Beginners question

[Little Dragon]

Despite being very much middle aged, I am a new player. Whilst practicing, if I try to play faster, I find I strike much harder with my right hand and pinch tightly with my left. Are there any tips to stop this habit or is it, as I suspect, a case of just continuing with the metronome to almost the point of abstraction or is there a simple fix?

[Tonteee]

I'm not entirely certain I get what you mean, but it's quite a natural reaction to strike harder when playing faster when you're learning, because you're putting more effort in.

 You might need to loosen up a bit generally - if you try to use the minimum of effort, you can play faster as your hands will be less tense.  If you'e not wearing a strap, do - even if sitting down.  Your tension in your hands may be as a result of trying to use your arms to hang onto the bass.

 

I hope that helped.  Apologies if no!  I'm afriad I'm no tutor.  Someone better may be along shortly...

Edited November 15, 2017 by Tonteee

[Little Dragon]

Thanks. I do wear a strap. I mean I really dig in with my fingers on my right hand and pinch with the left.

 

[T-Bay]

It is just a matter of practice, you will get to the point you can relax and stuff that caused cramp due to digging in before will become easy. What I find now is that I really dig in when playing live (been playing 13 months, gigging 11months) so need to allow for that when doing the sound check. It’s best to relax as far as you can and let the amp do the work, but that said it’s fun to explore the tone in your fingers!

[Tonteee]

Totally.

If cramp is the issue, practice will sort that.

 

I remember in 1874, when I started playing, that I used to get terrible cramp playing the riff to We Gotta Get Outta This Place by The Animals.  I used to push myself to get trough the riff for the whole intro and verse.  It certainly taught me to loosen up my hand.  Funnily enough, I still use it now as a warm up.

 

All the best with your endeavours!

[dlloyd]

Right hand... make sure you have good technique in the first place... moveable anchor is a great place to start:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDzRqeS0ruQ

Build speed up with the metronome... you'll find you're not relying on strength to make your finger move faster.

Left hand... The thumb should not be squeezing the neck, just supporting it... try playing scales without the thumb touching the neck, just as an exercise.

[dlloyd]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRkSsapYYsA

For left hand technique

[Little Dragon]

Thanks. All being considered. Keep them coming!

 

[Frankieabbott]

 

 

Fretting hand....(you need to be playing through your amp for this). Just spend 10-20 minutes putting gradual fretting pressure with fretting hand and hear when notes play/sound cleanly. Start with no or very little pressure and add pressure until note sounds. This is all the fretting pressure you need...any more is wasting muscle energy and may cause fatigue and badly intonated notes. The thing is to be constantly aware of this (minimal fretting pressure) when playing. Unfortunately, when people start concentrating on what they are doing with their non fretting hand that the fretting technique goes pearshape and they start to overpress again.

[dlloyd]

Which brings up another point (can't remember if it's covered in the videos above)...

If your left hand fretting is inaccurate and you're stopping the string too far from the fret, there will be a natural tendency to use more pressure to avoid fret noise. 

[Geek99]

If I can offer one piece of advice here, its to play slower and with very deliberate control, making sure that you don't do it. That way you will unlearn the bad habit fairly quickly. Speed comes naturally, but playing better at a higher speed comes with control.... young Padawan. 

[bazzbass]

turn your amp up so it's too loud if you dig in. Now play fast. You'll soon train your muscles to play quickly and quietly

Edited December 27, 2017 by bazzbass

[Andrej]

On 24/11/2017 at 07:30, Geek99 said:

If I can offer one piece of advice here, its to play slower and with very deliberate control, making sure that you don't do it. That way you will unlearn the bad habit fairly quickly. Speed comes naturally, but playing better at a higher speed comes with control.... young Padawan. 

 

This.

Keep in mind that learning to play an instrument (or learning a martial art, to give you another example) is basically enhancing your brain/muscle connections, and learning to have better control over muscles you didn't use as much or with such precision. 

The thing with that is that when you resort to playing hard, you go back to your most instinctive movements instead of doing what you've learnt. Control is key. Once your hands/fingers become evenly stronger, you will be able to play faster without making any effort. 

Edited January 8, 2018 by Andrej