Rest stroke and octaves

[wintoid]

I've been playing bass on and off for 45 years, yikes.  Before bass, I had been mostly playing violin, and I guess what was my pizzicato technique on the violin got transplanted into my bass playing.  I play free strokes, basically.

 

Recently, I've been trying to practice rest strokes, with a view to potentially trying to adopt them more or even completely.  When I play with rest strokes, my right hand fingers are almost completely straight.  There's something incredibly satisfying about the motion of plucking this way, I love it, but I've got a lot to learn.

 

One of the hardest things seems to be crossing 2 strings to play octaves.  I wondered from more seasoned rest-strokers (ooer) whether you switch to free strokes for octaves?  I feel like I need to curl my fingers and change my hand position to miss the string in between the octaves.  Or is there a trick to make this easier?

[Acebassmusic]

What do you mean by free and rest strokes? I've not heard the terms before.

[wintoid]

6 hours ago, Acebassmusic said:

What do you mean by free and rest strokes? I've not heard the terms before.

Rest strokes are when you play through the string, so that your right hand fingers come to rest on the string below.  Free strokes are more like spanish guitar, where your fingers end up in free space (or on your palm).

[chris_b]

Gentle rest strokes all the time for me. IMO gets a better sound, with a lower action, better flow of notes and uses less energy than trying to pluck the strings.

Edited 13 hours ago by chris_b

[Acebassmusic]

2 hours ago, wintoid said:

Rest strokes are when you play through the string, so that your right hand fingers come to rest on the string below.  Free strokes are more like spanish guitar, where your fingers end up in free space (or on your palm).

Ah! Thank you, every days a school day 👍

I started playing bass using free strokes but moved onto rest strokes after about 10 years and find it gives me a "better" tone and helps with damping. Theres still some lines that need playing free strokes to allow the nites to ring out.

[wintoid]

5 hours ago, chris_b said:

Gentle rest strokes all the time for me. IMO gets a better sound, with a lower action, better flow of notes and uses less energy than trying to pluck the strings.

 

So when (if) the time comes to play octaves at any kind of speed, how are you coping?  I don't see how it's possible without curling my fingers, which blows the whole rest stroke thing for me.

[chris_b]

18 minutes ago, wintoid said:

 

So when (if) the time comes to play octaves at any kind of speed, how are you coping?  I don't see how it's possible without curling my fingers, which blows the whole rest stroke thing for me.

 

Index finger on the root (not quite a rest stroke as such, but not a pluck either) and middle finger on the octave (definitely a rest stroke here).

[Stub Mandrel]

21 hours ago, wintoid said:

I've been playing bass on and off for 45 years, yikes.  Before bass, I had been mostly playing violin, and I guess what was my pizzicato technique on the violin got transplanted into my bass playing.  I play free strokes, basically.

 

Recently, I've been trying to practice rest strokes, with a view to potentially trying to adopt them more or even completely.  When I play with rest strokes, my right hand fingers are almost completely straight.  There's something incredibly satisfying about the motion of plucking this way, I love it, but I've got a lot to learn.

 

One of the hardest things seems to be crossing 2 strings to play octaves.  I wondered from more seasoned rest-strokers (ooer) whether you switch to free strokes for octaves?  I feel like I need to curl my fingers and change my hand position to miss the string in between the octaves.  Or is there a trick to make this easier?

 

I used to play octaves with thumb and forefinger, but have taught myself to use forefinger and middle finger for speed and a more consistent tone.

 

As each finger has its own string and muting is easily dealt with by left hand for octaves I use free strokes.

[Buddster]

Same as Stub, 1st finger lower string/note, 1st finger octave, free strokes, left hand doing the muting.

Find it slightly easier with the hand angled back a bit. 

Not saying thats technically correct technic, just mine.