Are Your Hands *too small* to Play Bass? (5 *BIG* Mistakes)

Well, alright, alright, alright. I can envision doing that with some microshift fu.

Just seemed like either a musical typo or a hellish exercise from the Beginner to Beelzebub course.

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Nice! Here’s the rest of the transcription if you want to play it in context

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Oh, sh*t! Earlier this afternoon I read just the first part of the thread title, didn’t look at who posted it, and thought, “eh, quit yer whining I gots small hands and I’m gettin’ by just fine.”
Oops lololol! :face_with_hand_over_mouth: (this weekend has been a whole mood though, so the issue is me - not the title of the video)

(grabs yellow legal pad and three sharpened #2 pencils to take notes)
I’ll be back later :mantelpiece_clock:

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This was an excellent video @JoshFossgreen.
Never ceases to amaze me how the basics (and working on them) really matter.
I’ve been trying to get my claw bat grabber hand back to bass reality of late, and love the simple reminders here.

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This was a great video Josh. So many of us have to cope with this, showing us the fundamentals is a real help.

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0:00 That look lol!
0:10 (starts laughing again)
0:12 NOOB JOSH! He’s back!
0:17 (still laughing – can’t…breathe…)
0:35 (gasps in shock and horror) NOOB JOSH WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!? (I didn’t think he was athletic at all.)
0:45 And having your fingers twisted like that looks painful.
0:53 Noticed your giant alien fingers? Yeah just a little bit
0:59 – 1:01 <<< the three second point in time where we all stand a chance of sounding better than Josh. If we try real hard.
1:14 (looks at Josh’s shirt more closely now that I’ve stopped laughing)
Oooooh, Daft Punk!
(falls into a cosmic Daft Punk wormhole)
(wakes up on sofa two hours later, dizzy, and covered in space glitter)
“Aw, man – again?! I’m going to have to finish this tomorrow.”
(shuffles off to bed)
Next Day…
1:30 “Plop the neck behind your fingers.” Great and easy reset when you’re feeling twisted.
1:51 [Noob Josh loses his temper] Easily my favorite part of this video. :stuck_out_tongue:
3:27 “Microshifting saves energy.” I totally agree, because you know what’s really inefficient? Not playing because you can’t make a stretch.
3:36 “…shifting is a simple movement at the shoulder and elbow, which uses much larger muscle groups that don’t have to do much work to move your hand like this.” An important point! The more gross motor work you can push off onto muscles with more capacity, the more your fingers can focus on fine motor skills, like landing on the right fret.
3:56 “fretting hand thumb pressure as light as possible” my fretting thumb also doubles as my Achilles’ Heel.
4:47 Call to Action! “When can we stop putting these in every YouTube Video?” “preach, sister” LOL Nope! Your “struggles” with this YouTube peculiarity are fantastic dramady all on their own. :wink:
4:52 Whoooo, Kim Deal!
5:14 [noobasana] (partial Wilhelm Scream) My daughter ran to the kitchen to get a drink of water and then did a spit-take.
5:55 Stretching on 9, 10, 11, 12 – love this exercise! Partially because the bass line I learned for “We Are Going to Be Friends” is played exclusively on the 10th and 12th frets.
7:02 “Curse you, Leo Fender!” My daughter’s new go-to swear.
7:15 Every time you throw a pick over your shoulder in a video, it is a delight. But that poor cat!
7:27 Whoaaaa check out the bass face on Noob Josh!
7:55 [Stanley shreds] (Ella laughs at Noob Josh’s expression)
8:13 “plus some hubris” (Kristine laughs at Regular Josh’s expression)
9:08 Oh, Noob Josh – this is what happens when you use a bass as a bat. You end up in a boss fight.

Mostly the same way people with larger hands make it work - patience, accepting my own set of limitations, creating workarounds, not comparing to other people. A healthy dose of spite…I mean, persistence. :smiley:

Play in front of a mirror to see how your hands look. There are some riffs I’ve tried to play in such a way that all four fingers stay mostly together and straight, and it’s hard to tell which fingers are actually working. For added fun and mystery. :sunglasses:

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. . . And I was starting to worry we weren’t going to get Kristine’s play-by-play of Josh’s latest video. Thanks, @kristine ! And thanks Ella. Great as usual.

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Aw, I appreciate your concern, @david.addis ! Glad you enjoyed it. :smiling_face:

(There was a traumatic event in the apartment building directly across the street from ours Friday afternoon. Ella and I arrived home 10 minutes after it happened to cop cars e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e. Probably shouldn’t discuss further on this thread, which is supposed to be fun, but if you want to read about it, google “Van Ness DC local news.” I’m a little traumatized myself, and the mental processing is slow.)

Grateful for the levity of a funny video right now. :heart:

UPDATE: Had a great session with my therapist today. She helped me put a few things in perspective; funny how just shifting things around a little can move some things out of the way and open up new paths, like a key in a lock.

In addition to yearly physicals, I firmly believe everyone should have a yearly mental checkup, too. Might prevent some things from happening. Stay healthy, y’all. :heart:

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Stay safe, Kristine.

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Oh! Here’s something I meant to say earlier but got off track:

There’s a certain type of joy to be felt when you work really hard on an artwork, a piece of music, or, I dunno, a video, share it with someone and then they notice and point out some of the things you worked on so diligently. The reaction posts are a kind of show of appreciation.

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If you’ve ever stumbled across the wonderful Canadian bassist Michael Cybulskie (Big Mikey C) then the whole ‘my hands are too small thing’ just doesn’t cut it.

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amazing.

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Bass really doesnt require you to make any big stretches like guitar or piano so i dont find small hands is really much of a limitation… i can play a 35in 5 string just fine, i just need to have good fretting accuracy and good hand speed. Even when i practice a piece slowly, i move my hands quickly.

Unfortunately fretting with my thumb is out :disappointed_relieved:

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Totally. Isn’t funny how on-point kids can be without really knowing it?

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Screen Shot 2022-04-30 at 06.33.06

Thanks @JoshFossgreen for helping me remember my excuses are B$! :laughing:

Seriously, thanks for the great video!

Like @John_E said…

On my honor, I will do my best, to keep my fingers straight up and down, not press too hard with my thumb, and micro shift with the best of them!

Screen Shot 2022-04-30 at 06.40.37

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…not to pluck up.

#notrelatedtosmallhands
#generalgoodadvice
#okfine #Ijustlikesayingthat

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I pluck up all the time.

Except when I thumb down.

Moral of the story: One good slap deserves another.

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:rofl:

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Added to the BassBuzz YouTube Video Guide.

Since Josh didn’t list a specific module for this I put it under Before Beginner to BadAss since I thought it fit well after 5 Beginner Bass Myths (Busted).

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