5 posts
Switching from guitar to bass, most of your fingerboard knowledge, chord knowledge, and ear carry straight over. What does not carry over is the job itself. Bass supports the song and locks with the drums instead of fronting it, and that shift in role is the real work.
I look at technique as simply the process of getting the music you hear in your head out through your hands onto the instrument. You only need enough technique to play what you hear. In this lesson I walk through the left-hand default position, the most relaxed place your hand can sit, and how to practice from there.
Fast, complex bass playing comes down to efficient left-hand motion. Outside of a few stretches in the lower positions, the hand should move the same way playing fast as it does playing slow. Practice the line slowly out of time, weed out excess movement, then put it in time, and you'll like what you end up with.
The quality of your bass playing comes down to the choices you make for your right- and left-hand technique. For right-hand form, I think the floating thumb used with a 2-, 3-, or 4-finger picking technique works the best, since one basic position keeps the hand relaxed across all strings while muting the lower strings you aren't playing.
When it comes to picking technique, efficiency matters, and excess motion is wasted energy. When I started using a pick, I liked to rest the heel of my picking hand on the bass for support, but letting the hand float over the strings opens up faster, more flexible picking across multiple strings once the new form becomes comfortable.
Online bass lessons via Zoom for students of any level. Reach out to talk through your goals.
