PICK PLAYING PART TWO

Welcome back! I hope you’ve had a fun month experimenting with pick playing and getting your alternating up- and downstrokes to feel more comfortable and controlled. Keep going—it’s important to maintain a foundational practice, even as you feel yourself moving onto more advanced concepts and applications.

I remember the first time I toured with solo bass legend Michael Manring. I was surprised that his pre-gig warm-up mostly consisted of playing long, sustained notes, checking the intonation on his fretless and getting super-comfortable with controlling every aspect of his sound. He didn’t jump in and play all that incredible tapping and slapping stuff that we see him do so effortlessly. Instead, he built the foundations every time he picked up a bass. There was very evidently a direct correlation between making sure that the essentials were constantly attended to and his ability to play unique, dexterous compositions and improvisations.

We ended this lesson last month by talking about alternate picking, and specifically our ability to see the up and down movements as distinct from one another, with a view to choosing the