First, you don't have to utilize all these techniques. Use the ones that you're comfortable with. Maybe expand your skill a little at a time. Don't worry if you don't get all of this at first. Come back to it between lessons or between days. Or add a second session later in the day or at night each day just for fingering techniques (both fretting hand and string striking hand). The following techniques are pretty advanced. You may even decide to dispense with them for now (that's okay) and stick with simpler ways of striking the strings like using picks or just plucking with your first two fingers (1, 2) which is what a lot of bassists do (try 1, 2 and 3, see below; it'll increase your speed). But just know that these techniques (patterned string striking, arpeggios, chords) are available. You can come back to them anytime.
There are many ways to make a bass string vibrate. Plucking. Picking. Hammering. Tapping. Slapping. Popping. Even bowing for the quirkily adventurous. Except for slapping, popping and bowing each of these has been touched upon in this booklet in one way or another. What are some of these techniques?
Picking is self-explanatory. Take a pick and pick the string. Up stroke or down. Pick hard or pick softly. Move your pick in small circles while picking. In one circular direction or the other. End of story.
Hammering is described in the 'Fingering Techniques' section in the Appendix. Very useful. You ought to use it.
Tapping also. Not as broadly useful as hammering but it has its value, too.
Slapping. Smacking a string down against the fret usually with the side of your striking thumb as you play all or just some notes. Very percussive and usually rhythmic or repetitive.
Popping. Hooking a plucking finger slightly underneath a string, pulling it sharply upwards almost perpendicular to the fret board and releasing it to bounce it back against the fret board. Slapping and popping techniques are often used together in an alternating fashion.
But plucking! Now here's a string vibrating technique that has many possibilities. Flick the string with a finger tip moving upwards more or less parallel to the surface of the fret board and you've plucked it. How about plucking it with a down stroke? Puzzling? Well, yes. Maybe strictly speaking, that isn't a pluck. But since I'm talking about the use of your fingers to strike the strings then a down stroke can loosely come under the heading of plucking. Just flick the tip of a finger downwards over a string in a reversal of the motion of an upwards pluck. The first part of the finger tip to strike the string is the fingernail, then very quickly the fleshy part of the finger tip follows. This reverse pluck or flick needs a lot of practice especially if you're going to use it in combination with the pluck or picking. Become facile with all of these string striking techniques. They each create a unique sound and expand your string striking repertoire.
It almost goes without saying that you can also use your thumb to pluck in both ways.
And of course in this section you'll learn to use all of your four striking fingers as well as your thumb.
A good way to learn to do this is to use patterned string striking much as a classical guitarist would use his thumb and first three fingers (discarding the use of the pinky - for reasons of efficacy of finger usage within harmony structures that are full but not redundant - never-the-less, completely crazy to my way of thinking! Why not chop off your pinky if you don't use it? It's just dead mass and weight and it probably slows your hand down. Not using your pinky on a guitar or bass, especially since the bass is electrically amplified and needs little force displayed on the strings to sound as loud as you want it to, is like . . . I don't know what. Just nuts to me.) Get into the habit of freely using your thumb and all four of your other fingers.
What is patterned string striking? Vibrating the strings by alternating each of your thumb and four other fingers in repetitive plucking patterns. If you become adept at flat picking you can do this with a pick, too, but in favor of the purpose of teaching you how to use your other fingers on your striking hand I won't talk much about flat picking. That's a whole other world of techniques although many of the ideas in both camps (pluckers versus flat pickers) overlap. Pick up a book on bass flat picking if you want. The idea that I present here is fairly simple: train yourself to pluck as well as pick notes in lots of different ways. In fact what you'll learn in this section about plucking notes can easily be applied to picking them.
To continue - regarding plucking - for example on the top of a table drum your fingers in this sequence: thumb, first finger, second finger, third finger or ring finger, pinky. I'll call these T, 1, 2, 3, and 4. Repeat that pattern ten or twenty times. Then try other sequences like: T, 3, 2, 1, 4; T, 3, 2, 1, T, 4; T, 3, 1, 2, 4; T, 1, 3, 2, 4; T, 1, 2, T, 1, 2; T, 3, 4, T, 3, 4. Try leaving out a finger: T,1,3,4,T,2,3,4. There are a great many useful patterns but the point is to free your fingers from their usual programmed movements - which are usually in combinations with each other. Learn to move each of your fingers on your striking hand completely independently of each other and in free wheeling patterned finger combinations which are controlled by your mind only, no longer restricted by the ways in which you've learned to move your fingers throughout your life. By free wheeling patterned finger combinations I mean that both the choices of sequences of plucks as well as choices of fingers that you use to execute those plucks, can change.
