Want your basslines to flow like water—seamless, smooth, and expressive?
Whether you’re a beginner building your foundation or an intermediate bassist refining your technique, this lesson will help you improve your fluidity on the bass guitar. I’ll walk you through personal tips that have helped me—and my students—develop clean transitions, relaxed movement, and rhythmic control.
These techniques aren’t just for flashy soloing—they’ll help you groove better, avoid injuries, and make even simple basslines feel smoother and more connected.
Let’s get into it.
Importance of Playing Fluidly on The Bass
Every bass groove, bassline, bass run or fill that you want to learn will have its own unique set of technical challenges.
Depending on the phrase, there could be string crossing involved or double-stops and chords.
When you have strategies for approaching certain technical challenges, like playing arpeggios, you’ll be able to improve the fluidity of your playing.
And, when you’re less clumsy with your fingers, you’ll:
- have more control of your time-feel
- be less prone to injury
- play faster
- ultimately improve your bass playing
TL;DR
If you’re short on time and want to cut straight to the chase, watch an old (but still relevant) video I made on this topic.
I’ll go over:
- which plucking finger to lead with (it matters depending on the melodic phrase you’re playing)
- an easier way to play arpeggios
- an easier way to play fourth intervals
- how to hold the bass guitar in a way that gets rid of bad angles with your fretting hand
Key Takeaways
Here are the takeaways from this bass lesson:
- When you’re ascending and crossing strings, it helps to lead with your pointer finger (index finger). That way your middle finger can reach the next string with ease.
- When you’re descending and crossing strings, it helps to lead with your middle finger. That way your pointer finger can play the lower string with ease. You can also rake the string, by dragging the same finger.
- When playing any melody involving arpeggios, it helps to try the Odd-Even/Even-Odd approach. By alternating the number of odd/even notes for each string, your fingers can rake the strings more easily. Raking on the bass is similar to the guitar sweep picking technique.
- When playing fourth intervals, using a different finger to fret each note can make it much easier to play. Many bass players do fine barring the note. But, if you can’t seem to get a smooth sound fretting with the same finger, try this approach instead.
- When holding your bass guitar, it helps to hold it like a shotgun. I call this The Shotgun Method. This will keep your wrists neutral and relaxed.
- In my personal experience, it’s worthwhile to explore how high you wear your bass when you’re standing. The higher you wear your bass, the more relaxed your fretting hand will be. The lower you wear your bass, the more relaxed your plucking hand will be. When you’re relaxed, you’ll play faster and more smooth.
Tip #1: The Shotgun Method (For Bass Players That Sit)
If you sit when you play the bass, I encourage you to try the Shotgun Method.
By resting your bass guitar on your leg and pointing it outward, like a shotgun, you eliminate nearly all bad wrist angles with your fretting hand.
Note: If you play right-handed, your headstock will be above your left knee.
When you wrists are able to remain neutral, you can play basslines more fluidly, chords without painful wrist angles, and navigate your fretboard with ease.
So, don’t sleep on this first tip!
It can help you improve your overall technique on the bass guitar.
Tip #2: Explore How High You Wear Your Bass (For Bass Players That Play Standing)
If you stand when you play the bass guitar, try different heights.
While it might look cool to wear your bass guitar very low on your body, your fretting hand will suffer bad wrist angles. This can cause a lot of pain later on in your career.
So, try vari