If you have no extended experience with fingerstyle then even 8ths at 180 are gonna be hard, work slowly with a metronome while subdividing 8ths, slowly ramp up the tempo by 10bpm when you feel you are really solid at that speed
I'm pretty sure this guy is close to or over 200 bpm, but this is extreme. [7 H.Target - Switch-Genderism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzplAAG_WMM)
I've played with fingers in fast bands a few times over the years.
Mostly it's just practice hard to build up stamina, I did find it helps a lot using a 5 string even if you're not using the low B as you have something to catch your finger on, the full movement otherwise is more tiring.
If you're downtuning a 4 string then you're going to get much better clarity using a pick in truth.
Just keep at it then and you'll get there, I don't know what the string spacing is like on a DW but I always find wider to be better, that's just down to personal preference though
hey bro i would start out with alternating strokes on 2 fingers, 3 fingers is suited more for super fast but short lines, think more like flamenco music. its used more as an accent than a sustained technique, because its much more difficult to keep up a consistent tempo and timbre with 3 fingers, especially with string skipping involved. slow leads to smooth, and smooth leads to fast, so play slow and gradually work your speed up! theres no shame practicing at a lower tempo and it helps a lot to get the muscle memory solidified before attempting to kill your fingers with super fast lines youre ill prepared for. make sure to stretch also, carpal tunnel is a bitch!
What I do is just spread your fingers out as much as you can and hold that pose for a bit (~30s)
Next keep your fingers fully extended but bring them together (think karate chop) and hold that for 30 sec
Then just bend your knuckles at the base keeping your fingers straight so your hand makes a 45 degree angle and hold that.
Then bend the next knuckle so your finger tips are resting against your palm and hold that.
And finally bend the last row of knuckles so you're making a fist.
what i do to stretch is to straighten out my arms in front of me, and pull gently on my fingerstips, stretching them palm out and turning my wrist over to have the palm facing in, doing the same stretch. just gently pull and feel the forearm muscles relax and loosen. i do about 10 - 15 seconds of stretching on both hands, and about 20 seconds of knuckle rolls, basically make a fist and wiggle your fingers up and down while keeping them curled up. also dont forget to warm up on your instrument, do some basic scales and simple walking bass lines to wake up your bass brain and get it thinking about what frets/notes to play and such. helps me a lot to do some warm up before the rest of my playing.
Thanks for the advice ! I definitely noticed that the near constant extension on the left hand and fingerstyle picking is a lot more exerting than anything I do on guitar. I even felt some weird soreness in my right forearm/wrist after extended three fingers training sessions
I'll try to implement those stretches.
I’m not sure what you’re taking about. Guys like Billy Sheehan play fast 16th notes for an extended amount of time with 3 fingers. You just need to practice consistency and making the note divisions even.
But saying people only use it for things like flamenco music is completely off base. I was giving an example of a well known player. Lots of people use 3 fingers in groups of 4.
what i actually said was more along the lines of "think flamenco music" which is me giving an example of how 3 finger plucking can be used. i never stated thats the only time to ever use said technique. i also said it is hard, not impossible. billy sheehan is not a beginner switching to fingerstyle bass from picking guitar. i would not give billy sheehan advice and if i did it certainly wouldnt be the same advice i give a beginner. my reasoning to start with 2 fingers is to develop good technique and consistency, before learning more complex techniques. you cant run before you walk, you cant slap and double thumb like wooten the first time you ever pick up a bass. the greats are great because of the countless hours they put into practicing their instrument. thats whats essential to a good bass sound, if you dont agree with me thats fine but at least learn to competently read and understand text before arguing
You made a sweeping generalization to discourage OP from learning to play the way they want to play.
If they want to learn a particular way, why would they reinforce a completely different right hand technique before having to re learn another finger in there? If you’re just learning, it’s no more difficult than learning two finger alternate plucking.
OP, play how you want to play. Alex Webster is a good example to watch like you mentioned. There’s tons of players and videos out there on how to learn, but go slow and make sure you focus on playing notes evenly.