Of course at some point you have to move your fingers from the table top to your bass. And you can't just strike the strings randomly. So how do you do that?
Well, one way is to create approximate assignments for each of your thumb and other four fingers to each of the strings with some overlap permissible. For example, you can assign T to the E and A string, 1 to the A string and sometimes the E string, too, 2 to the D string and sometimes the A string, too, 3 to the G string and 4 as a free striking finger. You might want to experiment with these assignments in order to find ones with which you feel you can work best.
This all seems incredibly complicated and it is. But it's easily surmountable by learning a few patterns of string strikes and the idea of assignments, the habit of playing notes on certain strings with certain (specified) fingers. Now, try actually playing on your bass some of the table top patterns I mentioned above, along with the finger-string assignments I described.
But what should I play? Play the notes of chords you just learned in the second section on chords, Lesson V.
Play loosely. Don't get uptight trying to force your fingers into strict adherence to patterns and the assignments that you chose. Remember? I said, above, that some overlap is permissible? Well, overlap of assignments of fingers to strings is permissible and so, too, is overlap of patterns, or, better put, patterned finger strikes don't have to be perfectly repetitive - they can vary. You have a lot of freedom here. Keep in mind what you're trying to accomplish: mental control over individual fingers so you can use any (mentally) specified fingers to strike almost any notes or tones.
Why bother to learn this? Speed. And additional tonal variety. Also, greater flexibility in string striking over the more simple picking method.
Of course, play these in some sort of count of your own devising.
An easy way to enable yourself to apply the plucking patterns is to visualize the full chord (from the lists of chords in Lesson V or just the ones you know already) as it would appear on more than two strings. Or actually fret the chord as a guitar player would and then apply the plucking pattern(s) with your other hand to the fretted positions in the chords. When using this chordal approach you ought to insure that individual notes are played without overlap into the duration (time-space) of the next note by lightly muting each note after you've plucked it, just before you pluck the next note. This sounds difficult but it comes fairly naturally. Using a simple C, E, G (C major triad) chord you would usually play the C, E and G notes in a non patterned succession, fretting each note individually with the fingers of your fretting hand and then picking or plucking each note as you fret it.
In using a patterned plucking technique it is easier to apply the pattern if you play the C, E and G on separate strings. First using the assignments, then you could find several useful plucking patterns. As an illustration:
~~~~~ no open strings ~~~~~
Now it's also easier to add connecting notes in the scale by fretting them with a free finger. Maybe use a Hammer-on and/or Trill technique to play them.
Try these plucking patterns as examples:
C E G ~~~~~ C E G E ~~~~~ C G E G ~~~~~ C E C G
T 1 2~~~~~~T 1 2 1 ~~~~~~T 2 1 2~~~~~~T 1 T 2
C G C E ~~~~~ Double C E G EG ~~~~~ C E G(high G) EG
T 2 T 1 ~~~~~~ Stops T T T 12 ~~~~~~T 1 2~~~~~34
C E G G - A - G ~~~~~ Hammer-on and/or Trill the A note (see definitions).
T 1 2 3
~~~ and
~~~~ 4
Note: when playing a song when you are not copying the bass part from a CD or cassette, when you are actually creating your own bass part, you must study the chord progression(s) of the song prior to creating the bass part. Analyze how you could create the chord-based bass note sequences (what positions, any inversions? what location(s) on the neck? . .) and how you would connect them (what connecting notes, if any). What choices and durations of notes best fit the rhythm? Then experiment with your ideas and see if you can improve the playability, the applications of your ideas to the fret board. If you have input into the choices of chords maybe you can find a better location for that third or fourth chord so its notes fit more easily into the flow of the notes of the chords before and after it. Maybe you can contribute a new or more complex chord. This is getting into composing. Maybe some of the notes in one chord are the same as some of the notes in another - maybe you only have to change one note to get a different chord. How can this fit into the flow of things? Maybe this maybe that. Now you can begin to bring all your knowledge into play.
Try some other major keys. Maybe G and E and D.
Those are some advanced ideas about patterned striking techniques and chords. What do I mean by arpeggiation?
Definition: arpeggio: striking the notes of a chord in quick succession.
How quick? Within the rhythm. On the beats (quarter notes) or at twice that rate or tempo or maybe even four times that rate or tempo. These would be eighth notes or sixteenth notes, notes played more quickly and much more quickly.
Definition: tempo: time, or measure.
Play all of these fingering exercises in counts or rhythms (of your own choosing).
