The claw

Re: The claw


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There are also many more excercises to properly separate/ strengthen the four fingers:

1.: put all four fingers on the high e on adjacent positions starting 10th fret lift you ring finger, and only your ring finger and use it to do continous hammerons/pulloffs on the 12th fret of the B string. Make it sound lound and clear, the end goal would be that it is so strong that you one can barely tell if its picked or only left hand (a la Guthrie Govan)
2.: Same thing, but now first finger E10, second finger B11, Ring finger B12, pinky E13. Again, hammer on and pull offs with the third finger (alternating between A# and B). I usually do both for 1 minutes as a part of a warm up routine
3.: Again on one string, bt this time each note is picked,alternating between the following pair of fingerings:
- 1234/1243
- 1324/1342
- 1423/1432

I do each fingering 5x and each pair thrice. Then shift positions.

4.: Take a Major 7 shape with root on D16, 3rd on G15, 5th on B14 and 7th on e13. Start lowering the notes of the chord by a half step one by one, starting with the 7th and, 5th and so on and sound each chord. Once you reach E1, then go back up. When I first started this, I couldn't go all the way and needed to reposition my left hand fingers with my right hand. That's OK, because the idea is to make the stretch and get your muscles to hol the shape. Eventually they will get all the way and you can start worrying about grabbing each note right behind the fret not to pull them sharp and obviously the ultimate goall is to lose the "deathgrip" and do the shifts effortlessy.
 
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Re: The claw

Also:


Edit: Just realized that we're int the BASSment. Sorry about that. :) But you have guitars to do the exercises on. ;)
 
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Re: The claw

I have never had any kind of teacher to show me proper techniques or anything like that as a self-taught player, but my left hand definitely does not look like that. I have been playing for 23 years with bass being my primary instrument until about 2008.

Of course, my fingers are all sort of effed up from being a two way starter in the trenches on my junior and high school football teams... but from playing guitar and bass my hands actually are pretty soft, city-boy hands now (even though I moved to the country after growing up in the North Minny vicinity).
 
Stop crying and do something about it.

Thought I'd mention that my claw isn't due to an injury. It's from upright bass fingering early in my musician life. Anyhoo, I am doing exercises to help my left hand but I think I'll be forever clawed no matter what I do. I play a few minutes of left handed bass per day where I pluck with pointer and middle, then middle and ring, then ring and pinky. It's working pretty well to develop my left hand a little better for my regular right handed guitar playing.
 
I don't think there is really a problem here. BOTH of my hands do this in the relaxed position. I have no dexterity issues or anything else. I never played upright bass, only guitar and electric bass.
 
Thought I'd mention that my claw isn't due to an injury. It's from upright bass fingering early in my musician life. Anyhoo, I am doing exercises to help my left hand but I think I'll be forever clawed no matter what I do. I play a few minutes of left handed bass per day where I pluck with pointer and middle, then middle and ring, then ring and pinky. It's working pretty well to develop my left hand a little better for my regular right handed guitar playing.

do you really think that injuries don't occur from repetitive motion?
Take a good look at the two links I posted. Think about carpal tunnel syndrome, that's considered an injury.
 
Darn Clint 55, I learn something new about you every day.

So you studied upright? :o Awesome! :). I studied fretless electric bass... wanted to play the upright;

but decided not to. Because it was so expensive; hard to lug around- and not easy to learn/play either. It's still my favourite bass (and bowed) instrument.

\m/
 
Pretty sure that's what they now call "carpal tunnel"

Used to get that way in a job that involved huge volumes of typing at like 90 WPM... went away on its own after I ragequit.

Actually, would even go away with breaks of just a few days, but would recur if you went back to the activity that caused it too much and too early
 
I have a feeling that masturbating, typing on a keyboard on the internet ,and texting on your phone has done more to mess with your hand posture than playing bass.
 
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