How to Hold and Finger Your Bass - Part Two

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Transcripts

Percy White: So, what you can do is you take your finger and you just rub it across the string. You dont have to pull it or anything like that, or work it like this. Just take it and just easily run it across the string. The string will vibrate and these are called pickups. The pickups will actually pickup the sound of the string. So, you strum it across the string until the string behind it stops your finger like that. So, you hit it; then notice my thumb is sitting on the string is that I am not playing. Okay, I am resting my arm, you will see, I will take to my wrist, I am resting my wrist on the body of the bass and then just let it hang there. No force to it, and I am letting my thumb rest on the strings that I am not going to be hitting. So, whenever you hit one string you will automatically come in contact with another. So, there are two strings that you arent going to be hitting, you wont be contact with. So, thats two strings, I dont have to touch. When I strum one string, it's going to left on the other. The string thats vibrating is the noise I want to hear. Same thing, after you hit one with one finger, you hit it with the other. Okay, when you are hitting these, you run the strings, you go, one two you let the string behind your finger stop you. Same thing with here and as you slide up, I just run across this string and the string behind it stops it and so forth and when you are down here, it doesnt going to matter where you place your thumb. I like to rest my thumb on the pickups, because when I am hitting the mono, as I am going to hit. Now, thats how you mute the strings down here but if you are at top in and you are playing and you are hitting the string, if a string is making a noise you dont wanted to hear, just stop it from up top, all you have to do is just touch the string. If I am playing this string and I want to stop making a sound, all I have to do is just touch it and it will stop vibrating and whenever the string is not vibrating, there is no sound for you to pickup. So to recap, place your left hand behind the back of the neck bring your fingers around. These are whats going to make the notes. Your right hand, you use first two fingers and you just stroke it across the string. Thats all you do. It's just that simple.

You dont have to do it hard, because you have a amplifier. The amplifier does its job. Its purpose is to amplify the sound. So, if you want to be heard, all you have to do is just turn your amplifier up, there is no need to play hard. If you play hard you wont be able to play fluid and smooth which is what you want as a bass player.

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