Too much guitar playing, not enough bass playing-calluses in the wrong places

[DeepEnd]

This morning in worship, I played bass because our regular bass player was doing vocals. I enjoy playing bass but I'm primarily a guitarist and my calluses are in the wrong places, the ends of my fingers instead of the pads. Plus, my bass has flats on it, which aren't conducive to callus formation. Meanwhile the Mexi J-Bass at church has roundwounds on it. Ah, well, more bass playing, less guitar playing for me.

[WRGKMC]

I basically use my fingers the same on both guitar and bass on the finger tips and use the sides when holding down multiple notes. I do use my pinkey equally the same as the other three, something that dates back to when I was formally trained to play Violin as a child. You used all 4 fingers of the left hand on those instruments and I carried it over to guitar and bass.

It works out well using the Box System for scales because you mostly have 4 frets for the 5 boxes on a guitar neck. There are only two boxes that require a single fret slide to complete the entire box.

I can say I see very few musicians who use their 4th finger equally to their other three, especially on bass. The finger is shorter and weaker than the others and requires allot of training to get it working right.

One method is to imagine you lost your first pointer finger and atempt to play all your scales with the remaining three fingers. Believe me its one of the best, workouts you can do. It will fatigue your hand quickly, but in a short time you'll be playing things your never thought you could play effortlessly and fingers begin to have a mind of their own getting where they need to go.

[isaac42]

I've been using my little finger on bass for over 35 years, but it still aches when I do. But there it is. It's how I play, pain or not.