Finger Picking.......

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grimtraveller

grimtraveller

If only for a moment.....
From the day I started learning the bass, I just used my fingers. It never crossed my mind not to. But I also loved the sound of a bass played with a pick. But I never learned pick playing.
Over the years, from time to time, with the Carlsbro amp I had, I could get close to that trebly clicky bass sound, but never quite the full monty. With the Fender bassman amp I have now, I've been experimenting alot with different sounds and settings and I like a number of the sounds I can achieve and I felt that now was the time to try for the picked sound and actually use one. I recently recorded with a pick and I dug it but it suddenly occurred to me a few days ago that I could kill two birds with one stone and look into putting something on my playing fingers that would give me that sound. And a few minutes later, I thought, 'thimbles !'
I've no idea if it's been done before, I'm sure someone somewhere must've thought of it since 1952. But I've never seen it. So I got a couple of thimbles from a dry cleaners and yesterday did some recording with the thimbled hand. It felt really weird at first. In fact, it felt weird throughout and on the second finger, it was almost painful at times, but in a bittersweet way. Thimbles.webp
But I loved the sound ! Chunky and clicky. It takes getting used to and it just gives me more scope in terms of sound. I remember EZ Willis saying something like "it's just the bass and a song isn't going to be a hit or not a hit because of the bass" and that's probably true. But I've long heard and liked different bass guitar tones ~ and I find there are almost as many bass tones as there are guitar ones. I just can't leave them alone. I'll continue to play with my fingers, I'll carry on recording with a pick and now that the thimbles have entered the picture.....they all give different sounds, like recording DI, miking, line out, speaker out, headphone out ~ and combinations of them all.
Almost anything is worth at least one go.
 
c7sus said:
Try some banjo fingerpicks.

Fingerpicks - Elderly Instruments
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About 20 or so years back when I first picked up the mandolin, I couldn't get to grips with a pick so I bought these kind of fingerpicks. But they just didn't work for me, I couldn't get it ! So I ended up working at the pick with the mandolin.
Last year my next door neighbour died and his wife in getting rid of his stuff gave me some musical stuff that he had but hadn't been able to use, some of which were those fingerpicks. As they came from a dead man, I thought I'd sterilize them but I left them in the boiled water too long and they changed shape ! It was partly that incident that got me thinking about something on my fingers. I may give fingerpicks a whirl actually, now that you've reminded me.
 
It's what killed him . . . strangled his fingers.

I started off playing bass with a pick . . . then went the other way to using fingers.

The method I use now depends on the song and how the bass is to sound within it.
 
Greg_L said:
Here's an idea - use a pick.
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I have been. Love that sound.

c7sus said:
Try some banjo fingerpicks
Click to expand...
After chewing it over a couple of days, I thought I'd retry this option. Hadn't worked for me with my chunky fingertips back in '92. But it's worth revisiting some things, so I bought a couple of metal ones today from the Hobgoblin folk shop and they were great. Did a recording session with them and they were better than the thimbles. What made the difference for me was turning them the wrong way round. With the sharp side on my finger pad side, the finger dexterity that I'm used to combines nicely with the picky sound that I want to incorporate more of. At some point I'll get around to trying them out on guitar and mandolin. With the mandolin in particular, I'm going shooting !
Thanks, C7sus !
 
Putting plastic finger picks in very hot water, then taking them out (with tongs) and putting them on your fingers is a good way to get them shaped to your fingers- also a good way to scald yourself, so be careful!:eek:

Finger picks never quite "worked" for me. I play lefty, and a left-handed guitar teacher gave me a lefty-player (left-hand) thumb pick, and I bought two types of finger picks- the kind that wrap around your finger and project out from your finger at about the same angle as a held pick would, and the kind that simulate long finger nails. Could not get used to either, no matter how I put them on my fingers. So, when I play guitar, I either use a flat pick or my left-hand thumb- and finger-tips. Little calluses form on my thumb and fingers when I do this a lot. I figure, if it's good enough for Sonny Landreth, it's good enough for me. (I wonder- does Sonny's wife insist that he only caress her with his left hand? Wait, that will be calluses there, too... :) )

I have played bass for decades, but only for a few years, in high school and early college, as my primary instrument. I have always finger picked the bass, using only (for the most part) my index and fore-fingers- I rarely use my ring finger or pinky, and only use my thumb for slap (which I have not mastered. Haven't mastered slap, I mean- got my thumb pretty much figured out. :D) In the group I play in, we switch off on the bass, and another guy plays it exclusively with his thumb. I can't figure out how he does it- I'm thinking, "Gee, you only got one thumb, you can reach strings twice as fast with two fingers..." but he makes it work- he and I have both played bass on Van Morrison's "Wild Night," and he seems to hit as many notes as I do, so whatever.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering if I play a lefty or righty(wrongy?) bass instrument... bass is the only instrument I can play upside-down- I can process the info required to follow the music AND play upside down if I keep it fairly simple. I learned how to do that when I was in high school and would play someone else's bass, which were always right-handed. I'd already learned guitar, lefty, so I had little choice. But, I prefer to play a lefty bass, so I bring my own, which allows me to get creative. As it happens, my lefty basses are better instruments than the other guys' righty basses, so that's a plus.
 
