I want to share with you some simple concepts just about playing the
instrument whether you've been playing it for a while a few years or you just
picked it up there's a reason why you wanted to play the bass and it's because
you love it and you love that deep bass sound and you've also heard other bass
players that you really enjoy so first I just want to talk about creating a nice
sound on the instrument so just take your bass stand up and I just want you
to try playing your D string
play it a few times and now if you notice my finger is going directly into
the a string I'm pulling I'm going into the a string I'm not using too much
effort really just pulling it and letting it go same with the a-string
now is the e-string there's obviously no other string behind it so what I kind of
like to think of is a turning motion like you were turning a door or the key
to a car and just turn it and keep my thumb under the fingerboard turn it that
way so I can still get a nice big sound
now if I wasn't stopping if I wasn't going directly into the next string and
I was pulling outward not only am I using way too much energy because I
always say bass players we're not lazy but we have so much work to do
we're always playing in the band constantly planning behind everybody's
solos and all that we want to make it easier on ourselves so instead of
pulling away and out I have nothing to stop me from doing that and I can't
hardly play all night like this or even play an up-tempo song like that no way
I'm gonna fall over so just use the natural at your natural energy of your
whole entire arm you know from your shoulder down and use gravity let
gravity do all the work for you and just go right into the next string
and also I want you to notice my strength my think my index finger is
going into the next string I'm not lifting it up right after I'm not going
and again you can play however is comfortable to you as long as you're
using that gravity you can approach it from the side this way I'm using two
fingers the main point I want to get across is are you getting the the nice
sound that you want and if you would like to play a little bit softer that's
fine too as long as it's that's what you're
hearing in your head the goal I want you to achieve is that any sound that you
hear in your head that sounds good to you that you want you should be able to
get it on the bass so just a little bit about tone and sound production
obviously if the more my right hand slips up the fingerboard the softer that
sounds gonna get so you can mess around with that as well just so you know where
your sweet spot is as we like to say on every instrument it's different some
people you might see play almost even past the fretboard you don't have to do
that you don't have to play up here you play where the sound sounds really great
to you and for me on this instrument I kind of like this sound right here I'm
just at the edge of the fingerboard but you just play around with that just play
your open strings and then start to mess around if you're
if you're just picking up the instrument again the bass then you start to mess
around was having that strong left hand you know when one finger is down they're
all down so if my pinkies down all the fingers behind it are down and think
about having that nice sound again that nice big tone and again my right hand
gravity is doing the work for me in my left hand I'm really digging into the
string not to the point that it's painful but I'm really digging in and
all my fingers are in the position where they would be if I'm playing I'm playing
an F natural right now my first second and third finger are down we don't
really use our third finger in this position but if I were to play my second
finger it should be on a natural my first finger should be on e-flat so
that's another thing that's very helpful with your left hand you always want your
fingers to be in the position that they're that they're on top of if my
hand was scrunched up like this and I was playing F and I was playing I wanted
to play e-flat I'd have to shift my whole hand back and
kind of contort my arm a little bit we just want to make it easier on ourselves
like I said playing the bass we have so much to do already let's make it easier
and along those lines we also want to keep our fingers close to the
fingerboard as best as possible so I'm going to demonstrate this just by
playing an F major scale and I'm going to do it a little bit sloppily okay that
was super sloppy it was still like for the most part in tune but did you notice
how I shifted way too much took my hand off the fingerboard way too much
unnecessarily I took my hand off there I shifted there unnecessarily I collapsed
my hand which feels good at the moment but boy am I gonna get tired after a
while playing like this the more I shifted up my hand position scrunch and
then I get quite out of tune so I want you to think about keeping your fingers
close to the fingerboard keeping them almost like they're just floating over
the fingerboard
so I'm ready to play any note that I want in that position also you can get
pretty close to this with keeping your hands close to the fingerboard you might
slip up sometimes and lift your fingers too much and not have your fingers press
down I'm playing see natural and my first fingers up and my pinkies having
to do way too much work so practice your scales slowly in a mirror too so that
you can see what's going on also if all my fingers aren't pressed
down all the way when I'm playing with my pinky or my second finger I have a
great potential to start buzzing the string like this and the sound isn't
going to come out because I'm not firmly pressing down with all my fingers so if
that happens to you and you start to buzz and you're not sure why usually
it's your left hand and it's a really simple issue to fix you just have to
remember mmm I need to press my hand down so if you're having some of these
sort of complications while you're practicing I always find it useful say
I'm having an issue with buzzing and keeping my hand pressed down and maybe
keeping my right hand close to the fingerboard I'll have on my music stand
in front of me just a little note while I'm practicing my scales that says
strong left hand keep right hand lower just as a little bit of a reminder and
that's totally cool to have because what we want to have as a bass player is a
nice strong sound and to be completely clear
thanks for watching the lesson and I hope you enjoyed it if you want to learn
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