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Playing The BassHolding the BassThere are three basic ways to hold the bass. Up high at chest level, waist level, and down around your knees. You will see slap bassists, jazz bassists and six string bassists position high on the body somewhere between the waist and chest. The up high position gives better leverage of the neck and its typically easier to play closer to the body of the bass. It also allows you to play slap with a thumbs up position, more about that later. Playing with the bass in the waist area can make it harder to play with a thumbs up position when playing slap although playing with a pick will feel more comfortable. This is a common position for rock and contemporary bassists. Down around your knees... well... you can really look cool this way and you can also play slap in a thumbs down position. Doing any complex tapping will be almost impossible to do. It really does look cool though... Right Hand TechniqueYou can use your fingers to pick the strings. You can use a guitar pick or slap and tap in a percussive fashion. All four styles of playing the bass are valid and no one is better than the other. They just have different feels and sounds. Use that as your basis for selecting a style for a song. When you finger pick, you will get a soft warm sound. This style is common for Rock, Blues, and Jazz. Make sure your finger nails are clipped short. Otherwise they will hit the strings when picking them with your fingers. This causes a clicking sound that will drive engineers crazy. Picking will give you a crisper brighter sound. Harmonics really chime when you use a pick. Some people think you can play faster licks and chops with a pick vs finger or slap, however I have found all three can be fast. It just depends on who is playing. Just don't get into the idea that "I need to use a pick to play fast!" Use the style that fits the song. Slap bass used to be a "Funk" thing, however, it has become very popular in Rock as well as other styles of music. Slap gives a much more percussive sound thus allowing you to be more rhythmic than with your fingers or pick. Taping is a relatively new style and puts the bass into more of a lead/rhythm roll. People like Stu Hamm and Jeff Berlin have really mastered this technique and if you want to learn it, get their videos which are excellent. I would advise that you wait until you have become proficient with the above styles before attempting this one. If you don't you can become very disappointed easily. It requires lots of practice to get it to sound good. New strings, a low action, a good bass, and a good amp, in that order will help improve how loud the notes ring out. Playing With Your FingersWhen playing with your fingers there are three ways to hold your right hand. You can float it, which means that you hold your hand off of the bass and the only things on your right hand that touches the bass are your finger tips. This is difficult to maintain, however, you will probably do this periodically naturally. You can anchor the base of, or the right side of your palm on the body of the bass, the strings or the bridge. Doing this makes it a little difficult to play unless you are trying to mute one or more of the strings by placing the palm on the strings while you pick the strings with your fingers. The other way is to anchor your thumb on the bass, the top of a pickup or the bridge. This is the most common position to play from. You have full reach of the strings by pivoting on the thumb. If you find you can't reach the 1st string, try moving your thumb closer by anchoring to the 4th string. Just remember, this will most likely result in the cost of loss of speed simply because you have to move your thumb on and off the 4th string. This can be good if you are trying to mute the 4th string. You can use one or all of your fingers to pick the strings. I would recommend not using your thumb to pick. You can and if you do just be aware that, you lose speed going from the thumb to your other fingers and the thumb sounds different from all the other fingers. So unless you are playing slow and only using your thumb, use your other fingers to pick. Most people feel comfortable playing with the fore finger and middle finger. Otherwise know as the 1st and 2nd fingers. Some people use the ring (3rd finger) and even little finger (4th finger) to pick with. Try it. It may feel right for you. Otherwise don't worry if you cant. You can play pretty darn fast with only two fingers. When you pick the strings you want to kind of rake them. By pulling straight back towards the next string and even finishing the pick by landing on the next string. Don't pull up away from the bass. Pulling away from the bass can give you a pop sound that is sometimes desirable, however rarely is it ever wanted note after note. This also slows down your ability to play fast. Playing With a PickThere are many picks of all different shapes, sizes, thickness, material, and of course color. Try to find one that is comfortable for you to hold onto without it slipping out of your fingers. Listen to how it sounds. Thinner harder ones will be bright and tinny sounding. There are picks made out of felt and are intended to simulate playing with your fingers. Playing with a pick has a certain kind of feel in the song. Driving quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes with a pick works well. You can strum two or more strings at the same time and get more of a guitar feel to the bass. Your right hand position will usually be to rest the back part of your hand near your wrist on the bass