Using the Pinky on the E string can be awkward for me, especially the further up the fretboard I go. I can reach it, but going to it, or coming off of it in a string crossing is…awkward.
So, I watched a bunch of bass covers, and I see players with lots of different approaches. Some just tuck it away and it comes out occasionally. I see others that play only A,D, and G with it. And still others will use it in a stretch for a walk down like in this video:
Time sequence 1:22-1:25. A-sting [D], E-String [C], [B]
So, the pinky has legitimate use on the E-String, and some do it. I just want to feel better about it. Do any of you have any rules when you are working out a song, learning a something new, as to when you call on the pinky instead of dong a longer shift?
Every student I’ve taught has a different pinky battle to fight, and then there are the rare lucky ones who seem born to attack a fingerboard with all four fingers.
But there’s usually a pinky battle.
I ask every student to play pinky on all strings. It will build the best technique foundation and will provide for the easiest and most flexible playing later on.
If you ever go to YouTube looking for an example of someone doing anything, you’ll find it. This video sounds fine and the guy can play the bass and the bass line sounds fine.
But I would never send this video to someone if I was trying to build best practices for fretting technique.
Because everyone’s pinky struggle is different, I can’t offer any recommendations without us being in the same room together over a period of weeks. But! I will say there are plenty of other ways to play the bass. I don’t think any of them give you as much versatility or flexibility.
I’d still recommend trying to use pinky on all 4 strings. It’s the longer, more difficult path, but it will lead to more beautiful places down the road.
@Gio seems like real good advice to me. I suppose I was wondering if I was putting myself through unnecessary trouble with the pinky. What I am hearing from you is, “hang in there” and reach for the E string. I’ve been real consistent with my practice over the past 3 weeks, and I’m starting to see some nice places. The fine motor coordination is getting there; things you don’t really think about start to happen–but, your ear informs you if it’s right or not.
I was going to say, a 5-string would be even more interesting with more real estate to cover on the neck!
Don’t neglect the pinky. I use my pinky second most for fretting behind my index finger. Maybe I’m lucky but I never struggled with my pinky, it just felt like the natural finger for me to use most of the time. I would suggest thinking about how your hand is positioned on the neck while you play, perhaps you can adjust where the neck sits in your hand and give your fingers some more freedom.
Whatever you do, keep at it. You’ll get there either through time, necessity, or both!
I use my pinky finger along with my index for everything so it’s always on a string either playing a note or muting a string. My ring finger is my least used finger, I don’t have very good independent control of it so it’s generally the last finger i use. I also have stubby sausage fingers so my ring finger really doesn’t reach that far
One thing a lot of people don’t consider is that our hands are not all constructed exactly the same. We all have slightly different mechanical connections between our muscles and the tendon attachments which give some greater finger independence than others. For most people, the index and pinky have very good independence and the ring finger has the worst as it shares a tendon with the middle finger.
It’s possible that people who have better ring finger independence will have a higher preference of using that finger vs their pinky.
I usually end up putting my pinky and ring finger together so I have even more strength. I’m still strengthening the pinky and using it so I can get used to using it on its own.
This is actually very common, I see this technique implemented quite often. Personally, it feels quite awkward to fret one note with two fingers but I can see how that would be useful. Whatever it takes to get all your fingers involved will be beneficial in the long run.
I find that if I’m a ways down the neck, fretting the B string with my pinky to be easy. And for the first few frets, I never felt the need to fret the B string with my pinky.
Besides, my pinky seems to enjoy fretting the thick B string. Maybe it helps that I have an Ibanez bass, which has narrow string spacing.
In all my years of playing guitar (badly) I never thought about it; you pretty much have to use your pinky when playing chords on guitar and when finger picking it was always doing hammer ons and pull offs. So I came to bass with a fairly strong fretting pinky but… shortly thereafter I started developing arthritis in that pinky (note this is very much a case of correlation is not causation; just age!). I can and do still use the pinky but only when moving becomes too impractical. So long as I limit its use all is fine. If I use it a lot, for example when working on a walking bass line, I end the session with a very painful pinky. So, as I say, I’m trying to minimise its use.
This is quite true. 18 years ago, I was at a…accordion conference. One of the presenters was an orthopedist that specialized in hands. Long time ago, but there were two takeaways that I remember: 1) Don’t injury hands, and 2) Anatomical Differences, amongst other things, some people’s hands actually may differ in the number of tendons, and other structural differences.
I get this exactly. Ring finger useless. But I’m trying to use it more to take the pressure off my arthritic pinky. Something of an ongoing project. I noticed that the most recent song I did I was mainly just using the index and middle and a rather more mobile hand (echoes of Django Reinhardt).
I believe in teaching a one finger/one fret technique whenever possible but there are those who will find it uncomfortable and for some even impossible. So we all learn to adapt or compensate in what ever manner works best for us individually.
After all these years of playing I never even think about it any longer. There are patterns I will play using my pinky and others where I don’t. Somewhere along the line my brain told my hands do it this way or do it that way and as long as I can execute the bass line properly neither way is wrong. I can envy those with long spidery fingers and double jointed thumbs all I like but with my hands I’ve had to learn over time what works best for me and so do others.
Coming from playing rhythm and fingerstyle guitar, all fingers of my fretting hand are used constantly. For playing lead lines, the ring finger is always in heavy use.
When I got seriously into playing bass, the biggest hurdles for me were getting used to the instrument’s much longer scale length, wider string spacing, and way thicker strings.
But I’ve made it a point to bring my one-finger-per-fret guitar habit to bass whenever possible. That keeps all four digits of my fretting hand in use with every line.
