Hello, I’m Joe from the UK. I had a handful of bass lessons at school many years ago, since then I’ve played the bass here and there, watching youtube lessons randomly and learning songs without every laying down good foundations (until recently starting the BtB course which is awesome!).
I have two technique questions regarding habits I have formed with the plucking hand. Correcting these bad habits will be tricky as they are engrained, so I want to know if it is worthwhile correcting them a it will certainly require going backstepping.
Habit 1 - relocating the anchored thumb: I either rest my thumb of the plucking hand on the E string (if playing strings A, D or G) or on the body of the bass to the side of the pickup and just slighty above the E string (when playing the E string). How important is it that I learn to rest the thumb on the A string also? I know there are some proposed muting benefits but I find transitioning the anchored thumb from the A to E (or vice versa) very tricky and end up creating unwanted noise during the transition as the thumb leaves the string it was resting on. This is impossible for me when plying Billie Jean at full speed and I know it will require lots of effort. I feel pretty comfy with resting my thumb on E or having it float on the body.
Habit 2: this i regarding a habit of not alternate plucking when crossing strings, but only when moving to a lower consecutive string. For example, if I play the G string with my first finger and then the next note is on the D string, I will always play that note with the first finger instead of alternating to the 2nd finger. This is because the first finger comes naturally to rest on the D after playing the G, so it seems more efficient to use it again as it almost just rolles over the strings and its there ready to strike the string above. I can swap over to the 2nd finger, but the moment I play anything fast or more complex its very tricky to unlearn.
I hope my tired brain has explained this well! Thanks 