Playing bass with more than 2 fingers

[Sharma]

Reet.

There must be someone here that can play Bass geetar with more than the standard 2 fingers (Don't give me no plectrum jibber jabber).

I've started implementing playing with 3 fingers which resulted in a massively sore ring finger that now has a huge blister on it, whoo!

Just curious if anyone has any tips or exercises I can use to possibly implement my pinkie finger so I can play with all 4 for a huge step up in speed!

Any tips/tricks?

Ta.

 

[Tilda]

Well i've never played the guitar, but my mum played the violin when she was younger, she used to get some blisters and said the best way was to just grin and bear it and play on it again as soon as you could and your finger would get used to it.

 

[Sharma]

Oh yeah I know that heh.

Not so much getting used to it, had enough malarky with my two main fingers.

Just rather exercises in order to become more fluent as such since I was just hammering it last night.

 

[old.Tohtori]

Anything more then a thumb used for plucking the sweet fat basswires is just wrong.

But, if we look at it from that style, you mean 4th finger *grin*

 

[Sharma]

Can already do finger picking but it's not really that useful for anything other than daft chord plucking (See Rammstein - Seeman).

 

[eksdee]

practise just keep doing it until the tips of your fingers get harder, then it won't hurt anymore

i still find a plectrum much nicer sounding in terms of both playing style and the sound it creates but that is a purely subjective thing. been playing bass for almost 12 years and i have always hated the finger-picked sound. slap bass also makes me want to curl up and die.

 

[Sharma]

Well what i'm needing really is arpeggio and runs that I can use to become more consistent with all 4 fingers as opposed to keeping in time but the rhythm of the sound being all over the place since I miss with a finger sometimes.

My fingers besides my pinkie and ring finger on my playing hand are all caliced up so they're fine.

I'm planning on buying a 6 string bass for fret wankery so I want to be able to do speed playing up and down scales (Bass shredding I guess you could say, just without a plectrum). But I need exercises in order to get a consistent sound instead of just sounding like i'm mashing it and hoping for the best.

My 2 finger playing it fine and I can keep up a consistent rhytmn but 3 and 4 fingers sounds a little bit rough and normal scale grinding doesn't seem to work as well!

 

[Mikah75]

you just have to wait for your fingers to heal then pracise again soon as they're fine repeating it, same with playing guitar i suppose, just have to keep it up until your fingers harden as eksdee says, even if they're callaused still they're not used to the string pressure only exercise really is to just practice heal practice heal

 

[Sharma]

I'm not on about finger pain though! I only started off saying my ring finger hurt because I owned the crap out of it yesterday lol.

It's not the pain nor anything like that.

It's getting a consistent rhythm and I have no idea hwere to start as far as triplet and quad playing is concerned!

 

[old.Tohtori]

Getting the rhythm down is best practiced by just "fingerswitching" and just playing a monotone sound with one string basically.

Once you get it to sound like "thumb plucking", you're got it nicely down.

Practice practice.

In simpler terms, pick a string, play "inxed, middle, ring, index, middle, ring"

When that sounds "good", start moving up and down on the strings. Then move to playing particular string with one finger each, like index for E, middle for A etc.

And then move on.

Oh and a nice "off-bass" trick, play guitar hero lefty-flip(if you're right handed).

 

[Sharma]

Rather good idea that, tar.


(Can't sodding rep, ffs )

 

[old.Tohtori]

Rather good idea that, tar.


(Can't sodding rep, ffs )

I doubt there's many who can honestly.

It's the thought that counts.

 

[Sharma]

Can't remember who the quotes from but he said "If it's the thought that counts I may as well shit in a box and give it to them".

Either way i'm going to be bloody hammering my bass for the next few weeks, gotta figure out how to do this riff from Hump De Bump.

 

[Jupiter]

So u gonna pluck or slap dat biatch?

 

[Chronictank]

So u gonna pluck or slap dat biatch?

it's sharma, he probably bend her over and force his way in
just because he Mc'can

 

[eksdee]

also, out of interest, do you have any recordings of you playing? are you in a band or anything? always interested to hear people's bass sounds as i'm such a nerd about mine

 

[Cerb]

i use thumb index and middle finger myself but i remeber when i first started i just used thumb and index....used the index so much i got a big blister so had to usr my midle so it just developed from there....... oh and serious :worthy: for plucking aswell

a little off topic i know but everytime it think of base it think of this song.....some excllent bass playing im determined to learn it even if it is old

YouTube - Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel- Make Me Smile Live [HQ]
[youtubevid]xfrRrPNu01w[/youtubevid]

 

[Sharma]

also, out of interest, do you have any recordings of you playing? are you in a band or anything? always interested to hear people's bass sounds as i'm such a nerd about mine

Will do once I get some recording done with my band at some point in the future.

Gonna be recording a song I wrote which i'm sure you'll recognise what it's about.

Tis a little embarassing but it's a decent song I think, I don't do anything massively special in my bands songs since there's no need for it generally but on my own I like farting about with random stuff!

My tone is a little weird it's a cross between Korn/Lacuna Coil and Flea!

 

[eksdee]

sounds horrible!

you can here my bass skillz here: What Price, Wonderland? on Virb.com

 

[Chronictank]

sounds horrible!

you can here my bass skillz here: What Price, Wonderland? on Virb.com

not my thing but reps for the post