Gary Willis: 3-finger stuff on YouTube

[Gruuve]

Here's a great set of clips which are apparently from a educational video that Gary did. I've started with #3 because he talks about his 3 finger technique for plucking and damping (a topic near and dear to my heart!). This guy is pretty amazing...lots to be learned from his techniques (quite difficult, but I don't see how you could get some of these exercises to sound the same way without the technique he uses.)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md8FCeqNrcM&mode=related&search=

 

Enjoy!

Dave

 

[Bottomgottem]

I saw these a few days ago. They are supposedly from the early 90's. Apparently, Willis posted the vids himself because he would hate for anyone to actually pay for them. He had a few issues with the director.

 

His hand postition and three finger technique are pretty amazing and difficult to master (for me, anyway).

 

 

[Michele C.]

For you lazy guys this is the playlist I collected wil all the videos in order. I love Youtube quicklists.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4E61DF2CD64A6A46

 

Hmmm. actually they are also neatly in order at the poster's page

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=wsplatinum

[wade_g]

Youtube quicklists are the bomb-diggity, especially when someone else sets them up for you.

 

 

[DavidMPires]

bump

[Gruuve]

This is a really interesting technique to me. I've pretty much got down 3 and 4 finger plucking, but I tend to do this on the same string, with moves to a different string rarely being mid-phrase. Gary does the multi-string stuff mid-phrase (ie. as part of the phrase), so there's lots to be learned here, for me at least.

 

I'm trying to work some things similar to Gary's techniques into my own playing, although a bit simpler than what Gary does. For instance, something that sounds pretty cool is to hold the root and third (major or minor, depending on the scale degree...can throw in some 4th's for color as well), and play one note on the root followed by two notes on the third. Do this using index on the root, middle and ring on the thirds. Doing it twice as 16th's and making it end on the "e" of 2 followed by a rest and some other gunkity gunk sounds pretty cool. This is a really simple riff, but there's nothing wrong with that...it sounds good and it gets your fingers doing some of the right things across two strings.

 

You can also hold a quasi-7th chord with your left hand (major or minor of course...something like E7 or Em7 as 7-6-7 or 7-5-7...root, third, and dom 7th) and use one finger per string to get your 3 fingers working over 3 strings. This is an easy partial chord to reach even on bass. Concentrate on muting or dampening each string between plucks so they don't all ring at the same time (similar to what Gary does), and this will sound pretty good.

 

HTH,

Dave

 

 

 

[theTragicRich]

Willis is the man, but he never smiles!! Great player and some of the best techniques are demonstrated by him. I'll probably never get to that level (just watching his videos make me cry) but watching him play in those clinic videos really puts his cd's in perspective for me. It's hard to visualize how he plays his bass lines, and where, on his solo albums, but man after watching those clinic vids...

[Mike Bear]

Ive been a huge fan of Gary Willis for a long time. I have that video. I consider it one of the most helpful videos I have gotten yet. Though, I've seen Gary say he was not to happy with it, I am. There's some cool performances as well.