String jump on adjacent strings on the same fret

I don’t post often probably because my life is still a bit too busy, but not busy enough to try practicing bass.
One part of playing has me struggling & that’s when two adjacent strings need to be played alternately on the same fret.
Do I use the same finger and try to use the tip & pad or do I use separate fingers which goes against the one finger per fret rule & my fingers are thick making that difficult.
My example is shown which is part of the verse from The Eagles Hotel California & in tab you can see the notes I’m referring to. For example in measure 18, playing the F# on the A string with the 1st finger & then playing the alternating C# on the D string & F# on the G string with the 3rd finger, rolling from the tip to the pad of that finger seldom make the notes sound clean. Muting is also probably part of my problem.
Any suggestions from those that can play this
would be helpful. Thanks.

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Really up to you. I used different fingers while playing BJ at first. I roll my fingers now and my speed picked up.

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Depends (as with everything)
Try both.
I do both depending on which fret and which feels/sounds better. You may have to isolate and practice both a while to see which you like.

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Hey! Interestingly, I posted a similar thread with the same question and song last year. :slight_smile:

So, for me, I did not have the dexterity to play Hotel California using pinky and ring finger separately (like, on fret 9 on the A and D string in the first arpeggio you have screen-shot above). So I used the pinky-roll that Josh talks about in the Billie Jean lesson. Basically, I would play the A9 with the tip of my pinky and roll it to somewhere around the knuckle for the D9. And then roll back up for the A9.

Recently, though, my reach and dexterity has improved, and now I’m playing with separate ring and pinky fingers. It does give you a bit more control, for whatever that’s worth.

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Thanks for the reply. I’ll keep working on it to see what works best

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You may find in certain positions, one works better than the other. Use what you are comfortable with.

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Appreciate the input and I will see what works best. My one instructor on a song with a similar situation said the roll was the best but for that one the two separate fingers yielded a cleaner sound. That was of course higher near the top of the fretboard & on the E & A strings.

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I’d start with 2 fingers ring and pinky then transition to whatever more comfortable for you. It’s a comfortable shape so it really doesn’t matter. I’d put in some practice time on both say 25-50 each, then move on to the next song give this a rest for a few days. When you come back you’ll find out exactly what your body likes. It’s all about muting.

You only practice this skill once consciously, when you add this to your tool bag you don’t think about them anymore, it just happens naturally.

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Good advice. Thank you.

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Like others have said, it’s personal preference. As someone who only really plays motown, I use the pinky roll if I need to reach the root in a R/5/8 situation. If the tempo is very fast and I don’t need the root much or at all, I will use the the stacked ring and pinky finger method just because it is more comfortable to do fast and clean

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Here’s a quick video showing what I mean, if watching the fingers helps. Sorry if tempo is a little weird on the song, just going off of what I remember listening to it on the radio

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To let you feel a bit better, this is the most difficult fingering transition on the instrument. I took this exact same problem to a luminary guitarist at the college where I was doing the jazz studies program.
He gave me an exercise where, using each finger, you play the same fret on two strings moving up a string (each finger say, 5th fret E, 5th fret A, then 6th fret E, 6th fret A, first index, then middle respectively, and doing this with each of the 4 fingers/frets in that position. Then you flip it. Start with the pinky on the A, and move to the E.).
That helped make the movement more natural.
Start SLOW!!!

For the Eagles part specifically, I use ring and pinky fingers - different finger on the different strings. I have huge hands and fingers, so I have the advantage here.
If that isn’t comfortable, try a week or two of that finger exercise and see if you can build that move into your technique.

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Chipping in as I’m also working on this.
For the sake of me it’s reaaaaally hard to “command” any finger roll on my pinky and ring fingers, while with my index and middle fingers it feels much more natural and comfortable. I guess I’ll need to put much more work on that.
I’m having quite some fun in training finger rolls on this tune:
Tame Impala - Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
(I use ultimate guitar for tabs but any other youtube play along video works just as well).

There are a lot of string jumps on the same fret. So far I’m using finger rolls on jumps between E and A string, while I find easier to use different fingers (ring and pinky) for jumps between D and G string. While this might be okay for some situations, I’d like to have both options on all fingers!

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