Saturday, 19 March 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 tidy. It is incredibly difficult to play bass guitar with claws. Ensure you pare your fingernails before even picking up your instrument.

Discover your finger numbering. On bass guitar, your fretting fingers are numbered. One is the pointing finger. Two is the middle finger. Three is your ring finger. Four is your pinky.

Arm positioning. You want your arms to spread naturally at your sides. Try not to get into the habit of resting your elbow on your lap when you sit down. Also, ensure that there is no tension 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.

Hold your palm away from the bottom of the neck. Your hand should not meet the bottom of the neck. Instead, there should be a small pocket of air.

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

Learn to contrast and tighten up your tempo. This may possibly seem obvious, but it is harder than it seems. You must 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.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment