Originally published June 11, 2013, lightly edited for clarity.
When putting together a bass line, one of the first big things to deal with is how you are going to finger the line. Your fingering choices can have a big impact on the groove, timing, and your sound. Of course, if the timing or groove is compromised, it is probably not a good fingering choice. However, it can sometimes be difficult to know whether to go with more consistent sounding notes or with what’s physically easier to finger on the bass. I will sometimes choose a more difficult fingering because I like the sound of the notes on the thicker strings. They have a deeper sound quality and add more depth and bottom to the line. An important thing to consider when putting together a bass line “on the fly” in a performance is that what ever fingering choice you start with, (as long as it does not make you mess up the line), go ahead, stay with it, and don’t keep changing the fingering back and forth during the tune. If the consistency of the sound of the notes are randomly changing because you are constantly switching fingering and string choices, the groove and timing can be adversely affected. The consistency of the sound of your notes is always more important to the song than trying to decide what fingering you like best or think is more comfortable. Wait till you have some practice time and sort it out then. The following video deals with fingering choices for a bass line. I recommend always exploring and practicing different fingering options. Fingering technique is one of the fundamentals I teach. For personalized feedback on your fingering choices, online bass lessons via Zoom are available.
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All right, now we also have, there's one other aspect we haven't talked about here, uh, we hit on it briefly, was the playing it here, we lose. So I don't know if I, I might like, put up with the thinness of this, as compared to, see, it gets a little thinner as I go on the A string to the D string and, uh, G string, on the third fret C, right? But if I go to the eighth fret C it fattens it up. I like that, but then I lose my ability to get to the F's and G's down in the first fret, you know, and the, on the E string, and then the G on the third fret of the E string. Yeah, so I lose the thickness of those notes. Now, the option you could do, but it's going to require some dexterity, is you've got to fly down to that F, you know, from the eighth fret, and that's not easy to do, to keep the timing straight down to this F. Yeah, I mean, that's not a very practical solution, although it is something you could try, but your risk factor goes up quite a bit.
You know, try it this way, there's nothing wrong with raking. Yeah, now you don't want to rake going up with the right hand, you don't want to go one, one, one, one, you know, up like this, but when you come down, raking is fine. The thing about raking, though, is you've got to make sure your timing of it is really locked down, because it has a tendency to rush with it. Also, the type of sound that the finger gets on the string, the intensity of that sound, may not be as pointed, or, you know, have as much point to it, as one that's alternated. So you've got to make sure that the balance doesn't change when you rake.
Yeah, yeah, right. So, um, but I would probably go one two one, one two one two, two two, one two one, one two one two, two, one two, two two one two one, one one. So I kind of do an alternating sequence each time, one two one two, two two, one two one, one, one two one two, two two, one two one, one, one two one two, two two, one two one, one, one two. That's what, you know, speed like that, that's when that would really make it easy for the right hand. But, like I said, there's nothing, I would work alternating, and also, you know, work on a raking sequence. So you see, all of a sudden this tune is taking on like this enormous, I mean, you could spend a whole practice session on one element of this song, on one thing, and it would not be wasted time. So even though you would probably not alternate every time in a tune like this, some people say, well, why would you practice that, just to work on the control of the alternation, because there may be a situation where you want to, you want to be able to do that, and in a complex kind of alternating sequence, to be able to hang with it.
Yeah, yep. Well, I can sit here and look straight at you when you're playing, I'm watching from the front rather than kind of from the side, like in the studio type, you know, the one-on-one. So, and I love that I've got it recorded. Well, how did, how did Russ do that? Oh, you know, cause when you do something I want to remember, I put down just the time, you know. Uh-huh. You got two going now, so, of the first one, the first one went for about the first 30 minutes, the second one went for the second 30 minutes, just the way that worked out. Yeah, so in the second one I'd put down, you know, 13, December, second recording, 12:50 or something, right, and I can go almost directly to the part that you're demonstrating, what we're talking about, and I can go find it. You know, I have the world's worst memory. I swear, I think I do, you know, so I, how the hell did he do that, how did, now I can just go straight to the video. Man, that is such a big selling point, that I'm really pushing, that you have actually, you know, proven that you can record these things with no extra equipment. Yeah, with the exception of the little flicker at first, with Pamela. Pamela has been perfect, mhm, I've never, I haven't lost any.
Um, when it says, I've got a down in the bottom right-hand corner, I use, uh, I'm still on Windows, so in the bottom right-hand corner, on a Windows unit, it has the various things that are running in the background, it shows that, uh, my antivirus is running, you know, this is running, but Pamela has a little red dot that pulses when it's recording. Uh-huh. So if something happens, I go, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, I just lost the recording. You know, I've got a monitor that tells me it's recording. Yeah, that's great. So, you know, it's not just like, is it in the background or isn't it, I don't know until we're done and you go, oh crap, I didn't get anything recorded. I constantly kind of check that little red dot down there, and if it ain't working, I go, oh, hold it, hold it, we got to start over.
