Thursday, March 3, 2011

Guitar - Bass Fretting

By Andy Ainsworth


Fretting is one of the key concepts behind learning clean bass techniques. If you just picked up the bass guitar, you should want to pick up the basics of decent fretting prior to everything else. What do you have to understand? Well here are some useful directions and information:

Keep your nails clipped and neat. It is more or less impossible to play bass guitar with claws. Ensure you pare your fingernails previous to picking up your instrument.

Discover your finger numbering. On bass guitar, your fretting fingers are numbered. One is the pointing finger. Two is the median finger. Three is your third finger. Four is your last finger.

Arm positioning. You want your arms to hang loose at your sides. Decide not to get into the Habit of resting your elbow on your lap when you sit down. Also, make sure that there is no tightness in the shoulders.

Cushion your wrist. As lots of musicians are subject to hand or wrist injuries, listen to your body if you experience aching. It is customary for your fingers to hurt and niggle at the outset, but you should in no way experience piercing or other types of stabbing pain in your wrists.

Have your palm away from the underside of the neck. Your hand should not contact the underside of the neck. Instead, there should be a tiny pocket of air.

Push softly. Always try to press with minimal pressure while still getting a fresh and brisk tone.

Learn to change and polish your tempo. This might appear logical, but it is harder than it seems. You have to know the contrast between, say, 40 beats per minute compared with 60 beats per minute.

And as a final point, remember to repeat, exercise and practice. Learning bass techniques can be time consuming, but eventually you will become familiar with your instrument.




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