On the bass, what's an arpeggio? It would be playing the notes of a chord, say a C major chord, C, E, G, in succession. Maybe you'd use T for the C note, 2 for the E note and 1 for the G note even if the E and G notes are on the same string. You could also play the notes ( and use the fingers, T, 1 and 2 ) in different sequences, as above,
G, E, C ~~~ or ~~~ E, C, G ~~~ or ~~~ E, G, C.
2, 1, T ~~~ or~~~~1, T, 3 ~~~ or~~~~1, 2, 1
But of course then they would no longer be arpeggios.
Or would they? Or you could use chord structures on three (or even four) strings to play arpeggios. This is where a very short scale bass comes in handy ! If you've gotten this far, find that you like playing bass, are interested particularly in this section about patterned plucking techniques and have some extra money you want to invest in music gear (definition: GAS: gear acquisition syndrome - a psychological and humorous oddity which results in a compulsion to accumulate ever greater amounts of musical gear), buy a very short scale bass, with a scale equal to or less than less than twenty five inches, so it's easy to span four frets with your fretting fingers when you're fretting chords in order to play bass lines and counterpoint double stops and arpeggios.
Try repeating all of the above using minor chords! A minor. D minor. G minor. F minor. E minor.
Add complications: play extended and altered chords (play the arpeggios first) with four or five notes in them. Then, getting away from arpeggios again, play differing choices of sequences of notes for each chord using different T, 1, 2, 3, 4 striking patterns. Alternate.
You're going to have to reread the above material, probably several times. Also reread the second paragraph of the section titled, "My Specific Advice for Learning this Material," on page twelve or thirteen in the Introductory Pages of this manual.
I'm further asking you to use some of your creativity here. Please take all the above ideas as well as ideas from earlier days and begin to combine them. Play different arpeggios - see the listings of chords in Lesson V. Begin to create other patterned string strikes. Use plucking, reverse plucking or even simple picking with a pick.
Move around by playing in different keys. Create different chord progressions and play the arpeggios in each of the chords in each of the progressions (groups of related chords).
Since this is an advanced section more of the creativity must come from you. You would like to be a musician wouldn't you? Even if your interest turns into a hobby instead of a working profession which earns you money, one definition of a musician is being an artist and artists' stock in trade is creativity. So please involve yourself in being creative at this point.
Other observations and double stops. Much of the time you're going to be alternating the strikes of your fingers within a rhythm and moving your striking hand around both horizontally and a bit vertically for tone variations, so not all of your fingers are going to be striking individual strings at the same time.
In fact most of the time only one finger will strike a string at a time unless you're actually playing double stops (remember double stops?), two notes at the same time, usually two notes of a chord or even on rare occasions, triple stops, or triads, three notes at the same time.
Good places to use two notes at the same time would be between downbeat strikes as counterpoint sounds or even counterpoint percussive sounds (muted tones) to the main supporting bass notes (which could be coordinated with the drummer's kick drum).
Definition: counterpoint: point against point, that is, note against note. Adding one or more parts to a given part. The art of combining melodies.
Try this double stop: C, EG using T for the C note and striking (plucking or reverse plucking) the E and G notes simultaneously using 1 and 2. You would have to play the E and G notes on separate strings and, in the low C location, an open G string.
Try this: play the individual notes C, E, G (inverted E and inverted G) twice at the lower C note location (3rd fret, A string). Drop in the F note every second repetition (C, E, F, G). Use T to pluck all the notes and fretting 2 on the C, F and G notes. Then slide your fretting hand finger (2) up from the note, G (3rd fret, E string), to the note, C, on the 8th fret, E string. Play the double stop, CE, using your 1st fretting finger on the E note, 7th fret, A string, and your 2nd fretting finger on the C note, 8th fret, E string, and use plucking fingers 1 and 2. Then go back down to the open E string and play the individual notes E and G (with T and T) and then repeat.
Next, play C, EG in the lower frets, inverted E, inverted G.
~~plucking 1, 23 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ plucking T, plucking T
~~fretting~2, 10 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~fretting 0, fretting 2
Now, mix them all up, playing each mini bass line (or harmonic variation) twice or four times. Get a rhythm going. Then throw in some vibratos on individual notes and on the high double stop.
Note: if you strummed the three notes C, E, G like a guitar player you would play a chord, a C chord. Do you hear how muddy or undefined a chord sounds when played on the bass? Double stops sound more clear and they imply the full chord sonically/aurally with their harmonics.
This is only one simple example of how to use double stops. Your only limits are your imagination!
