Hi everybody! I’m a beginner bassist and played for a few years by looking up videos on youtube etc. I just now decided to start to fix all the small mistakes that snuck into my playing since i did not “learn it the right way”. I just finished module 4 and try figure out the best position / posture of the fretting hand.
I do only practice while standing and i feel really comfortable on frets 5 and upwards. But for the lower frets I do not know where to but the hand and how to not bend the wrist. I usually keep my arm near my body, which does not feel physically demanding and makes it really easy to also play for longer sessions. But if I play lower notes it feels kind of harder than it should be.
I seem to have two options here:
- open the arm so the elbow sticks out. The wrist would not be bend but the overall effort seems to be high. My shoulder and the arm are exhausted after a practice session
- keep the arm near the body and bend the wrist. I do not really have any issue right now with this option but it seems as if this could result in injuries in the wrist if you play longer sessions
Just to be clear: I do know that in a live situation you’d move around and keep your body flexible but I just want to find the best way for my practice sessions
Do you have any tip on how to find the best position for the hand? Is bending the wrist really harmful?
Thx
@momsenderssb I’m sure this has been discussed before on the forum, so search for wrist related topics but…
keeping the wrist straight-ish helps to reduce finger movement restriction that accompanies a bent wrist;
having to reach for the low frets, particularly the E string, is a function of the bass scale length and your arm length, so lifting your fretting elbow to do the reach should be OK.
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I hesitate to say this so take it with a grain of salt and if anyone comes along to says that what I’m saying is wrong, completely ignore me.
But when playing up towards the headstock for long periods, or a song that’s complex and has a lot of notes in that area, I will tilt the bass more upright to bring the headstock closer to my head. That lessens the overall reach and helps my fingers reach all the notes in aiming for. Feels like it’s puts my wrist in a more natural angle. I might be giving you bad advice though, so see what the gurus have to say about it.
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Thank you very much! The video in this thread shows exactly my problem! I’m a bit embarrassed that I did not find it myself 
I’ll try tilting up the neck and see if that helps
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I do the same, and I sometimes stick out my elbow some, especially when going to and from frets 1 to 4 on the E and A strings. I have small hands and I can make this with microshifting as well, but found that sometimes I won’t make a smoothie transition resulting in either fret buzz or playing some staccato notes that were meant to be more legato.
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Also, how far from the fret you press, the more force it takes. Fretting right on top of the fret takes the least force. It takes more force to fret the lowest frets because you’re bending less string.
So if you’re fretting in the middle between the frets on the lowest frets, that’s going to take the most force and tire you out more quickly.
I dont think that the fretting is the problem because (at least in my opinion) I do press the fret at the correct position and the position is neither tiring in the hand nor in the wrist. Only the shoulder is tired after a session. But thanks anyway, I’ll keep an eye on that.
I tried a few positions and found that tilting alone did not fix it for me. I also had to lower the bass by extending the strap just a little. This way the “sweet spot” for comfortable playing went up and the the tilted the neck made it way easier to fret without twisting the wrist. I’ll stick with that position for a few practice sessions to see how tiring it is for the shoulder and if that ultimately fixes it.
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