Hello fellow buzzers — I’ve been doing some long practice sessions lately, working through the end of the course and learning full songs. I’ve developed pain at the wrist joint and along the top of my hand/extensor tendons, which also hurts during regular typing. Likely overuse but could also be technique issues. I finally worked up the courage to record and share my first clip — would love feedback from more experienced players on anything you see that could be causing the strain or just general technique tips. Thanks!
Ok that’s great. I can see that you are not only fretting too hard but flexing your forearms like crazy both sides. Imagine driving with that kind of intensity by the time you get to work your entire upper body will be sore,
Try “air playing” along by listening to the original picture yourself effortlessly plugging/ picking the notes without a care in the world. Work on your left hand, try to find the tipping point right before you can produce the fretted note and how much pressure you need to make a solid note. That’s the most important part as you’ll be living in that town for the rest of your bass playing life. It’s like Fifty shades of tone there.
I’m sorry to hear about your wrist pain. Maybe it would help to take a few days break?
Seeing your video, it looks like you are fretting too hard. You seem to be using quite a bit of extra force pressing on the fingerboard. This could aggravate the problem (I can’t say it is the reason, but it certainly doesn’t help). In the course Josh speaks of minimum necessary pressure while fretting, and that many people tend to press on the strings much harder than necessary, leading to injuries.
You can test to see what is the minimum necessary pressure like this: just place the fingers on the strings, without pressing them, and then pluck. At this point you will hear the strings are muted. Then, press just a little more, and a little more, until you can hear the notes when you pluck them. That’s the right amount of pressure. Any more than that is unnecessary and potentially harmful.
Thanks @Al1885 and @andrea-sld for noticing the fretting hand being too hard. I thought I had been doing the minimum necessary pressure thing that Josh explained but I think the gap might be that I do that when practicing slow and deliberate but when trying to learn a song, I just get caught up in getting it right and don’t follow the correct technique.
I was thinking of it like driving - When you’re learning to drive you’re consciously managing every single input — mirrors, steering, pedals, speed, other cars. It’s exhausting and overwhelming. Then one day you’re having a conversation and eating a sandwich and navigating a highway interchange and you didn’t even notice doing it. So I think I am still in very early stages of trying to manage everything at speed and losing half the training.
I’ll keep at it being slower and deliberate and following proper principles. For now I have reduced the time I am putting and using a compression wrap sometimes if its bad.
If this is at your beginning stage spend some time working on your right picking/ plugging hand it will go on autopilot and will serves you well for quite sometime until you start doing some 16th ghost notes then another SloMo revisiting is required
It seems like the better you get the more you need to work on your right hand.