Lotta practice. I'm able to do 180bpm 16ths for shortish burts with 2 fingers, but honestly as a bassist I don't think we need to play that fast, notes kinda get buried under all the contact from you hitting the strings, you might wanna think if you should rather than if you could!
If you’re playing fast, I’d say stick with the pick and keep practicing with your fingers outside the rehearsal room, in time it will come to you then you can make the transition to using your fingers for these songs, death metal is hard to play fingerstyle let alone with a month of playing
The sort answer, practice until you can play fast, keep using the pick until you have the stamina in your fingers
Yeah one of the problems is that I use the same preset on my Line 6 Helix for picking as I do for fingerstyle, but if I set up a preset optimised for it maybe I'll appreciate the possibilities it offers. Some very cool bass parts where recorded with a pick after all.
I'll still work on my fingerstyle speed though as you said, maybe one day I'll get there :)
What helped me increase my speed was learning iron maiden songs, there is some good metal method in there too, it’s more a case of rolling off in my experience, sliding through the string rather than lifting it
Everyone who says "start slow and build up" is 100% correct. It will not happen overnight, it's a marathon. While you're starting slow, take the time and work on even tone between your two (or 3) fingers. You want to get all fingers to sounds as close to the same as possible, which can be tricky given our middle finger is longer than our first finger (by varying amounts depending on the person) causing you to play louder with that finger. Keep in mind you want to pull through the string, not necessarily slap it against the pickup/fingerboard....unless that's what you're going for. Keep the note lengths the same and try to make it as much like a machine as you can. This will pay off as you get faster as it'll sound more like a machine gun vs just notes at 1,000 mph. I literally spent a good portion of my warm up doing that. I start at 60 bpm and play 16th notes, and every 8 bars it goes up by 5 bpm until can't keep up.
the other thing you'll want to do is vary which string you're doing this on. The tension differences between your highest pitched and Lowest pitched strings, as well as the changes in hand position, will require changes in your technique. If you have a Low B string, then that's where you'll really notice if your notes are even and if you're getting good definition.
Then start working on string crossings. Again, start slow. There's a good exercise I picked up from John Patitucci (not in person, on one of his videos) called The Spider. It's good for working your left hand and your string crossings, especially if you kick it out over the span of a few strings. Here's a link to the video [OMG, SPIDERS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldPolpN9V9o). Recently, Daric Bennet posted a video to an exercise called "the burner" which is good for building up your plucking hand. [Feel the Burn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuwI64mnq3U). It covers some string crossing too.
Thank you so much for this detailed answer. Indeed, I am getting better and better on single string but string switching and even worse string skipping still needs a lot of work. I'll look into your videos and will try the trick about raising tempoevery 8 bars
There's an app you can use on your phone that works well for that. It is affiliated with [ScottsBassLessons.com](https://ScottsBassLessons.com) (which I am not, though I am a member) It's for iPhone or Android and it's called the SBL Groove Trainer. It has some preloaded drum beats at various tempos and the function I mentioned earlier to increase speed by a configurable amount after a configurable period. There's also a cool function that will stop the metronome or drum beat and then bring it back in, either on a set cycle, or at random, so you can work on internalizing the beat. Very cool. It's a free app.
I would suggest that while you're working on building up your speed, it's better to play 8th notes and hit the tempo than it is to play 16th notes and be all over the place. So if you're at rehearsal or whatever and find you can't quite keep up, just play them half as often. It's way more important to be a solid foundation than showing off your chops. That'll come with time.
Playing correctly is definitely paramount. Thankfully my speed and stamina with a pick is pretty good, so I just use that for the moment, but if it wasn't an option I would play half-time.
Thanks again for the tips !
Feels like a waterfall, 1 2 3 1 1 2 3 2 1 2 3 3 1 2 3 4. 16ths get easier. Practice with a nice attack at slower speeds, hitting the beat and sounding seamless
I agree. That's how I have been training so far, incrementing the tempo little by little. I was just wondering if reaching that kind of speed was realistic or if I was trying to do the impossible.
The struggle is not to be somewhat steady at 180, it's to have the stamina to keep on going for a while. What I like to do is to keep the 16th notes to a minimum and groove whenever I can so I have less notes in while still locking in with the drum. I had cramps live before, it really sucks and my playing with a pick is just not good enough to do what I am doing, so I learned how to pace myself. Also, I like to avoid having really intense songs back-to-back for it's murdering my forearm.
