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Basically, what he's talked about, what I'm going to show you now with the left hand, is that if you just let hold your left hand out like this, very relaxed left hand. Well, right now, also another thing to watch out for, no pun intended here, watch out for is this: it's probably a good idea not to play with a watch on, okay? The reason is it puts pressure on those tendons that go through the ring muscle on the wrist, and I've actually experienced this myself. Anything tied around the wrist will really can cause some bad pains in the wrist. Mm-hmm. So make sure that nothing is tight going around either wrist as you play, okay?
All right, but if you just totally relax your hand, then flip it over, keep everything totally relaxed, and just slide the bass neck in there. There's your left hand technique, it's really that simple. Mm-hmm.
All right, now, is it, one thing that you should notice about this, can you see, can you see the back part? Yeah, of my thumb, mm-hmm, on the neck, you see that? Mmm. All right, see how the thumb's kind of pointed towards the head, is not like this, pointing straight up, right? It's like this, and then, right, and it just slightly glides back there on the back of the neck, mm-hmm, and that's what the thumb should be. Right, okay.
Right, now when you're coming down on the strings with the fingers, you should be coming down on the tips of the fingers, and notice that the fingers are all bent, pretty much on the same plane. Ooh, right, so they just come down on the tips of the fingers. Well, all right, so if I'm going to do, let's say if I let's take like the fifth fret on your E string. Mmm, put the first finger on that fifth fret, okay. All right, now we're going to do the exercise, set, check, and play. That was probably on that video.
All right, what we do is we put the first finger down, right, then we put two, three, and four down on the same string in front of it, but don't space them out with the frets, don't even pretend like they're not even fret, they're just, keep the fingers totally relaxed in their most relaxed position and put them down in front of the first finger. Now they should be kind of relaxed and close, but you don't want to bunch up or clumped up either, they should be in a relaxed position, okay, you know, like just again totally, if your hand went totally limp. Mmm. Wherever that is, right?
All right, now put pressure on the first, now have two, three, and four on that same string. All right, that looks good. Now, take, no, don't lift anything up, keep them on the string. Now take a really good look at how fingers two, three, and four look on that string, well, because that's exactly the way you want them to look when they're floating directly over the string when you play that first finger note, okay. So what you do is you lift two, three, and four up and down to where they float evenly and uniformly over that string. I don't lift, keep pressure on the first finger, okay.
Now, also with that first finger, you want to make sure that it's just behind the fret, because if you can't see the top of the fret, you're too much on that fret. So back up a little bit with that first finger, just so that you can actually visually, from your line of sight, see the top of that fret. Ooh, because if you can't, that first finger's too much on it, that makes sense?
I can see the fret, yeah, okay, as long as you can see the top of the fret through the top of Fabian right here. No, no, no, not, not there, like on top of the string, see that? Back up the first finger a little bit. No, a little bit, a little bit closer to the fret, right there. That's, no, back up. Yeah, right there. Mmm, that's where you want to fret every note, because he and probably go closer to fret. No, no, it isn't a good look, right there, right there, because, yeah, I should be able to see the top of the fret, because, you know, if you can't see it, then you're starting to interfere with a string vibration.
All right, so now keep that first finger right there and put pressure on it, don't move it, put two, three, and four on the same string, and make sure they're uniform, that they're equally on the tips, that there's symmetry there, okay. All right, yeah, now again, take a look at where two, three, and four are and how they look on the string, because that's exactly how you want them to look floating over the string, okay. So when you lift them off just a little bit, they should look just like that. See how that four finger's starting to drift? When you lift it up, it is, yeah, it's over. Right, so what you want to do is pick them up and set them down. Can you see my left hand? Yeah. Is that clear? Yeah. All right, so I lift them up, set them down, lift them up, set them down, till I get them exactly the same, and then I play that first finger note. But see how the fingers changed, see them drift on yours? Yeah, they do. Yeah, so this is what you need to practice, you need to get them to where they look exactly the same. See, when they float over the string, it's hard to tell if they're either on the string or not. It is. Yes. All right, so once you get that first finger done, work with it, then we go to the second finger.
All right, okay, now the rule, the second finger, you want to set it right behind that fret like the first finger was, mmm, but let the first finger drift, relax and pull up behind the second comfortably. It no longer has to be behind that fret, mmm, but it does, you don't want it to bunch up either, okay. All right, little separation, yeah, just relax, whatever the most relaxed separation is, if your hand was like, again, totally limp. Okay.
All right, so now you look at the second and make sure that that second finger is behind the fret, so that you can see the top of the fret. Mmm. Then put three and four comfortably down on the string in front of it, with all the joints of the fingers curved, okay. All right, so take a good look at three and four, because that's how you want them to look when you play the second finger note. Mmm. All right, then you lift three and four on and off until you get it set exactly to where they're floating uniformly over the string without drifting. That fourth finger, strips, are still a bit, they're gonna fight you at first, this is not going to be easy, right? Right, so be patient with this, but it will, as long as you keep saying no, not this, this, and keep correcting it, it'll get the message sooner or later, okay.
So once you get that to where you're reasonably satisfied with it, then go ahead and play that second finger note. Right, then we go to the third finger, we place it right behind the fret. See how one and two followed it up a little bit? That's exactly right. Mm-hmm. Right, you want to keep them relaxed, but they stay down on the string, then you place four comfortably in front of the third, and make sure it gets on the tip of the fourth, and then lift it off a little bit, and then, once you're satisfied with the position of the fourth finger floating directly over the string, you play that third finger note, okay. Then you put the fourth finger directly behind that next fret up, and basically, at this point, one, two, and three should just be comfortably behind the fourth.
So this is basically how your left hand should work. Now there will be some adjustments for certain things that you play, but I would like to, let's say, call this our default position, okay, to where the hand just kind of, actually, goes into a relaxed playing position. All right, so in combination of watching the left hand video and working with this exercise on all strings, just find a comfortable place on the neck for you. Now, once you make that adjustment with a strap and get the bass higher, this is going to feel different than it does now. Yeah.