somewhere. SlapThere are two basic ways to play slap with the right hand. The first is what I'll call a thumb up position. The other is a thumb down position. You typically have more control in a thumb up position. You will usually see bassists that play their basses strapped low using the thumb down position. TappingTapping is a technique where you use both hands to play notes on the fretboard. You tap on the strings to get them to make a sound. This style has been perfected by bassists such as Jeff Berlin and Stu Hamm. Get "The Urge" by Stu Hamm. It has some really clever tapping. One of the things you can do with tap is to play piano parts by using your left hand to play the bass parts of the song and the right hand to play the melody and or rhythm. Left Hand TechniquePlaying Notes on a Fretted BassWhen you fret a note on a fretted bass, you will place your finger just behind the fret and press firmly but not too hard. Pressing too hard will cause the note to go sharp. Press it as hard as is necessary to keep the string from buzzing. Use the ball of your finger. Don't use the tip of your finger. When fretting a note, use the other fingers to keep muted the strings you don't want to hear. If you let other strings ring, your fretted note will sound out of tune and undefined. This is very critical when you are slapping. If your hand is big enough, you can wrap your thumb around the back of the neck and mute the "E" string and even the "A" string. Playing Notes on a Fretless BassOn a fretless bass, you are going to place your fingers precisely where the frets would be on a fretted bass. Use a chromatic tuner when you first start out. Play a note and look at the tuner to see if you are sharp or flat. If you are sharp, move your finger away from the body of the bass. If you are flat, move your finger towards the body of the bass. Keep practicing until you can consistently hit the note in tune. After a while your ears will become tuned to how each note should sound. The type of music will determine how accurate you will need to be, but it's always best to strive for perfect pitch. If you are playing clean Jazz, you better be real accurate. If you are playing grunge or a type of music where the bass is not loud in the overall mix you don't need to be as accurate. Hammer OnsA hammer on is where you strike the fretboard hard enough to make the string sound out. Using new round wound strings on a fretted bass will give the greatest loudness when doing hammer ons. Hammer ons can be used to give the illusion of a fast lick or chop because it allows your right hand to not have to pick each note of the lick. Pull-OffsPull-offs are where you are fingering the note as normal, however, instead of lifting your finger straight off the string, you drag your finger off the string like you would with our right hand to pick the string. This causes the next lowest fingered or open note to sound giving a quick high then low pitch. Again, this is a good trick to make your lick or chop sound faster because your right hand is not having to pick both notes. Only the first one. Left Hand TransitionsThere are several tricks to making left hand transitions easier so you can move around the neck much more freely. The idea is to move your hand as little as possible. Find the points where you absolutely must change left hand positions, change and then try to stay at the new position as long as possible before changing again. Once you do have to move, think about the previous couple of fingerings. Was there a place where you could slide from one note to the next thereby allowing you to set up your left hand? Was there a note that could be played on an open string? As the open string rings, you simply move your hand to the next position. Make sure you don't make noise as you slide your hand or allow other open strings to ring out. HarmonicsWhat Are Harmonics?Harmonics are natural vibrations of the strings that produce a certain pitch. Natural harmonics occur at half of the string's length (12th fret), one quarter (5th & 17th fret), and one third (7th & 19th fret) of the string's length. The sound of a harmonic is kind of a bell sound and usually sustains longer than a fretted note. How To Play HarmonicsTo play a harmonic, place a finger directly over the 5th, 7th, 12th, 17th, or 19th fret. Just barely touching the string. Don't press down to the fret board. It is a very fine touch and this is going to take some practice to get the harmonic to chime loudly so try using less and more pressure on the string. The harmonics at the 5th, 7th and 12th frets are usually the loudest of all frets so start with one of these. After you finger the harmonic at the fret, play the string using a pick about two to three inches from the bridge. You can use your fingers to to play the string, however, using a pick will make the harmonic easier to play and hear. Once you have it down with the pick try using your fingers. Harmonics also chime louder the closer you play to the bridge. This also effects the tone of the harmonic so when you get better, experiment by moving closer and farther away from the bridge. There are other harmonics that you can play and the loudness of them will depend on how good you can play them and the bass you are playing. Pickups, the type of nut (brass or bone) how new the strings are, how loud the amplifier is, all have an effect of how clear, clean and loud the harmonics are. Simply put, the best the better. If you have a fretless bass, trying playing a harmonic at the 5th fret of the G string then slide your finger up the neck.
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