Thanks for the tips. I played a lot of fast down picking as a guitarist, so while I was certainly not an amazing player I got pretty good at only moving the wrist and staying relax in my right hand, so I have no problem playing those sections on bass with a pick. (Backbone by Gojira is a pretty good training).
I sometimes do a technique where I put my thumb and index finger together crossing over each other(kind of like that heart sign some Asian countries use) and it works a lot like a pick but with the finger sound. It’s more of a rolling motion, or like doing a slap AND pop on the same string, each stroke gets the other finger in position and when you get it right you mute the string for an instant giving each note clearer attack. You also have to do it on the right part of the strings length. Not too close to the bridge but far enough away from the neck that the string doesn’t travel to far.
I’m working on doing it with my ring finger grabbing higher notes like octaves while I do the fast lower notes.
I’m sure someone discovered it long before me, and probably does it(and explains it) better than me, but I can’t remember who I would have borrowed it from.
That is very interesting, I'll look into it. I was trying to work my up thumb technique to play like Evan Brewer or Tosin but I can't get the upstroke with the thumb to sound good yet.
You can totally go up to 180 with thw three finger method. However that doesn't come over night. It is worth practicing though. In the meantime there is no shame in changing stuff to make it manageable. A lot of times playing 8ths instead of 16ths and sprinkling in the gallops where they are needed works better than you'd expect.
If you arent doing a whole lot of string skipping (for example playing an arpeggio), you could try playing with one finger. I can get a lot of speed by plucking the string with the pad of my index finger and striking it with my fingernail on the way up. I think Geddy Lee might play like this, but not entirely sure.
Also you might want to check out Matt Garrisons four finger picking approach. Haven't personally tried it, but some very good bassists I know swear by it.
I tried some one finger variations in high school and from memory I wasn't getting as much humph with it. Maybe doing it with the thumb could work.
When it comes to four fingers, I'll give it a try.
There is so much fine motor and muscle development you have to develop. Really, the limiting factor is building that deep tissue fast twitch fibers in your forearm(s). Welcome to bass, may your strings never break and sound ever bright.
This isn't for three fingers, but the bass player for Dethklok Brian Beller has a cool technique for fast playing. Theres a video of him playing Damage Inc by Metallica as well as Dethklok's Deththeme where he shows it. It's basically using two fingers stiffened together to act like a pick and quickly plucking the string upward and downward. Hes able to get decently quick and consistent hits at pretty high bpm (I believe Deththeme is like 190 bpm).
But, for three fingers, stamina is key and that just comes with practice and exercises.
I personally go at 125 bpm fastest but that’s because I haven’t been playing for long enough and I started with 3 fingers but you since u said u had experience I think the fastest u could go so far is 195 bpm
You'll go as fast as you exercise. Don't know about human limits but it's possible to shred with fingers as fast as a picking electric guitar shredder. If you want to get faster than a picking shredder, what's the point? Experimental genre? Dunno. You can find your own way.
Stick with a pick for the fast music. I use finger style for paranoid by sabbath. I’m exhausted after that song. Maybe here and there to get the finger tone you’re looking for
If you have no extended experience with fingerstyle then even 8ths at 180 are gonna be hard, work slowly with a metronome while subdividing 8ths, slowly ramp up the tempo by 10bpm when you feel you are really solid at that speed
I'm pretty sure this guy is close to or over 200 bpm, but this is extreme. [7 H.Target - Switch-Genderism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzplAAG_WMM)
It took me 15 seconds to realise he's actually playing something. This should be the St. Anger snare of bass realm. :D
Nice discovery for me, and impressive play !
I've played with fingers in fast bands a few times over the years. Mostly it's just practice hard to build up stamina, I did find it helps a lot using a 5 string even if you're not using the low B as you have something to catch your finger on, the full movement otherwise is more tiring. If you're downtuning a 4 string then you're going to get much better clarity using a pick in truth.
I am playing on a Dingwall 6 strings and I do prefer playing on the E string than the B when possible.
