A few tips I've picked up over the last year

[seraphim7s]

These are a few things that's helped *me* to be a better bassist over the last half year or so, feel free to utterly disregard if they don't fit your own style or technique. I've been doing a lot of thinking about these things because in the UK we have no kind of formal bass tuition. Like I said, these are things that've benefitted *me* - I'm only guessing that they might be transferrable.

 

1) Learn to play at a medium volume *as standard*. Then you have the ability to go up to fortissimo (very loud), down to pianissimo (very quiet).

 

Most rock players I've worked with play at fff as standard - they have no dynamic range. Everything is {censored}ING loud, or loud. Not very versatile.

 

2) angle the bass slightly *outwards* from the body when playing standing up - we're talking about a slight angle of 5 or 10 degrees here. It dramatically increased my LH technique when playing on the first 5 frets (where the big stretches are).

 

3) Down fret too hard! I've been working hard on fretting notes *without* holding my thumb to the back of the neck at all, in fact without touching any part of my LH except my finger tips onto the strings. Try this as part of your practise, or only rest the thumb very gently on the back of the neck. It works really well. I can play for hours and hours without any fatigue or pain.

 

There ya go, this may be really obvious stuff to lots of you, but maybe a few people can try it out. It might help you.

[funkadelic musicman]

my band could benifiet from #1!

[willsellout]

These are good tips for beginners. They will help them become better players.