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Exercises to improve fingerstyle smoothness and speed?


Noise...

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Posted

I need some exercises to help improve my smoothness and speed with fingerstyle playing. As it is now, my fingerstyle playing is pretty rough, and I can only play things that are on the slower side.

 

Can you guys recommend some exercises to improve my speed and smoothness?

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Posted

Get a recorder and record your playing. Then put down the bass and listen to what you just played. Listen closely for all the area's you would like to sound better, then practice to improve those. Fret noise and clicking, buzzing notes, string slides and screeches, poor tone etc. Then record again and see how you do. Do this until you are able to get a good, even, full sounding and clean bass recording. By the time you get there you will not have to worry about playing faster, because your basic technique will be in very good shape.

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Posted

If you started playing the bass to play exercises, then do some of those. If you started the bass because you wanted to play music - do that.

 

 

Exercises and scales get you better at laying exercises and scales. I practice them myself but it's generally only as a basic warm-up. Write a song...learn some songs. Put the metronome or a drum machine on and play music with it.

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Posted

A ton of scale and arpeggio work using a metronome should do it. Spend about a week doing it around a half hour a day and you'll be amazed at the subtle changes in your playing.

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Posted

 

Get a recorder and record your playing. Then put down the bass and listen to what you just played. Listen closely for all the area's you would like to sound better, then practice to improve those. Fret noise and clicking, buzzing notes, string slides and screeches, poor tone etc. Then record again and see how you do. Do this until you are able to get a good, even, full sounding and clean bass recording. By the time you get there you will not have to worry about playing faster, because your basic technique will be in very good shape.

 

 

What the pilot said.

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Posted

it still hurts thinking about the day i realized how much i suck :lol:

 

still tho, scales and a metronome. start out with a comfortable bpm, and steadily increase it over time.

good luck :thu:

 

 

Yeah recording yourself is by far the best way to realize how much you suck.

I think we all experienced this one day.

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Posted

if you turn up the geetard's amp, no one will hear your poor technique:idea:

 

Why would I waste my time turning the guitard's amp up?

 

 

He'll do it himself when no one's looking. :lol:

 

 

Back on topic, I'm basically just doing the normal warm-up exercises, as well as some modes/scales. I'm taking it really slow - and with slower playing I'm decent. No buzzing, no uneven plucks, etc. It's when I speed up at all that I get the sloppiness. I think the big part of my problem is muting, which comes from my anchoring. If I'm moving my anchor point well, I don't get any extra noise from the E and A strings, which really cleans up the sound.

 

I'll keep working on it, as well as do a bit of recording (I already know I suck, so it won't be a shocker when I play the recording back. ;) )

 

As I learn songs it seems to help too.

 

Thanks for the tips guys. :thu:

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Posted

Why would I waste my time turning the guitard's amp up?



He'll do it himself when no one's looking.
:lol:


Back on topic, I'm basically just doing the normal warm-up exercises, as well as some modes/scales. I'm taking it really slow - and with slower playing I'm decent. No buzzing, no uneven plucks, etc. It's when I speed up at all that I get the sloppiness. I think the big part of my problem is muting, which comes from my anchoring. If I'm moving my anchor point well, I don't get any extra noise from the E and A strings, which really cleans up the sound.


I'll keep working on it, as well as do a bit of recording (I already know I suck, so it won't be a shocker when I play the recording back.
;)
)


As I learn songs it seems to help too.


Thanks for the tips guys.
:thu:

 

I dunno if this is useful for you or not, but I use as many hammer-ons and pull-offs as possible, as it makes lines sound a lot smoother and cleaner compared to plucking each note individually.

 

I generally only pluck the first note of a line on each string, or if a note's played more than once (obviously...).

 

 

And, learning by playing songs is a great way to learn. That's how I learned to play both bass and guitar, really. Trombone and keys, too...

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Posted

Play 8ths and 16ths to a metronome at increasing tempos, that's how I got my 3 finger technique to sound smooth and not like galloping. I tend to focus just on right hand technique to a metronome to warm up and do legato stuff with my left hand as a warm up too. Then chromatics to a metronome brings it all together...

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