Beginner Bass Practice – Building Finger Strength and Timing

[laurawoods]

Hi everyone,

I’m new to BassChat and recently started learning bass on a Yamaha TRBX174. I’ve been practicing at home for a few months and want to improve my finger strength, speed, and timing, but I’m not sure the best way to structure my practice sessions.

I’d love to get advice from more experienced players on:

Finger exercises: Which drills helped you develop finger independence and strength as a beginner?

Timing practice: How do you effectively practice with a metronome without getting frustrated?

Practice structure: Should I focus on short technique exercises, scales, or playing along with simple songs in the early stages?

Progress tips: Are there any “must-learn” exercises or routines that accelerated your early improvement?

I’d appreciate any tips, routines, or examples you could share — even short practice schedules. Looking forward to learning from your experience!

Thanks in advance!

among us

[Si600]

Hi, welcome to the madhouse.  We're 99% polite over here, so stick with us over TalkBass

 

Playing will build finger strength over time, I've never done any finger excersises beyond a few scale repetitions to warm up a bit.

 

Timing:  Keep it simple and slow down.  Get a simple 12 bar repeating pattern and concentrate on hitting the start of the bar, but there's no point starting at full speed, you'll only get frustrated.

 

Tips wise, play what you like.  If you like Taylor Swift, learn Taylor Swift songs.  If you don't enjoy the music you're trying to play you'll get bored and stop playing it.

[prowla]

The only supplementary (apart from playing) exercises I've done have been:

• To stretch apart the fingers on my left (fretting) hand; over the years the span of my left hand tip of index finger to tip of pinky is about an inch more than my right.
• Touching each fingertip to my thumb.
• Generally wiggling fingers.
• Using a PC keyboard.

I've never done anything strength-wise.

Playing-wise I've generally learned songs - they help build the muscle memory and bring in different styles of playing.

For the rght-hand I use a pick and/or fingers; I like to try and be able to play something by either method, but I tend to find pick is more precise and fingers more free-flowing.

I think a deficiency of my playing is I don't know the scales, but when someone starts talking about mixolydian or whatever I often think "oh, that's like this one I play".

I also think it's been remiss of me not to learn to read music, but maybe one-day I'll put serious effort in; OTOH, I subscribed to the idea that I want to play my stuff rather than be an automaton doing what someone else has written note-for-note.

[HeadlessBassist]

Hi Laura,

 

As Prowla says, learning to read bass clef notation would definitely help.

 

I usually start students on a simple Double Bass method - your Yamaha electric bass is basically a double bass turned on it's side - like "Team Strings" or "Strictly Strings". That will give you a good and simple grounding to not only reading, but learning where the basic notes are on each string. I then move players onto "The Literate Bassist" by Fred Paterno. That's a great book that takes you through line development in various styles. 

 

Use LH fingers 1-2-4, covering only three fret spaces below the 7th fret. Above this point, you can change to one finger per fret.

 

Practice your RH walking with index and middle fingers, experimenting where you like the sound best. (I usually go for mid way between the pickups.)

 

Best of all, you live in Michigan - Joe Dart country. Seek him out for some lessons.  

 

 

[kiat]

6 hours ago, laurawoods said:

Timing practice: How do you effectively practice with a metronome without getting frustrated?

among us

I prefer to use the sound of drums than a metronome. It keeps it interesting and adds feel.  There are so many sources these days.  In brackets (is what I use).

• drum machine (Alesis SR-16)
• drum software (Loopz on Android)
• drums stems, ie real drums from music tracks (Moises on Android and Linux)
• drums from pedals (Valeton GP-5 its cool for practice as the output to headphones includes the drums and my bass)

Good luck with your journey.  You're asking a load of good questions - don't let yourself get overwhelmed!  Play often and with other supportive musicians as much as possible.