I have been playing for 23 years and have played music from across the spectrum of styles; from full-on rock bands to piano jazz trios, even a little classical opera group - playing countless live gigs and numerous recording sessions, all this has helped make me a very versatile bassist. I've been lucky enough to work with some very talented musicians over the years I've been playing including live performances with members of Skunk Anansie, The Egg (playing live on MTV and Channel 5), opera singer Heather Cairncross, Soweto Kinch, Robert Mitchell, Tom Pilling, Mike Bradley, Robin Banerjee (Amy Winehouse), Lauren Dalrymple (Jazz Warriors), Dylan Howe, Cheb Nacim, Shannon Harris (Wheatus, Lilly Allen), Franc O'Shea, Tom Cawley, Sebastiaan De Krom, Gabor Doneyi and dozens of superb jazz, rock and world musicians. I've also studied privately with great bass players Mike Mondesir, John Goldsby, and Rob Statham.
Four Finger Picking
- Matt Garrison style plucking lesson video:
Explanation of this technique
I've
been trying to get it for a while and as I already
do the Wooten stuff that involves using two finger
pluck with the index and middle fingers on your
picking hand - it was quite easy to get the thumb-index-middle
pattern happening- I have now switched this over
to a four finger picking style – pioneered by
Matt Garrison.
To get this flowing like a regular two finger technique I started running sequences
against the metronome - the patterns I used to
get it going in a groove are mainly octaves and
fifths - but it works best when you play say
root (4 plucks), octave (2 plucks) minor seventh
(2
plucks) - so you always keep it even, always
keeping the thumb and fingers moving in that
sequence and
always doing 4 plucks per beat.
You
can obviously move all this around and try different
bass lines - it's not the amount of notes you play, more
the number of plucks you use to play them - so a simple
minor pentatonic bass line suddenly becomes a funky staccato
16th note funk out - if you play 2 notes per string -
but use 4 plucks to play them you get that nice bouncy
super-fast Jaco thing happening - the key being dividing
the amount of plucks evenly between the amount of notes
- i.e 2 notes + 4 plucks = 2 plucks per note.
The
video above illustartes just how flexible this type of
plucking can be - it's actually good to useon slower
grooves as well - and great for adding a little percussive
roll and string pops that are a bit more subtle that
actual slap and pop. I try and vary the rhythm and attack
and I guess the next stage is working on accents in
the bar and playing more appegios and chord melodies
- lots of fun all the same.
My advice is take your time
and keep referring back to a metronome or drummer after
you have the physical side of it happening - don't try
and play too hard or fast to begin with - this requires
the use of new muscles in your hand and they - along
with your new callouses - may take a while to get stronger
- don't hurt yourself whatever you do. Practice makes
perfect so just be patient and keep working on this alongside
all the other things like scales, harmony and your ears
- and please use this sparringly - or you might get sacked
from your band! Good luck.
A little clip showing how you can apply this
technique:
Chordal Funk - this is a clip of some of the ideas I've been working on with
using four fingers to pluck chords in a synchopated way.
I've
been trying to get it for a while and as I already
do the Wooten stuff that involves using two finger
pluck with the index and middle fingers on your
picking hand - it was quite easy to get the thumb-index-middle
pattern happening- I have now switched this over
to a four finger picking style – pioneered by
Matt Garrison.
To get this flowing like a regular two finger technique I started running sequences
against the metronome - the patterns I used to
get it going in a groove are mainly octaves and
fifths - but it works best when you play say
root (4 plucks), octave (2 plucks) minor seventh
(2
plucks) - so you always keep it even, always
keeping the thumb and fingers moving in that
sequence and
always doing 4 plucks per beat. 
You
can obviously move all this around and try different
bass lines - it's not the amount of notes you play, more
the number of plucks you use to play them - so a simple
minor pentatonic bass line suddenly becomes a funky staccato
16th note funk out - if you play 2 notes per string -
but use 4 plucks to play them you get that nice bouncy
super-fast Jaco thing happening - the key being dividing
the amount of plucks evenly between the amount of notes
- i.e 2 notes + 4 plucks = 2 plucks per note.
The
video above illustartes just how flexible this type of
plucking can be - it's actually good to useon slower
grooves as well - and great for adding a little percussive
roll and string pops that are a bit more subtle that
actual slap and pop. I try and vary the rhythm and attack
and I guess the next stage is working on accents in
the bar and playing more appegios and chord melodies
- lots of fun all the same. 