the wrath of professional bassists and surgeons everywhere!

Updated: If you've got the octave wrong, it may be that the lowest E is actually the open-E string, which would simplify matters. Or not...

I wish I could read standard notation. And before anybody says its not to late to learn, well Im blind.

Of course that a blatent lie else I wouldnt have been abl to read this post

I start with my second finger on the E. this allows me to pull my index finger up to play last E after jumping from the A.IM going to assume the repeat happens and the E is tied again. If htis is so i would slide my second finger in place of the first finger during the tie (you can do this without creating extra sound) and get my finger ready for the c#.
Or you can play the A with your 3rd finger. If you playing on an upright please feel free to laugh at that, but if its electric then it should be simple enough.
or you caould barre it !!
good luck
jonathan

Thanks, all. I finally found some archive footage, and he does it with the jump. It's a logical "break" point anyway.

My tendency was to do it a la #2, but it didn't feel right.

Thanks again.

That's the proper notation for bass. Those same pitches written for tuba (or piano) would be written an octave down.