Definition: strum: to strike all of the notes in one stroke, one motion. On a bass or guitar in a single downwards or single upwards motion. If plucking, as on a bass or classical guitar, to pluck all of the notes using separate fingers simultaneously.
. . . or , another similar double stop in the lower frets would be to invert only the G note in the lower C location and play the double stop by relocating your 2nd fretting finger (2) to the G note, 3rd fret, E string and 1st fretting finger (1) to the E note, 2nd fret, D string.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ C, E, EG (lowG), C, E, F, EG.
Set up a repetitive plucking~~~~~~~1, 2, T3 ~~~~ 1, 2, T, T3
~~~~~~~~~ fretting~~~~~~~2, 1, 12 ~~~~ 2, 1, 1, 12
rhythm and do this ten or twenty times. Create some variations of your own.
On higher strings as well as higher up on the neck, don't always use striking T, 1 and 2; instead use striking 1, 2 and 3 for the plucks - and as for fretting, for example, the double stop EG at highest C, 10th fret, D string, use fretting 3 for the high C note, 2 for the inverted G note, 10th fret, A string (below the high C tonic), and 1 for the E note, 9th fret, G string (above the high C tonic). Use striking 2 for the high C note and 1 and 3 for the high EG double stop notes. Use T for the C note on the 8th fret, E string. Bounce around between the two C notes which are octaves of each other and the high double stop, ie.: C(lower), EG, C(higher), EG.
Make up some sort of bass line using a chromatic run like C, E, F, F#, G, connecting with the double stop, CE, and back down using all or some of the notes in the chords, F, Em, Dm, and back to C major. Can you discover how F, Em, Dm and then C major can be fretted with the 1st and 3rd fingers of your fretting hand? These would be called 'Power Chords' if played by a guitar player - 1st, 5th and octave positions, leaving out the 3rd. For these chord-based bass note sequences (the 'Power Chords') try out different patterned string strikes (plucks) with your plucking fingers.
Of course play all of these many times. And try moving them around the fret board into other keys like D and G. Try to play variations in each of these keys in both a low string location and a high string location. Use inversions wherever you can. Use vibrato and slides.
Try other keys. A. G. Maybe Bb. D. E.
Try to replicate all of the above ideas using minor chords! A minor. D minor. G minor. F minor. E minor. This is fairly important. Try using minor pentatonic notes or scales as substitutes for the notes in the minor chords.
If you can play most of the above, slowly at first, until you don't make any mistakes, then more quickly until you can play in a rhythm (of your own choosing), you're doing very, v~e~r~y well!!
This section is by no means extensive. It is merely an introduction to ideas about patterned string striking. If it catches your fancy, I recommend that you read music literature which describes the basics of classical guitar and/or Travis picking for the acoustic guitar. Travis picking is a more restricted type of patterned plucking (or picking). Stop at a music store and ask for a booklet on either or both. Probably available via mail order, too.
Phrasing is literally the relationship between the durations of notes and the spaces or rests between them. Phrasing can be understood as your choices of durations and placements of notes within the rhythms which also might be augmented with (choices of) techniques applied at different times (see Appendix, "Fingering Techniques").
Definition: rhythm: cadence.
Definition: cadence: the repetitive rise and fall of sound. The repetitive emphasis of one sound among several.
Phrasing is a matter of style, your personal sense of style combined with the style of the genre of music that you're playing. Effects can be useful, too.
Definition: style: manners of performing an action, in music the action would be the playing of an instrument or vocalizing.
Definition: musical genre: musical kind, type, group, class. For example: some musical genres are: Rock, Jazz, Country, Classical, Funk, R & B, Hip Hop, Reggae, Dub, Drums & Bass, Bluegrass, etc. . . .
When playing bass one sometimes gets the opportunity to 'solo' or play a featured part. Soloing can be seen as the playing of a variation of the melody. Soloing also uses phrasing. What makes it different from your usual phrasing when your playing is mostly part of the rhythm section is that your solo playing is made to stand out in one way or another. When soloing, your part stands out or is featured. Perhaps the rest of the band 'lays back' a bit in the intensities of their playing. Maybe you turn your volume up or everyone else plays more softly which allows your part to be heard more easily. Your solo playing might also be seen as extra notes added on top of or interspersed between the rhythmic notes that you're playing which maintain the rhythm of the song and also coordinate with the drummer's playing especially his or her kick drum. On bass, a solo must still maintain the rhythm of the song so your bass solos ought to be at once a combination of the main rhythmic bass notes as played in the other parts of the song (they could be simplified a bit in order to gain some extra 'space' for your extra solo notes) as well as some counterpoint melody which is added to the existing bass structure that you're playing. The best bass solos will do this while using counterpoint which more or less agrees with or adheres to either: a melody similar to the main melody of the song or a variation on the actual notes of that main melody or the spirit of that main melody. I leave the word,' spirit,' to be interpreted in this musical context entirely by you. On second thought, I question you: what is musical spirit? What is the spirit of music? How can you create it musically? How can you communicate it? Are techniques useful?