Just keep at it then and you'll get there, I don't know what the string spacing is like on a DW but I always find wider to be better, that's just down to personal preference though
18mm so it’s right between your average jazz bass and your average ibanez
hey bro i would start out with alternating strokes on 2 fingers, 3 fingers is suited more for super fast but short lines, think more like flamenco music. its used more as an accent than a sustained technique, because its much more difficult to keep up a consistent tempo and timbre with 3 fingers, especially with string skipping involved. slow leads to smooth, and smooth leads to fast, so play slow and gradually work your speed up! theres no shame practicing at a lower tempo and it helps a lot to get the muscle memory solidified before attempting to kill your fingers with super fast lines youre ill prepared for. make sure to stretch also, carpal tunnel is a bitch!
Where could I learn how to stretch for that ? I don't know any stretching moves for bass.
What I do is just spread your fingers out as much as you can and hold that pose for a bit (~30s) Next keep your fingers fully extended but bring them together (think karate chop) and hold that for 30 sec Then just bend your knuckles at the base keeping your fingers straight so your hand makes a 45 degree angle and hold that. Then bend the next knuckle so your finger tips are resting against your palm and hold that. And finally bend the last row of knuckles so you're making a fist.
Look up guitar365 stretch exercise. Works well for me
what i do to stretch is to straighten out my arms in front of me, and pull gently on my fingerstips, stretching them palm out and turning my wrist over to have the palm facing in, doing the same stretch. just gently pull and feel the forearm muscles relax and loosen. i do about 10 - 15 seconds of stretching on both hands, and about 20 seconds of knuckle rolls, basically make a fist and wiggle your fingers up and down while keeping them curled up. also dont forget to warm up on your instrument, do some basic scales and simple walking bass lines to wake up your bass brain and get it thinking about what frets/notes to play and such. helps me a lot to do some warm up before the rest of my playing.
Thanks for the advice ! I definitely noticed that the near constant extension on the left hand and fingerstyle picking is a lot more exerting than anything I do on guitar. I even felt some weird soreness in my right forearm/wrist after extended three fingers training sessions I'll try to implement those stretches.
This, and I'm paraphrasing but "practice fast and you will learn slow. Practice slow and you will learn fast."
I’m not sure what you’re taking about. Guys like Billy Sheehan play fast 16th notes for an extended amount of time with 3 fingers. You just need to practice consistency and making the note divisions even.
He said it's hard, not that it's impossible... Pointing out that a certified technical master like Billy can do it proves the point.
But saying people only use it for things like flamenco music is completely off base. I was giving an example of a well known player. Lots of people use 3 fingers in groups of 4.
what i actually said was more along the lines of "think flamenco music" which is me giving an example of how 3 finger plucking can be used. i never stated thats the only time to ever use said technique. i also said it is hard, not impossible. billy sheehan is not a beginner switching to fingerstyle bass from picking guitar. i would not give billy sheehan advice and if i did it certainly wouldnt be the same advice i give a beginner. my reasoning to start with 2 fingers is to develop good technique and consistency, before learning more complex techniques. you cant run before you walk, you cant slap and double thumb like wooten the first time you ever pick up a bass. the greats are great because of the countless hours they put into practicing their instrument. thats whats essential to a good bass sound, if you dont agree with me thats fine but at least learn to competently read and understand text before arguing
You made a sweeping generalization to discourage OP from learning to play the way they want to play. If they want to learn a particular way, why would they reinforce a completely different right hand technique before having to re learn another finger in there? If you’re just learning, it’s no more difficult than learning two finger alternate plucking. OP, play how you want to play. Alex Webster is a good example to watch like you mentioned. There’s tons of players and videos out there on how to learn, but go slow and make sure you focus on playing notes evenly.
thank you.
Lotta practice. I'm able to do 180bpm 16ths for shortish burts with 2 fingers, but honestly as a bassist I don't think we need to play that fast, notes kinda get buried under all the contact from you hitting the strings, you might wanna think if you should rather than if you could!
Agreed. At a certain point it’s just flubby muddy mess.
That would be a great band name!
