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Stu Ham was one of my first bass heroes.
I started playing back in 1990 at the
age of 15. And around that time, Stu was
playing with guys like Steve Vi, Joe
Satriani, and he had solo albums like
Radio Free Albamoth and Kings of Sleep.
He'd won a bunch of bass awards, and
he'd been on the cover of Bass Player
magazine, which I used to religiously
buy every month. So, when I saw his
instructional VHS video in a local music
store, I knew he'd be worth listening
to. At that time, I was also desperate
to learn how to slap. I was into flea
from the chili peppers, and I'd been
really struggling with the technique.
Anyway, Stu Ham's Hot Licks video was
called Slap, Pop, and Tap for Bass.
Wonderful, I thought. This looks like
the tape for me. Well, I bought it. And
not only did Stu totally blow my mind
with his amazing
playing, it actually transformed my
playing. After a few months of learning
the lines in the video, I was slapping
and tapping for fun. Stu became a huge
hero of mine, and I began practicing
every spare second of the day from that
moment on. But the exercise in that
video that threw me a curveball more
than any other was not even performed on
bass. It's what seemed like a simple
finger exercise for increasing
independence. But as you can imagine,
it's not so simple, and I spent what
seemed like months working on it. So,
let's get into it and let me know in the
comments below how you do on first try
because I've never seen anybody do this
correctly on first attempt. So, here's
the exercise. You simply clench your
fist, holding down the fingers a little
with the thumb at the back, and then you
raise your first and third fingers. So,
you can see there, I'm still holding the
second and fourth fingers down with the
thumb. So, we have the first and third
fingers raised. Then go back to the
clenched fist and raise the second and
fourth fingers. So again, I'm holding
down the other fingers with the thumb.
And then you just go between them. Okay?
So it's first and third, second and
fourth, first and third, second and
fourth. And then you just learn to go
between them at speed. Once you have
that down, you can try it in both hands.
just you know different combinations
maybe one double speed just working
between them. So that's the exercise and
as you can imagine it's good for working
on basic finger independence. Does it
improve your bass playing? Well, it's
obviously not to turn you into a site
readading jazz soloing session basist.
No finger exercise is going to do that.
But I do know that I do find it easy to
switch between those two groups of
fingers in chords and consecutive
octaves like this.
At the end of the day, it's just a
finger exercise and one that you can
work on any time of the day. I also find
it helps get my fingers working a little
as a warm-up and a stretch. So, anyway,
give it a try and you can show people at
parties if nothing else. So, check out
all of Stuart Ham's work on albums as a
sideman and a solo artist. He also has
lessons over at True Fire. And then
check out this video here where I work
through Stu's cool tapping line from his
tune Country Music, A Night in Hell.
It's fairly easy for players of all
levels, but it sounds super cool and you
do get to do a little tapping on bass.
So check it out and I'll see you next
week.
Discover the ultimate bass practice with Stu Hams' Insane Finger Exercise.
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