Or stamina?

Hello.

I've been finding that my bass playing has worsened of late. This is of course due to lack of pratice, due to uni madness I don't practice as much as I used to. These days I can just about barely finish playing the first two songs of Rust In Peace in a row before bursting into tears at my stiffened arm that can't move anymore.

I have two main problems at the moment - as you can probably guess by the title, one is that my finger madness isn't quite as fast as I'd like it to be. I think the main problem with this is that I find it very hard to relax my hands whilst playing. It's a very hard thing to do when you're playing intense metal madness, but it would seem that relaxation is the key to being fast. The second one is that my hands get tired and stiff too quickly, mainly after playing fast stuff. This hasn't really caused much of a problem before, but seeing as I've just joined a thrash band, I was thinking I'd better make sure I'm up to speed on my goodness.

Does anyone know of any techniques that might help me with any of this? I promise you rewards of silver and gold and pounds.

Personally i play scales repeatedly with a metronome. Increasing the tempo every ten play throughs kinds deal. I also use some of those hand exerciser do daah when i can be arsed.

My finger madness has increased a fair amount and i've only been doing it for about two weeks.

http://www.guitarlodge.com

this is a guitar forum that I used while I was learning.

proper useful yo!

it's got a little bass section as well..

check it out

IIRC Rust In Peace is played with a pick, so finger playing it will make your arm/hand hate you.

finger bass:
check out billy wats-his face from mr big. he has some videos on youtube showing how to do 4 finger speed picking. sounds super fast!!
pick bass:
i tend to rest my pinky just below the 2nd pick-up,i think that helps speed up a bit.try and keep your wrist limber and don't tence-up your guns!


dan lilker and tom angelripper are the bhoys for speed bass!!

when i was learning to play bass (pick) so i could joing amok id just sit up and downpick like a fanny until i was fast enough basically. Best warm up ever, just smack E as hard and fast as you can lol. I used to watch like vids of newsted downpicking master of puppetts for inspiration

Its not very scientific, but basically playing as fast as you can to a metronome until your forearm gets too tired to play that speed any more, then playing just a little bit longer will increase your stamina and speed.

I dont know if its just me though, but playing with a drummer and a band always makes it so much easier to play fast because of the energy.

With finger playing its the tremolo picking thats the tough bit i find. Its not that hard to play scales at a reasonable pace, but it is hard to play consistent tremolo notes. Ive tried some fancy schmancy 3 finger techniques but for trem i think just slogging away at the fingerspeed with 2 has a better result. Probably because i was shit at the 3 finger stuff though

If you can't play guitar good straight away, what's the point in even trying? Give up.

1.When your at uni, tap on you table on your knee of something as if you were plucking the bass. I'm Serious, all my speed for finger style bass came from tapping away at school and uni.

2. Play any note on the bass at a slow pace with all three fingers for a few seconds and then play double time for a few seconds, then go back to playing slow, then fast and so on. This really helps build stamina.

3. Massage your hand muscles and stretch your hand a bit before you start. It relaxes the muscle and helps stop you getting tense.

4. go here http://www.stevedigiorgio.com/tablature.html there's a lesson by the master himself on right hand speed which might help.

5. every now and then just let lose and play as fast as possible until it starts to hurt. Wreck less but it builds the muscles