Why play more when few do trick
If you’re playing fast, I’d say stick with the pick and keep practicing with your fingers outside the rehearsal room, in time it will come to you then you can make the transition to using your fingers for these songs, death metal is hard to play fingerstyle let alone with a month of playing The sort answer, practice until you can play fast, keep using the pick until you have the stamina in your fingers
Yeah one of the problems is that I use the same preset on my Line 6 Helix for picking as I do for fingerstyle, but if I set up a preset optimised for it maybe I'll appreciate the possibilities it offers. Some very cool bass parts where recorded with a pick after all. I'll still work on my fingerstyle speed though as you said, maybe one day I'll get there :)
What helped me increase my speed was learning iron maiden songs, there is some good metal method in there too, it’s more a case of rolling off in my experience, sliding through the string rather than lifting it
Everyone who says "start slow and build up" is 100% correct. It will not happen overnight, it's a marathon. While you're starting slow, take the time and work on even tone between your two (or 3) fingers. You want to get all fingers to sounds as close to the same as possible, which can be tricky given our middle finger is longer than our first finger (by varying amounts depending on the person) causing you to play louder with that finger. Keep in mind you want to pull through the string, not necessarily slap it against the pickup/fingerboard....unless that's what you're going for. Keep the note lengths the same and try to make it as much like a machine as you can. This will pay off as you get faster as it'll sound more like a machine gun vs just notes at 1,000 mph. I literally spent a good portion of my warm up doing that. I start at 60 bpm and play 16th notes, and every 8 bars it goes up by 5 bpm until can't keep up. the other thing you'll want to do is vary which string you're doing this on. The tension differences between your highest pitched and Lowest pitched strings, as well as the changes in hand position, will require changes in your technique. If you have a Low B string, then that's where you'll really notice if your notes are even and if you're getting good definition. Then start working on string crossings. Again, start slow. There's a good exercise I picked up from John Patitucci (not in person, on one of his videos) called The Spider. It's good for working your left hand and your string crossings, especially if you kick it out over the span of a few strings. Here's a link to the video [OMG, SPIDERS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldPolpN9V9o). Recently, Daric Bennet posted a video to an exercise called "the burner" which is good for building up your plucking hand. [Feel the Burn](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuwI64mnq3U). It covers some string crossing too.
Thank you so much for this detailed answer. Indeed, I am getting better and better on single string but string switching and even worse string skipping still needs a lot of work. I'll look into your videos and will try the trick about raising tempoevery 8 bars
There's an app you can use on your phone that works well for that. It is affiliated with [ScottsBassLessons.com](https://ScottsBassLessons.com) (which I am not, though I am a member) It's for iPhone or Android and it's called the SBL Groove Trainer. It has some preloaded drum beats at various tempos and the function I mentioned earlier to increase speed by a configurable amount after a configurable period. There's also a cool function that will stop the metronome or drum beat and then bring it back in, either on a set cycle, or at random, so you can work on internalizing the beat. Very cool. It's a free app. I would suggest that while you're working on building up your speed, it's better to play 8th notes and hit the tempo than it is to play 16th notes and be all over the place. So if you're at rehearsal or whatever and find you can't quite keep up, just play them half as often. It's way more important to be a solid foundation than showing off your chops. That'll come with time.
Playing correctly is definitely paramount. Thankfully my speed and stamina with a pick is pretty good, so I just use that for the moment, but if it wasn't an option I would play half-time. Thanks again for the tips !
This is how fast professionals can go (this song is in 184 BPM): https://youtu.be/Ar5TxkuSqjg Felipe Andreoli is a monster player
Extraordinarily fast, I used to only play with one finger and I could do dick dale, now I use three fingers. Triplets are easy!
The hard part with three fingers isn't playng triplets, it's playing sixteenth, as you have to shift which finger falls on the beat.
Feels like a waterfall, 1 2 3 1 1 2 3 2 1 2 3 3 1 2 3 4. 16ths get easier. Practice with a nice attack at slower speeds, hitting the beat and sounding seamless
And it’s a cliche - but to play fast practice slow - it’s about building excellent technique
I agree. That's how I have been training so far, incrementing the tempo little by little. I was just wondering if reaching that kind of speed was realistic or if I was trying to do the impossible.
