Time to bust some bass myths. You may even buy into some of these myths yourself, which could be holding back your playing.
C Major Scale Playalong
Experiment with stretching vs. “microshifting,” see what’s more comfortable for your hands. (but remember that you’ll get better at stretching with time)
Fun fact: For the guitar vs. bass demo at 3:59, I “borrowed” (blatantly ripped off) a Stevie Ray Vaughan guitar lick, who knows which song it was from?
BTW, this is my current favorite vid that I took a clip from for this video, Juan Alderete interviewing Tim Lefevbre about playing on Bowie’s Blackstar record: (he plays a bunch of lines from the record, so freaking cool)
Did you ever believe any of these bass myths? Or do you disagree with one of my myth busts?
Another helpful video - Question: On the playalong, I can play it stretching my hand and fingers, but some notes get played in the middle of the fret, not at the end. (I’ve got a tall, lanky build, big hands, long fingers, like you, Josh) Should I work on getting more stretchy with my hands, or should I focus on learning micro-shifting?
As for the guitar vs. bass myth, I’m guessing there’s some rivalry there. But coming from not knowing either, and learning both from scratch - man, I just feel more into the bass. Isn’t even about easy or hard, just connecting to the instrument, the rhythm, I just tend to grab my bass to rock with
Yeah, be careful with the middle of the fret. It works sometimes, but if you get in the habit of using it, you’ll get rattley yuck notes. I would do both of the things you mentioned - work on stretching more over time, but also use micro-shifts to keep your fret positioning optimal (and to give you breaks from stretching fatigue).
Man before seeing this I just posted a couple vids over in the Good Music Friday thread that totally reinforce your point about small hands
Basically, the bassist in Marty Friedman’s band here is incredible and is even better in her own band as well - just her and a drummer, Toast Machine style. Reposting the vid here:
@howard - holy cats - If I had known Japanese, i would have sung in Toast Machine… this. Rules.
@JoshFossgreen - killllllllller video. You and the guitar player (he’s handsome, by the way) - classic and awesome.
Also - thanks for the Tim Lefebbrrvvveeffh?ere? vid. That guy. Holy cats again. That’s twice in one comment. Yeesh.
