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How to increase your speed on the bass!
#BASSNATION this week’s lesson is all about SPEED!! Any time we incorporate all of our fretting hand fingers in an exercise we are really helping to increase our overall speed and dexterity. This is a really great exercise to do just that. As always, make sure you are playing through this exercise at your own pace so that each note is coming out clean, clear and precise. Even though this lesson is all about increasing your speed, it is more important to be accurate than it is to be fast and sloppy.
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9 thoughts on “How to increase your speed on the bass!”
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Great, simple exercise. I’ve really felt lacking on speed lately and this is perfect, it’s really helped!
To play this fast is your first finger on the next string already in position when you play the last note on the actual string?
Yes it is, always planning a step ahead ?. Good question
Would it be o.k. for us length-wise impaired people to begin this exercise at the 3.fret? How would you advise going about this on a 5 string? Also four groups and two different runs with one beginning on the G-String and the other on the D-String? Or five groups and simply not caring about the 4/4 patterning? (doing essentially 5/4)
With this exercise you want to focus on the 4 finger pattern. Whether it be starting from the open string or whatever fret you’re on. I would try to practice this starting on the lowest fret possible. That’s what makes the challenge a little bit harder. If you cannot reach, its perfectly fine to shift your hand if need be. Now as far as the pattern goes, you can do five notes on one string (including the open string) with shifting the first finger or the fourth finger. I love to experiment with both patterns
This was a great lesson for my beginner practice method. Should i try to keep track of the names of the notes as i play? to get a better feel of where i am on the fretboard?
Thanks! Glad it helped. And absolutely. There’s also some tutorials here that show you a few tricks to help you learn he name of your notes on the fretboard quicker and easier.
would you say playing an 8-note per string pattern in 32 note would also be a good exercise? or is that not practical
Hey, It depends on the speed/Bpm that you’re playing. But 32nd notes are still pretty quick no matter what speed. So in some cases it could be practical just don’t get stuck if you can’t accomplish it.