Greetings, aspiring members of the low-end metal militia. We gather as
brothers and sisters once again to discuss
ways in which fingerstyle bassists can dish
out the same level of bass brutality as our
plectrum-wielding brethren. Today’s mission:
achieving double-time speed through
“flicking,” and tightening up heavy riffs
using muting.
Let’s start with the flicking. Back in
the ’80s I was a teenager who wanted to
play along with Metallica’s Master of Puppets
[1986, Elektra], but was flummoxed
as to how to keep up with the double-time
thrash-metal grooves of “Disposable
Heroes” and “Damage, Inc.” On my best
day, my two or three alternating fingers
couldn’t even approach the required
tempo: 16th-notes at 188 BPM. I had never
held a pick and wasn’t anxious to pick
one up. What to do?
Someone had told me that Cliff Burton,
Metallica’s original fingerstyle bassist,
was flicking his fingers back and forth
against the string somehow, simulating
the downstroke-upstroke motion of a pick.
(I had never seen him play; you couldn’t
just look it up on YouTube back then.) So
I sat down and began working on it. It
was ugly at first, but after much practice,
I came up with something that worked.
And lo and behold, I was finally able to
employ the technique 20 years later, on
live gigs with Dethklok.
Here’s how to do it: First, hold your
plucking-hand index and middle fingers
together. Second, curl them both so that
the tips of each finger are even. (You can
test this by simply putting both fingertips
on a flat surface—your middle finger will
be bent slightly more than your index finger.)
Third, bring that hand position onto
your bass, with the joined fingertips perpendicular
to the string you’re about to
strike. Now you’re ready: Strike down on
the desired string, the way you would with
one finger. Then, reverse the motion by
flicking your joined fingers back up across
the same string.
It will be awkward at first. The idea is
to get the most identical sound possible
in the upstroke “flick” as you do on the
downstroke. Start on your open E string
(or whatever you’re tuned down to) with
a metronome set to 90 BPM, and start flicking
slowly. Try to keep the strike light and
your hand relaxed, but make sure to get
a good, clean strike going both ways. The
impact should be equally on the fingertip
and the tip of the fingernail (keep your
nails trimmed for this to work!), give or
take a few millimeters.
One more thing about this: I’m not
saying you should be flicking every time
the guitarists are tremolo-picking or riffing
tightly at double-time. It often sounds
better to play only half as many notes as
the guitars (eighth-notes against guitar
16ths). But when you need to crank up
the speed, and you don’t play with a pick,
this is a way to get it done.
Now let’s get onto muting. Few things
sound as cool as two crunched-out metal
guitars doing a tight, intricate riff while
palm-muting. You know the sound:
Chunk-chickita-chunk. The kick drums
are right there with them: Bamp-bampitabamp.
If you don’t use a pick and palmmute
the strings with your right hand, how
can you achieve the same tightness on
bass? It has to be done with the fretting
hand.
It’s a technique that Rocco Prestia of
Tower Of Power used to great effect.
Here’s my version of it: Use your index
finger to fret whatever note you’re hitting,
and then just touch your pinkie lightly on
the same string (usually two frets higher)—
just enough to keep the note from ringing
out fully, but not so much that it chokes
off the note completely. This is key: Unlike
a classic “mute” where you produce a percussive
sound only, the note should still
be there, just tightened up somewhat. If
you’ve never done it before, you’ll need
to experiment to get just the right amount
of pinkie pressure. But when you feel it
click, and then hear it come out right, and
you start muting in unison along with the
crunch of the rhythm guitars, it can make
a riff so heavy that it falls through the
floor. (Bonus: How can you mute the open
bottom string? By curling your frettinghand
thumb around from the back side of the neck and touching it lightly against
the side of the string. Try it!)
And the good news is, because this is
metal and not funk, you don’t have to
move your index finger around nearly as
much as Rocco did. On most metal riffs
where this technique makes sense, you
can get your index finger from here to
there without it falling off. Then look at
Ex. 1 for a fretting-hand muting exercise
in a typical modern metal riff. (As always,
use a metronome and start slow.) For extra
credit, try Ex. 2, where I’ve combined the
flicking and the muting into one advanced
example.
The exercises are complete, of course,
only after a proper display of horns: \m/
Bryan Beller is the touring bassist for the
metal “band” Dethklok from the Cartoon
Network’s Adult Swim show Metalocalypse,
and has played with Steve Vai, Mike
Keneally, Dweezil Zappa, Wayne Kramer,
and more. His most recent solo album is
Thanks in Advance [Onion Boy]. Follow him
on Twitter (@bryanbeller) and find out
more at www.bryanbeller.com.