I'm left handed, but I learned to play right-handed without being conscious that there was an alternative. If I try to play a lefty guitar, it's like a totally new instrument, and I cannot make any sense of it.
 
I'm right handed but started playing guitar left handed on a right handed guitar. Go figure. That's just how I picked it up. It felt natural and seemed to make sense that the hand that requires more dexterity, the fretting hand, should be my dominant hand - the right. One of my dad's buddies showed me some chords and that I was playing like a retard, so I flipped the guitar and learned how to play it properly.
 
I've recently started to teach myself pedal steel - which more then most instruments (other than perhaps banjo) really demands use of finger picks for the various 3 finger grips for chording, etc. So far, I really do not like using finger picks (I'm sure like anything there is a learning curve - but currently, I'm hitting the wrong strings too often to play effectively)

Doing an internet search - I've found that there are actually many different shapes and materials for finger picks - so, I've been trying several different types. I have not found a specific brand/style that has been ultimate solution - but there do appear to be a fair amount of options. Fortunately, they are not too costly, so I can afford to experiment.

I've previously grown my nails on my right hand (I play right handed) to allow me to finger pick acoustic guitar with just the nails - however, when I then switch to bass, the long nails can create a "scratching" sound on the bass string - which then forces me to play bass with a pick.

I'd rather play bass with my fingers (vs. a pick) - but then I would have to cut the nails (which then compromises my guitar playing).

I'm hoping I'll eventually find finger picks I like - so I can cut my nails (given that the damn things break everytime I have to do any manual labor - trying to keep the nails long is a hassle).
 
I've used finger picks, used a thumb pick for years on the beast, now I use my finger nail like a pick. Hold my hand like I'm holding a pick, but no pick, found it much easier to play that way, faster, sound is a cross between a pick and pluck. As for left/right, I'm sinister but play dexter, back in the day a left handed guitar was hard to get, bass, forget it unless you could drop a G note or more. Way I looh at it, they don't make left hand pianos.
 
gecko zzed said:
I'm left handed, but I learned to play right-handed without being conscious that there was an alternative. If I try to play a lefty guitar, it's like a totally new instrument, and I cannot make any sense of it.
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Everyone should learn to play right handed. It's awkward either way when you're learning. But, if you play lefty, you'll only ever be able to play your own guitars, you'll almost never find anything used, and you'll pay more new. I think it doesn't make much of a difference when you're learning, so you might as well learn right handed.
 
aaronmcoleman said:
Everyone should learn to play right handed. It's awkward either way when you're learning. But, if you play lefty, you'll only ever be able to play your own guitars, you'll almost never find anything used, and you'll pay more new. I think it doesn't make much of a difference when you're learning, so you might as well learn right handed.
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I didn't mean to hijack this thread, but the left/right thing just won't go away...

There is some wisdom to what you say, but like most broad generalizations, it breaks down after a fairly short time. Being a left-handed player- I play with the low "E" string on the upper end- I agree, I can not pick up most guitars and have much fun with them. I also used to think that it didn't make any difference if one learned to play lefty or righty, but I no longer feel that way- some people (probably most) have more dexterity in one hand or the other, and IF that can be determined before (ahem!) "hand," that could be considered in how one would learn to play.

And although it is harder to find used instruments, the paradox of the lefty guitar purchase price is used lefty guitars tend to sell for quite a bit less then their right-handed equivalents, because the seller has to wait so much longer to find a buyer, he or she feels the need to cut the price to "move" it. My modest collection of left-handed guitars and basses (11 in all) would probably have cost me about 50% MORE (collectively) had they been right-handed instruments.

I once had a beginner student- an adult woman- who is left-handed, but did not know if she should play lefty or righty. We had a two-hour lesson, in which I had her switch between a left and a right-handed guitar, and try the same basic things. We switched the order up to minimize the effect of already knowing the material might have. At the end of the session, she decided that playing lefty felt more natural and comfortable for her, so that's the way she went. I had already warned her that finding lefty instruments would be more difficult, that playing other's guitars would be nearly impossible, etc. but she still decided she was a lefty player. So be it.
 
aaronmcoleman said:
But, if you play lefty, you'll only ever be able to play your own guitars, you'll almost never find anything used, and you'll pay more new.
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Well Hendrix bypassed that little problem as a lefty by playing a righty guitar strung as a righty, rather like Greg was saying he started off a few posts back. So the Hen played upside down and learned that way and was therefore able to play anyone's guitar.
Unless it was a lefty.
 
Yeah, but Jimmy was superstitious about lefty guitars, believing they were made of inferior materials (I have read.) That's probably why he played a "wrongie."

But I though he re-strung his guitars, with the low "E" at the top?
 
I don't think it was superstition. Left hand guitars were rare at that time. It was just one of those things, like the way Ray Charles picked up the piano without the left hand right hand bit or the way Ringo played a right handed kit though he was left handed. John Lennon said that he could play upside down because Paul McCartney taught him guitar chords and he was left handed.
I still like the clunk of the thimbles but the fingerpicks allow greater dexterity.
 
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