Chugging Octaves

Hi there, Josh. I am currently working on Paranoid by Black Sabbath and the chugging octaves are kicking my butt. Any advice as to how to cleanly and quickly hit the root and octave alternately without flying fingers? Thanks for the wonderfully useful and funny videos. I find myself chuckling through much of the video - you make learning fun! Keep it up!

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Hey, @denise . . . :slight_smile:

You might check out Module 12 Lessons 1 and 2 in @JoshFossgreen’s B2B course. He covers this topic in those sections.

HTH and all best, Joe

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I totally know what she means - I had the same problem.

What I ended up with was to fret the root with my index finger, the octave with my pinky, and then put my other fingers on the same string as the pinky. This ends up making fretting the octave easier. I leave both notes fingered like that. It makes muting a little more tricky on the pinky but it still works.

The drawback is I have a lot of string noise when I move the octave around. Accuracy when initially fretting it is tougher too.

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Josh got me started on bass 2.5 years ago! I would never have pursued it if not for him! Sounds like it may be time to go through B2B sessions again. Thanks for pointing out where to find this topic!

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So I was practicing today and decided to hit up some lessons as refresher. You know what’s hard? M12L1 is hard. I remember it being hard back when I did it the first time, but: still hard. I get totally messed up on the string cross with the octaves :slight_smile:

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Yeah, now I remember (somewhat guiltily) at going over this rather fast/hastily being a bit annoyed with my own limited ability to get this done better, but wanting to move on… Could certainly use a re-visit!

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I can more or less do the medium with occasional flubs. That’s about where I got last time too. The fast is beyond me so far, will need to work up to it with pinky accuracy.

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The workout there was the Freddie Hubbard song, wasn’t it?? Should be right up my alley, really - no excuses there :grin:

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Old thread but ye im on the freddie hubbard and can get through fast workout occationally but my fingers just dont want to co operate mostly… Its the using the middle finger to start and index on root if i mess that up it all goes to pot. I have moved on consoling myself I have gotten through it aleast a couple of times… Something to practice in future.

I’m currently stuck at M12L1 or L2 as well… I don’t really have a problem fretting the root with my index finger and the octave with my pinky, but what happens when I move my hand to the next position is: I press down with my index finger and my pinky at the same time. As a result, while I’m playing the root, I’m also playing the octave as a hammer on. It’s really hard for me to press down with each finger separately and at the right time. And that’s just the slow workout…

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that’s really a matter of training, I’m confident you will nail it :slight_smile:

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No idea what your confidence is based on, but thanks anyway :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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