I have been working through Jeff Berlin’s bass mastery book and have been doing ok so far–its challenging, but I have been able to overcome everything until now–i am stuck on Lesson 19 Etude A doing running 16th notes. I am trying to play the whole thing with 1 finger per fret and not using open notes unless I need to (e.g. the A’s in bar 2, as I am playing in 7-10 fret range at the beginning)
I have circled the 2 trouble spots. The first five bars, I am playing with the 8 fret C as my home base, but then have to do a real quick mega jump down to the 1st fret D in my middle of the 6th bar. I can do it ok at slower speeds, but just can’t hop down that fast, so first question is if I should just be playing bars 1-5 on frets 1-5.
Next problem is the second to last bar. The D–B–G sequence. I am playing the D with my pinky on the 5th fret A string, which then requires me to bend back my ring finger to the 4th fret G string to hit the B and then my pinky back to the 5th fret D string to hit the G…I have tried and tried slowing it down, but cant get the ring finger to go back over 3 strings reliably and apply enough pressure to hit the B. Should I just give up on my fretting quest and play the D open?
Problem 1: most pieces that were written with an actual bass clef are written with a certain position on the fingerboard in mind; practice is fine but if things don’t work in a position then it is expected to change the fingering/position to where the song can be played.
Problem 2: I tried playing these bars, I started with my ring finger on 5th fret of A, 2nd finger for the G string, then back to my ring finger for the D string so I can do I can do the B-A-B with 2nd and 3rd fingers. You may have to consciously shift your hand in preparation for the change, if feasible.
Disclaimer: I did NOT play the entire etude and I just got home from a really long day at work. Hope it helps even a little bit
Keep that up, but even Mark Smith from TalkingBass.net recommends hitting an open string when playing an etude’s quick passages if doing so keeps you in position for further passages, and keeps you in the zone. That dude knows a lot more than most about such stuff, so I think you’re good to give it a shot.
