Having my first bass lesson today after 44 years

[police squad]

Having recently bought my Dingwall John Taylor bass (and not really having a gig for it) I've started to learn my 80s duo stuff but on the bass.

It would be fun to swap between guitar and bass on some gigs ( the bass line on Rio is particularly good)

I've decided that I should do some of this stuff more authentically and play using fingers and not always with a pick

The guy in my 80s band is a music teacher and awesome bass player and he's putting together a short video of how he plays with fingers

stuff like how to keep the volume the same between different fingers

Also he says to keep the nails on your plucking hand short so they don't pick the string

 

Anyone else got any more tips for me on this, (keeping the nails short is a great tip)

[Geek99]

I read somewhere that JT learned “chucking” from Bernard Edward’s and that this technique uses the nail to get a pick like sound?

[itu]

You may have an idea of how you sound, but a looper is very good tool to reveal details from your playing. Instant playback, cheap units are really cheap. 

[warwickhunt]

1 hour ago, police squad said:

Having recently bought my Dingwall John Taylor bass (and not really having a gig for it) I've started to learn my 80s duo stuff but on the bass.

It would be fun to swap between guitar and bass on some gigs ( the bass line on Rio is particularly good)

I've decided that I should do some of this stuff more authentically and play using fingers and not always with a pick

The guy in my 80s band is a music teacher and awesome bass player and he's putting together a short video of how he plays with fingers

stuff like how to keep the volume the same between different fingers

Also he says to keep the nails on your plucking hand short so they don't pick the string

 

Anyone else got any more tips for me on this, (keeping the nails short is a great tip)

 

Well there you go, that perfectly demonstrates 'One man's meat...'!  LOL

 

I keep the finger nails on my right/picking hand at a length whereby I can use them to affect the sound but not so long that I can't change my position and use the flesh.  

 

Sometimes I also play the string below the one I am playing almost percussively with Ghost notes (I'd never analysed or even thought about it till someone asked me how I do it), a DB technique in a way; some tutors would find this an anathema to 'proper' bass playing but it works for me.