Calluses

[Guest MoJo]

I consider myself a hobby bass player. I play 25-30 gigs a year in a pub rock/pop covers trio, rehearse 20-30 times a year for two hours a time and play my bass for 3 or 4 hours a week at home. I prefer a low action and play, for the most part, with a light touch. I’ve never, in my 30+ years of playing, formed calluses. 

This fact was never more apparent than at last night’s gig. I played the first set on my P-bass as usual, but for the second half, I thought I’d mix it up by playing the BB425 Yamaha I recently picked up. The tension on the Yamaha’s strings was considerably higher than the P-bass and three songs into the second set, I was feeling a significant amount of pain through my finger tips, so much so that it forced a very unprofessional hiatus while I swapped back to the P-bass. I’m going to order some lower tension strings for the 425 and see if that improves things. The musician in me is telling me to play through the discomfort but I’m too much of a wimp. 

Anyone else callus free with hands like a baby’s behind or is it just me?

Edited February 17, 2019 by MoJo

[40hz]

Been playing 16 years, rehearsing and gigging regularly and I also am callous free!

[leftybassman392]

Not so much calluses as hardened skin on all the fingers of my fretting hand. Had that for as long as I can remember. You'll probably find that most seasoned players have much the same.

I did occasionally get them on my picking hand after an energetic fingerstyle acoustic guitar gig though...

Edited February 17, 2019 by leftybassman392

[Cato]

The tips of my fingers on my left hand are like leather.

Weirdly the plucking fingers on my right hand are completely callous free despite 25+ years of finger style and some fairly intensive periods of playing slap.

It's never caused me any problems  though.

Edited February 17, 2019 by Cato

[Happy Jack]

Oh Good Grief!

Apostrophe (and Spelling) Police here.

Callous means hard-hearted and unsympathetic, and that may well be the case, but the word you are groping for is CALLUS.

[Guest MoJo]

17 minutes ago, Happy Jack said:

Oh Good Grief!

Apostrophe (and Spelling) Police here.

Callous means hard-hearted and unsympathetic, and that may well be the case, but the word you are groping for is CALLUS.

I wasn’t sure of the correct spelling, so I googled it and got this result

As it suggested callous was a variant spelling of callus, I assumed that the latter was probably the American spelling but if not, I stand corrected 👍🏻

[Maude]

I think Happy Jack was being a touch callus with his post 😉

[ahpook]

1 minute ago, Maude said:

I think Happy Jack was being a touch callus with his post 😉

Something got rubbed up the wrong way

[HazBeen]

No Happy Jack on my finger tips, but indeed very leathery. Never ever get blisters.

[Guest MoJo]

Original post and thread title corrected

[Maude]

I work with my hands anyway so they are fairly tough. I haven't ever had calluses as such but the ends of my fingers are quite thick. I play electric hands with a heavy touch and play doublebass, although this uses different parts of the plucking fingers. I do get sore fingers from time to time but it feels more like bruising. I never get blisters but if I get particularly enthusiastic the whole thickened pad on a plucking finger can kind of let go deep down in the finger, it the takes three or four weeks to grow out. 

[musicbassman]

47 minutes ago, Maude said:

I play electric hands with a heavy touch

Wow - there's a whole new instrument family there just waiting to be discovered   

[uk_lefty]

I think it's to do with the bass itself for me, and also strings. I thought it was output but I'm not so sure. With my Kramer fretless (a cheap passive low output bass) and with my old MIM Jazz I had to dig in like hell and end up with blistered fingers on a gig, the tips would harden after lots of rehearsal. But in the past I've had flatwounds on each bass and not had blisters or calluses.

With my MIJ Precision, Sire V7 and Musicman Stingray I don't get this at all. And I use roundwound strings on them. But I don't need to dig in because I get the tone and presence I want without needing to do that. The tips of my plucking fingers have a little hardness to them but not much. I've been playing the Stingray pretty much exclusively since the start of the year. I've done three gigs with it and not come close to blistered finger tips, even a very long function gig. 

[roonjuice]

I get calluses on the regular. Particularly on the right hand.  Could sand bricks smooth with them!

[josie]

Only thickened skin, but it's surprising how fast one loses it. A couple of years ago my left side was smashed up and I couldn't use my left arm for about three weeks. That was long enough that my fingertips went completely soft and the simplest of slides really hurt. I've developed the fidget-habit of rhythmically digging my thumbnails into my fingertips (on both hands) to keep them tough. 

So I thought they were in pretty good shape, but I tried my son's electric guitar this afternoon and the strings felt like cheese-wires. 

[Marvin]

I've never developed even hard skin on the finger tips of my 'plucking' hand. Even on my fretting hand though I only get slightly hardened finger tips.

I must play quite light and could probably get away with a lower action. I set my basses up acoustically and to have not rattles or buzzes when plucking the strings quite hard. Don't know why I do this 😳😊

[Linus27]

Big hard patches on my finger tips on both my fretting and plucking hand. They are more pronounced on my middle finger of my plucking hand, and little finger of my fretting hand.

[Deanol]

As a guitar player I have fingertips on my left hand like leather. No worries. Those bass strings are like wool to me!

As a serious tip, if you want to build up callouses on your fretting hand, tune an acoustic guitar down a whole tone (to D, G, C, F, A, D), then play it for a while until your fingertips feel comfortable. Then tune up a half-tone, and repeat. When you are okay with that, tune up to standard pitch and play. I can go from soft fingertips to hardened off enough to play confortably for a few hours in a fortnight or so.

Once you have those callouses, remember that if you play like Stevie-Ray Vaughan, with 13 guage strings on your strat, at some point one of your callouses will fall off. Ignore the resulting blood and simply reattach - like SRV did between songs! - using superglue. It was used in Vietnam for combat medics to close up wounds temporarily until the wounded soldier could be taken to a hospital.

Edited February 19, 2019 by Deanol

[Norris]

I tend to only get calluses on my fretting hand. They do seem to get more prominent when I haven't played for a couple of weeks, so haven't been worn down. In fact my little finger is now feeling slightly tender 5 days after my last gig.

[HengistPod]

I'm lazy and short of time what with kids needing ferried around to football, older parents, lights needing programmed, and stuff, so nowadays I don't tend to pick up a bass between rehearsals/gigs unless I have new tunes to learn - slightly hardened skin on my left-hand fingertips, but not that you'd notice without close inspection. I can leave a bass alone for some months and come back to it with no pain other than muscular in my forearms and thumbs, though I've not done that for a long time now.

[ChrisLovatt]

Weirdly enough I have barely any calluses on my fretting hand (mainly on the 1st and pinky) but my plucking fingers are very hard and tough on the tips, heavy technique in both fingerstyle and slapping I guess.

Hurt a fair bit when I started playing but they glide over the strings now.

[Guest MoJo]

On 17/02/2019 at 10:48, MoJo said:

......for the second half, I thought I’d mix it up by playing the BB425 Yamaha I recently picked up. The tension on the Yamaha’s strings was considerably higher than the P-bass......

As an update, I bought a set of Dunlop Superbright Stainless strings 40-120 and popped them on two nights ago. As I removed the strings that came on the bass, I measured them with my vernier. The results were a bit of an eye-opener

G =0.045", D = 0.065", A = 0.080", E = 0.100", B = 0.145"

What on earth is going on with that B string? I was expecting 0.125" or 0.130", but 0.145"? Needless to say, the lower tension construction of the Superbrights, coupled with their lighter gauges feels like I'm playing rubber bands now, not pleasant.