Plucking & Fretting Hands

Bass is a two-hand engine, so build both sides now. Start with the plucking hand: rest your thumb on a pickup, curl your index and middle fingers, and alternate them strictly — index, middle, index, middle — like walking fingers. Pluck through the string so the finger comes to rest on the next thicker string, toward the ceiling (a rest stroke): you get a full tone, and that string is muted for free.

The fretting hand presses with the fingertip, just behind the fret, thumb flat on the back of the neck. Then set your home position: one finger per fret — index on fret 1, middle on 2, ring on 3, pinky on 4. The frets are far apart down here, so let the whole hand shift rather than stretching; most beginner lines live inside that four-fret frame.

Idle strings ring sympathetically on bass, so quieting them matters as much as sounding notes — the muting guide is written for guitar, but the mechanics are identical. Warm both hands up with the chromatic 1-2-3-4 exercises, then run the routine below: the four open-string roots (plus the octave, two strings up at fret 2, for E and A), the easiest drill in the bass library and your first chance to put both hands together.

Practice this