Any tricks?

Endure the pain.....you'll eventually make calices and stronger muscles.

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i do not care if my finger hurts as long as i can play fucking good metal songs, if is doesnt hurt, then is not a great metal song man.

right........anyway yeah just get used to it, your fingers will get used to it sooner or later..but u will have a couple of odd blisters

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oh shit i forgot about the jim dunlops cap thingys i have..check out the thread named ''comfortable picking''

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yeah man endure the pain, play like a bitch, slap the bitch up and just pick it up again and keep playin playin playin till your fingers fall off

this keeps calluses forming, but helps w/ the pain, put some super glue over the spot that hurts, then let it dry, then play, i advise not doing this too much though, or you'll become a wuss, only do it when it hurts really fucking bad

haha that sounds pretty weird

I've been playing for quite some time now, I even use a 5 string with 125# as thickest string

And I don't have any problems with the pain anymore, A tip I can give you is Fast Fret, that's stuff you put over your frets and strings that will make them slide better than ever before, it also helps you with the pain of the string (old strings that are full of filth often hurt more!!)

hehe, i'm not playing bas for long now, (hehe just had me 5'th lesson)
but i don't feel anything (jet )
well, i will see...

One day you´ll ahve this joy.
If you hit the strings to hard to get a cool sound. I had this pain after one song. I needed this sound.
And i had to go on. After two days i had no pain anymore.

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I got that, its got a brush thingy liquid and a piece of wool, its makes ur strings VERY slidey prevents the pain, and also prevents rust, and only costs 5 quid

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Yeah it's really nice stuff! I always use it before gigs! it makes you fly all over the neck but you have to get used to it.. and it's nice that it cleans strings too, cuz I play a lot and my strings get dirty verry fast.... need to buy new ones every 6 months, then they begin to break or either sound muddy (beyond cleaning..)

yeah my D is getting a bit rusty from playing californication and around the world too much by the chili's, and if you ever take a real good inhale of that fast fret stuff it goes straight to your head likem a solvent and makes u feel floopy

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haha yeah, I had to play those 2 songs for ages, for basslessons, around the world is pretty tricky when the intro riff comes back in in the middle of the song and goes even faster... anyways, that stuff does rule..

Yeah, there bassist is amazing, i mean they may not be a metal band, but theyre fuckin immense

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hehe, i"m playing allot now, (everyday at least 2 hours)
and NOW i got a painful finger
but I'm a man! ( )
so i just play on!!!
hehe

Get a petticure.

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I've never had any pain in my fingers. I have had callices, but never pain worth complaining about. I play on average almost an hour every night. Maybe it's because I hardly ever do any slides.

or is it just that u are always using the D string. I had finger sores, when i continuely played the G-string. lol..

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ehm, slides will only make you fingers hurt sooner man, not you ehm, 'hit' finger but your left hand, the 'play' finger..
anyways, just loosen up your style a bit and your fingers won't hurt as hell, play a lot of bob marley to achieve this effect

what good songs are there of bob marleys that are cool to play on bass?

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Since what date are you playing??
In the beginning I also had the problem that my finger hurted... Don't let it bother you; keep playing metal.
The paine will go away!! (at least that's my experience...)

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loads, some cool are 'I shot the sherrif' and 'slave driver'
there are more cool songs from bob ofcourse but these are just my favorite chillin' songs, these songs are great for chillin' !!
the songs are not difficult or something but I still find them fun to play..

k, cool ill check them out, but the funniest thing happened to me in band practice yesterday when i was playing this a.f.i riff, i was normally playing, when my fingers started to feel all wet, i was like what the fuck?!, not realising i had burst my blister all over the string, lol

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aw man thats fucking nasty!

I always get a verrrry fast neck on my bass becuz of all the sweat haha, but that's only when I'm really going at it.

Ahh...we're bassists and we HAVE to play with our fingers...unless you feel like really playing with your pick...anyways, I'd say it's just you havn't developed you "bassist calluses" yet, and so you'll probably feel crap loads of pain shooting through your fingers, and you'll possibly get some blisters. (I got like...10 before my calluses formed... felt like my finger was being smashed by a hammer... ) So just rock on dude, It'll go away.

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surprisingly ive never felt pain while playing......been playing for quite some time now

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I hate it when your playing a cold venue, or an outside venue and your fingers are proper stiff, that hurts.. when your trying to do 16th notes, and your hand just wont let you, haha.

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My fifth strings gauge is like 145 and my finger are fine.

just keep going the pain will subside.

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Stop bitching. I cut off part of my index finger. I win.

You cut it off?.. dude you lose, haha, no sorry.. why did that happen?

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This thread is 3 years old...

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No Worries. and to answer your question 6 weeks ago as of yesterday.

he asked why and not when !

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if u dont want fucked up callaces on ur fingers us tape or bandaids... doesnt work as well tho

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Sorry. You know I just didn't really like my finger that day and I thought that it was just a little too long so I fed it to the tablesaw.

it's just like first 2 days of fitness... you just have to get through the period of pain.

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Haha, you mean you accidently cut it off?

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Are you serious ?

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You know it. haha.

So which was hand was that finger on? your fretting hand or your plucking hand?

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And how much was cut off?!?

A long time ago (before I played bass) I cut the tips off of two of my fingers. I was young (maybe 10) and I was cutting the lawn. The the lawnmower got stuck over the border between the lawn and the garden. I was too weak to lift the lawnmower over it so I put my hand underneath to pull the lawnmover from the side. I (obviously) didn't know that the blade reached all the way to the edge. What happened was actually funny - the a shock reaction caused me to pull my hand out before I knew what happened. Then I looked at my hand and as I realized I cut my fingers that's when the pain hit. The tips of the two longest fingers (the middle and ring) were cut off - one was dangling by a piece of skin and the other my brother found and brought with us to the hospital in a Ziplock bag with ice.
The sewed them back on with stitches but they didn't heal pecfectly - both fingertips are inflated (bigger than a normal fingertip) and my ring finger nail curves downward instead of going straight.
When I was asked if I wanted to join a band, that was in part why I decided to play bass, because I can't play chords with my ring finger since I don't have a proper fingertip. Luckily there already was a guitar player and there was no bass player.
Anyways today it doesn't hold me back too much, the disadvantage of not being able to play on the very tip of my ring finger isn't so bad since my ring and middle fingers have bigger tips, which often makes fretting easier.

Of course it would probably be a LOT easier if I had big - or even medium - sized hands.
Hope your finger cutting doesn't compromise your playing. I know the Sabbath guitarist had one or two fingers missing though, and he's not bad...

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Woah, sounds nasty..

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I just played through it.

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The only way to deal with the pain, like everyone has said. The calouses will come in time, but the blistering has to happen first. I had a blister on my middle plucking finger devolop on me between sets at a private show one night, and had to use this chick's earing to burst the fucker so I could play the second set!!! (ooh, the pain), but ended up with a BEAUTY of a calous.

Cheers

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