@terb thanks to this thread, I have really become hooked on pick playing. I’ve acquired a collection of really nice picks, and have been practicing all the basslines and riffs that I had been working on with my fingers, but with a pick. I really like the tone, and find that I easily adapt from finger plucking to pick playing.
Pro: Now I can let my nails grow back instead of keeping them trimmed down to the nub.
Con: Muting is a bit of a challenge as I don’t have my floating thumb to mute the strings. But, I’ll figure it out.
yeah that’s a good thing to do ! a pretty cheap collection in fact
me too
here I’d say that … it depends. for me (guitar player) it’s easy, yes, but I’m not sure it is for every bass player. also there is the up/down picking technique, which is something pretty unique. it’s somewhat the pick equivalent of finger alternating, it requires some work to really get the thing.
but yeah again that’s great to read that, maybe you have a good feeling with a pick and that’s perfectly fine !
sure, it is. but I can say it becomes really natural. taking myself as an example, I never think about that, and I always play with a way (way way) more noise-sensitive tone than almost everybody ; think high gain + a lot of trebles + round wound strings.
Muting everytime with every part of any finger you have is some kind of key, I know it’s not easy at all at first, but it really becomes a very natural thing. it’s like, you don’t really have a choice here : you need to mute, so you will.
my advice here would be : don’t be rude with yourself, the muting technique takes a lot of time, so, yeah, you will have some noises, but it will get better and better and finally you will gain this mighty ability to mute perfectly every string that needs to be muted, without thinking about it one second. I swear.
I realize it can sound like magic but, really, you will have this ability.
@terb you say you play exclusively with a pick. Never with your fingers? Never ever? That’s okay if you don’t, I know of many a great bass player who only play with a pick. Carole Kaye comes to mind.
I like the tone and feeling I have with a pick, so, yeah, I play mostly this way. but I also can like sometimes the more “muted”/organic tone with bare fingers, and you can see me playing with a proper alternating finger technique on one cover (The Steel Woods - Axe)
I’d say that the pick is really more natural to me and it sounds overall better for the music I make, so, yeah, I play mostly with a pick. but I have nothing against bare finger playing and I do it sometimes.
yeah my opinion is that it would be a good thing to do all the B2B course with bare fingers, it won’t make you an insanely fast finger player or what, but it gives you the basics and that’s the purpose of this course, I think.
when you’re graduated, and I know you are it’s your own job to develop your playing in the direction you want.
and here we’re in the “there’s no good or bad choice” zone. I’m a big Iron Maiden / Steve Harris fan (talking about the two first albums), and Harris plays with bare fingers on flat wound strings. I’m not a big fan of flat wounds, and I can’t ever imagine playing at this speed without a pick. but Harris does this way, that’s fine, it’s his thing and he does it extremely well.
also I could talk about Bobby Vega who does not play in a musical style I like much, but still, I love this guy : he just doesn’t care about “what makes a real bass player” or what, he does his thing and he does it extremely well. he likes to play with a pick for funk bass lines, and it sounds killer at the end. that’s it.
just do what you want, play the way you like, develop your own tone, your own style (your own lines) ; all of this being very much affected by playing with a pick or with fingers so it’s a true artistic choice here. no one can judge you, and if someone ever tells you that a real bass player doesn’t use a pick, you can just say that it’s just pure bullshit. do your music the way you want. not much more to say
I love that statement. thank you @terb
I wish my high school music teacher/band director would have understood that concept before he threw me out of the band.
As a complete beginner I have a pick related question. Should I try to learn everything at the moment both with and without using a pick, or should I just ignore using a pick till I have some proficiency?
in my opinion @Mark_UK , you should not add unneeded difficulty to your learning process. and it’s hard to learn two things at the same time.
I’d say that, unless you know you want to play with a pick (because for example the musical styles you want to play require the pick attack and agressive tone), you should learn first to play as a “normal” bassist, which means alternating bare fingers. you could always learn to play with a pick later
Thanks for the advice @terb. I will follow what you suggest.
Once you have been learning for a long time just playing with fingers, is the transition to pick hard?
Learning to play with your fingers first gives you a little better grounding, I think. As you progress through the course, you could try using a pick here and there to see how it affects your style and tone. Everyone is different, and there are no hard or fast rules on this.
… also I’d like to say that for now I’m playing with alternating bare fingers. all my last covers since the Dope one (April, 6) are all played without a pick. which means I never used a pick one in more than one month, which is probably a personal record.
I love the pick attack, feel and overall tone, but playing with alternating fingers makes me play in a different way, and even brings a very different inspiration when I’m composing bass lines. For example, alternating fingers work way better for me when I play dark country, where I need/want a “jumping” attack more than an agressive one.
what I’m trying to say is that playing mostly with a pick don’t mean that alternating fingers become less interesting. I like to be able to play with different plucking techniques, it’s a great way of expanding my expression range with the instrument. Of course the same logic works in the other way : if you play mostly with alternating fingers, it would be on error to neglect the pick, in my opinion.
Interesting topic… I enjoy both styles as many have discussed depending on song genre, tempo, etc.
However, I have discovered a related aspect. When plucking I’ve discovered that my body can be more active, move around to the beat, and “feel” the music as I’m playing. But on songs where I’m picking, if I start moving more, I end up making more mistakes. I’m guessing this is because when using finger style, my hand and fingers can stay in contact more with the strings, but when using a pick, that contact is limited- so its much easier to play the wrong string or to not hit a string cleanly. With that being said, I do play more songs with a pick and love the sound- I probably just need more experience if I want to eventually jump around like a rock star!
im a guitar player but playing lamb of god type riffs on bass are still some times kind of difficult I was wondering the thickness of the picks your using and if you have used any made out of picks that aren’t nylon and I have tried some stone and titanium and some others from timbre tones but this may be answered in this threat already and if it is im about to read it all right now so I apologize for asking if it is
but, really, you will have this ability.
it’s your own job to develop your playing in the direction you want.
