As bassists, our hands are our most important tools. Whether you're laying down a groove in a funk band or exploring the depths of jazz improvisation, your fretting hand plays a crucial role in shaping your sound.
However, many bass players—whether beginners or even more experienced musicians—develop bad habits that can hinder their progress, cause discomfort, or even lead to injury.
In this bass tutorial, I'll explore some common fretting hand mistakes and how fixing them can dramatically improve your playing.
Quite a few of the exercises I demo are featured in my free ebook: The Bass Guitar Resource Book so make sure to download that. It has loads of other useful stuff in it too.
How to Recognize and Correct Bad Habits
The first step in fixing bad fretting hand habits is recognizing them. It's easy to fall into a routine where these mistakes become second nature, but by taking the time to assess your technique, you can start making the necessary adjustments.
Everyone plays differently and has different sized fingers and hands so don't obsess over this. Find the way that works and is comfortable for you.
- Check Your Thumb Placement: Your thumb should rest roughly in the middle of the back of the neck, opposite your middle finger. This gives you a stable anchor while allowing your fingers the freedom to move across the fretboard.
- Mind Your Finger Positioning: Focus on keeping your fingers curved and pressing down on the tips rather than the pads. This will help you achieve a cleaner, more articulate sound.
- Relax Your Grip: Aim for a light touch. The pressure needed to fret a note is often less than you think. By reducing the tension in your grip, you'll be able to move more fluidly and reduce the risk of injury.
- Use Your Ears: Listen closely to your playing. Are your notes ringing out clearly, or are they buzzing or muted? Use your ears as a guide to determine if you're applying the right amount of pressure and if your finger placement is accurate.
Bringing It All Together
Correcting bad fretting hand habits can be a game-changer in your bass playing journey. As you work on these adjustments, remember that consistency is key. Incorporate these changes into your practice routine and give yourself time to develop new muscle memory. It might feel awkward at first, but with patience and perseverance, you'll notice significant improvements in your playing.
For an in depth look into fingerstyle bass technique, check out my book:
- Complete Fingerstyle Bass Technique: The Complete Guide to Mastering Essential Modern Bass Fingerstyle Technique
I find this is the hardest part for beginners but also the most important and crucial, I’m struggling to teach it my young boy in this period.
I have long arms and fingers, so I’ve always had trouble with finding that balance between fingertip distance to the fretboard. I solved mine making two corrections:
The first was adopting a slight shifting of the thumb, from straight up and down on the back of the neck, to pointing it roughly 45 degrees toward the tuning machines. This positions my pinky closer to the strings so I never have to move it very far.
The other correction was more massive – I push my fretting hand shoulder down. It turned out that I would raise it because of tension. This affects the placement of my elbow: If my shoulder is up, the elbow moves slightly forward which increases the distance between my fingers and the fretboard (the hand “drops down” a little, the steadiness of the arm is reduced, and the curl feels more loose too). By pushing my shoulder down a little, it stays more relaxed, the elbow is pushed rearward slightly which decreases the distance between my fingers and the fretboard while still being able to keep the curl of the fingers.
For me, the biggest correction was fixing shoulder tension. I hope this helps.
Excellent comment. Thanks.
Another reason not to push down hard when fretting is that you will slightly sharpen the note pitch. I’ve played aggressively by pushing very hard down on the fretted note only to press the string down to the wood of the neck slightly stretching it. The string only has to touch the fret. I since have found to have an aggressive feel, it comes with the plucking. At first it is odd having a relaxed gentle fretting hand and oppositely having the plucking fingers ramped up for power. It take a little concentration but is very do-able. We are not wrestling the instrument, we are mastering it. When doing a vibrato or shake, the fretting hand is very aggressive while the plucking hand is somewhat inactive, so it is easily possible to play with different tensions in the two hands so one can avoid the “choke” response. It was a little embarrassing when someone said my instrument was out of tune and after proving with a tuner it wasn’t, I realized it was my technique that was at fault.
Thanks, Dan for addressing these common pedestrian issues that are way to often overlooked!
Great points!