Bass Guitar Lesson: Basic Bass Fretting Technique
Learn basic bass fretting technique in this bass guitar lesson from Howcast.
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Transcript
So for basic bass fretting technique, the most important thing we wanna keep in mind, is to be as close to the fret as possible while keeping your finger in the left side of the fret that you wanna play. If you're playing a note on the first fret, you wanna be directly behind it. Directly to the left of that fret. And the same would be true for playing the second fret and the third fret and so on and so forth up the neck. If you put your finger right on top of the fret you might get a buzzing sound. So we want it to be directly to the left of it. It also helps for fast playing, which we've mentioned before, because, knowing exactly where your finger is gonna be is gonna help your muscle memory put your finger exactly there. So even though any space within this fret is gonna get the same note technically, the tone will be clearest right next to the fret. The other thing to keep in mind is how hard you're pressing on the string is going to affect your dexterity and also affect the tone you get out of the instrument. If you're not pressing hard enough you might get a rattling sound or another type of unpleasant sound that you don't want. If you press too hard,m you're just wasting energy. So you wanna find a happy medium where you can just press the string down and get a clear tone without wasting too much energy just pressing the string down as hard as you can.