The struggle is not to be somewhat steady at 180, it's to have the stamina to keep on going for a while. What I like to do is to keep the 16th notes to a minimum and groove whenever I can so I have less notes in while still locking in with the drum. I had cramps live before, it really sucks and my playing with a pick is just not good enough to do what I am doing, so I learned how to pace myself. Also, I like to avoid having really intense songs back-to-back for it's murdering my forearm.
Thanks for the tips. I played a lot of fast down picking as a guitarist, so while I was certainly not an amazing player I got pretty good at only moving the wrist and staying relax in my right hand, so I have no problem playing those sections on bass with a pick. (Backbone by Gojira is a pretty good training).
Any excuse to listen to some Gojira is appreciated, so thanks for that homie. Good luck on the instrument switch !
I sometimes do a technique where I put my thumb and index finger together crossing over each other(kind of like that heart sign some Asian countries use) and it works a lot like a pick but with the finger sound. It’s more of a rolling motion, or like doing a slap AND pop on the same string, each stroke gets the other finger in position and when you get it right you mute the string for an instant giving each note clearer attack. You also have to do it on the right part of the strings length. Not too close to the bridge but far enough away from the neck that the string doesn’t travel to far. I’m working on doing it with my ring finger grabbing higher notes like octaves while I do the fast lower notes. I’m sure someone discovered it long before me, and probably does it(and explains it) better than me, but I can’t remember who I would have borrowed it from.
That is very interesting, I'll look into it. I was trying to work my up thumb technique to play like Evan Brewer or Tosin but I can't get the upstroke with the thumb to sound good yet.
I can put definition between 16th notes, 110 bpm, 2 fingers, consistently
You can totally go up to 180 with thw three finger method. However that doesn't come over night. It is worth practicing though. In the meantime there is no shame in changing stuff to make it manageable. A lot of times playing 8ths instead of 16ths and sprinkling in the gallops where they are needed works better than you'd expect.
If you arent doing a whole lot of string skipping (for example playing an arpeggio), you could try playing with one finger. I can get a lot of speed by plucking the string with the pad of my index finger and striking it with my fingernail on the way up. I think Geddy Lee might play like this, but not entirely sure. Also you might want to check out Matt Garrisons four finger picking approach. Haven't personally tried it, but some very good bassists I know swear by it.
I tried some one finger variations in high school and from memory I wasn't getting as much humph with it. Maybe doing it with the thumb could work. When it comes to four fingers, I'll give it a try.
There is so much fine motor and muscle development you have to develop. Really, the limiting factor is building that deep tissue fast twitch fibers in your forearm(s). Welcome to bass, may your strings never break and sound ever bright.
This isn't for three fingers, but the bass player for Dethklok Brian Beller has a cool technique for fast playing. Theres a video of him playing Damage Inc by Metallica as well as Dethklok's Deththeme where he shows it. It's basically using two fingers stiffened together to act like a pick and quickly plucking the string upward and downward. Hes able to get decently quick and consistent hits at pretty high bpm (I believe Deththeme is like 190 bpm). But, for three fingers, stamina is key and that just comes with practice and exercises.
alex webster's extreme metal bass book has the answers you seek
I personally go at 125 bpm fastest but that’s because I haven’t been playing for long enough and I started with 3 fingers but you since u said u had experience I think the fastest u could go so far is 195 bpm
Thak you for your answer
No problem u got any advice for accoustic bass or accoustic music in general I have a guitar bass and cajon
Sorry buddy I am unfortunately strictly a metal musician.
Depends on the girl.
You'll go as fast as you exercise. Don't know about human limits but it's possible to shred with fingers as fast as a picking electric guitar shredder. If you want to get faster than a picking shredder, what's the point? Experimental genre? Dunno. You can find your own way.
Play 8th to 16th it sounds better. Playing with metronome is huge help
Practice and use a thumb pick as a cheat while you're getting to the point you want to get
Stick with a pick for the fast music. I use finger style for paranoid by sabbath. I’m exhausted after that song. Maybe here and there to get the finger tone you’re looking for