All in all, soloing is extra creative expression on your part, utilizing counterpoint and perhaps adding embellishments or filling in spaces with notes that reflect the melody or a variation on the melody. As with phrasing, the uses of Fingering Techniques and dynamics such as loudness, softness and the placements of emphases can compliment your solos and add drama.
It is particularly appropriate that these brief descriptions of phrasing and solos are included in this section on patterned string striking because the use of multiple striking fingers can aid you greatly with both.
Definition: solo: alone. A composition or a passage for a single performer with or without an accompaniment.
Definition: passage: a portion of a piece of music.
Definition: piece: a single article; an artistic composition.
Definition: dynamics: relating to the various degrees of loudness in musical sounds.
Definition: drama: a series of deeply interesting (important) events; vivid, striking, often with an element of unexpectedness. This is incredibly important. You would do well to deepen your understanding of musical elements which create drama. Repeat that last sentence to yourself.
Definition: variation: a transformation of a melody by melodic, harmonic, contrapuntal and/or rhythmic changes.
Definition: contrapuntal: counterpoint - point against point, that is, note against note. Adding one or more parts to a given part. The art of combining melodies.
Definition: embellishment: act of adorning; decoration. From French, meaning beautiful. To embellish: to make beautiful with ornaments.
Definition: ornament: anything that adds grace or beauty.
Some techniques that you can use to create embellishments or ornaments are: trills, vibrato and slides (see 'Fingering Techniques' in the Appendix).
A simple example of an embellishment is: play the notes C, E, G, E anywhere on the fret board several times, one note per one tap of your foot; on one of those sequences when you play the E note, having fretted it with your first fretting finger, quickly hammer on and pull off the F note several times with your second fretting finger and then continue in the rhythm with the rest of the sequence, G, back down, E, C, E, G, E . . . That little ornament was a simple embellishment, a simple trill.
Try the same sequence using a vibrato at the E note. Try using vibrato on some other notes in the sequence. Try combinations of a vibrato and a trill on different notes.
Try a quick slide up to the C note from B or Bb.
Try all sorts of mixups of these fingering techniques using the simple C, E, G, E note sequence. It's overkill but good practice. Play some other note sequences of your own choosing elsewhere on the fret board while using these embellishments. Try inventing some others.
Where should you put them? Anywhere they have room to fit. Go crazy!
Try including embellishments here and there in your normal playing.
Back to the main pages of this booklet, now, Lesson VI, modes.
One more thing: don't you find that interpreting all of these descriptions of where notes are played, for example, the X note on the Y fret of the E, A, D or G string, is sometimes frustrating or irritating? Well, it's true. It is. For me, too. You can spend more time trying to understand the descriptions than you do playing the exercises after you've figured out what they are trying to tell you! That's because it's so much more complicated to write out this info in this descriptive form than it is to just write and read music - the notes - on a staff. It would be so much easier to just look at a C note written on the staff. Why don't you learn how to do that? It won't take you any longer than an hour or so to learn the basics and at the more advanced level that you've now reached it would make your musical life easier in the future especially when you start to read bass music literature like "Bass Player" magazine which often has articles that contain bass musical notation as examples of the ideas discussed in the prose.
Buy a musical notation primer which describes and explains the musical symbols used in writing music for the bass. This can be found at any music store or by mail order or in publications like the 'Condensed Pocket Dictionary of Musical Terms', see page one of this booklet and then the Appendix.
All of the above symbols are used in writing and reading music. Don't be intimidated by them because there are so many. You'll get used to them one at a time over a period of months if you decide to learn to read music and buy a music notation primer at your local music store.
Time signature - four quarter notes per measure: 4 / 4
The above are the absolute basics: quarter notes, a whole note, bass clef symbol, time signature and what the names of the notes are on the fret board of your four string bass (you could consider these notes as written in the key of C or its relative minor key, A minor, because the staff displays no sharps or flats). This is the absolute minimum you need to know in order to play, say, the bass lines written in music notation which might be included in articles that appear in contemporary and common music literature. You can add to your knowledge of musical symbols as needed on an ongoing basis if you have a Musical Notation Primer.