I'm well aware that my playing technique is actually quite bad, but I've been gigging regularly as a guitarist for 18 years now and it hasn't caused me any problems beyond shred-dorks occasionally making snide remarks. Gigging as a bass player was always pretty sporadic until recently, but Solderer is probably the first "serious" band where I've played bass, and we've been doing that for almost two years now. I'm generally fine at rehearsals, but over the past ~18 months I've started to get pretty bad cramp in both wrists during live sets, not at every show but probably like a third of the time. I guess the longer scale, higher string tension and greater precision required is just multiplying all the weaknesses in my technique compared to playing guitar.
At our most recent show on Saturday* was the first time this has seriously impeded my performance, and I figure if I don't do something differently then it's just gonna keep getting worse. So...
Any suggestions for exercises or similar? Should I get a couple of these grip strengtheners?
Ultimately I know I need to work on improving my technique — I naturally seem to favour upstrokes instead of downstrokes which I'm sure can't be good for my wrists, so I am working on getting into the habit of downstrokes and alternate picking — but that's long term. In the short term what can I change? I'm thinking perhaps lighter picks, I've always preferred a heavy pick for guitar but I guess it doesn't necessarily have to be the same for bass, and perhaps something with more texture for grip (I currently use Tortex which is obviously completely smooth).
*Hilariously it turns out PJ Harvey was in the audience.
Hand exercises etc?
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Freddy V-C
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Re: Hand exercises etc?
Yeah, I think I said it in our DMs on teh gramz but wrist angle is important. I use yellow Tortex (.73mm) picks because I’m comfortable with them on both guitar and bass though I use just fingers more often on bass. Also try to relax your grip with both hands.
Re: Hand exercises etc?
This might be a bit of a jumble. Wrote it whilst also trying to teach a Y7 Technology and Design class.
Without knowing, I'd imagine posture is a big part of it. That, and learning to relax. Possibly what you're experiencing is a combination of unuseful posture and inefficient movements leading to issues. We'll deal with these things separately. I'll lump posture and setup together as they relate to what it is that you're asking your hands to do, then we'll look at technique, because that's how you go about getting your hands to do those things.
It's usually a good idea to go back and run like a diagnostic on both these things (posture/setup and technique). Things should feel easy and you should be playing without strain, and this gives us a chance to find out the issues and fix them.
Setup and Posture
Double check your posture, play higher if you need to. Move it around until you get a posture where everything feels relaxed and natural. If you go too high though, it can cause tightness in your picking hand shoulder. (I play bass with fingers for this reason, my picking hand is propped over the top of the guitar so my shoulder isn't holding the weight of the arm, my hand ends up lying more or less where it should at the strings).
You mention pick thickness, scale length and string tension. I'm not sure string tension matters as you aren't bending on bass (I assume?). If the bass is well set up with appropriately low action, it shouldn't take much (or any) strength to fret. Similarly, I'm not sure pick thickness makes that much difference. Maybe if you're digging in for a certain sound? But otherwise, I'd soften my picking hand, pick more gently, and let the eq/amp settings do the work of giving you any attack that you want.
I know a couple of players in the 50s/60s who play shortscale basses because of issues with their wrists. I'm never sure I'm convinced by this. The difference between scale lengths is the first fret. I think that a proper setup, proper posture and proper technique play a much, much bigger role and that those adjustments will overcome any difference in scale length. On the other hand, I'm not going to argue with lads that have been gigging 5 nights a week for 40 years and tell me that it's the thing that has saved their playing.
Technique and Practice
This is harder.
There's a really tricky part of learning where you go from being "pretty good" to "advanced" (this are really shit words for what I'm talking about, sorry. With more time and care I'd find better ones) where you have to go back and break down the fundamentals again. We can all play guitar, but when we learned, we probably learned to do it in our own way that was good enough to get the job done. We probably learned with "incorrect" or inefficient technique because we needed to get it working one way or the other. So when we learned barre chords as an example, we might have learned to do it with a weird angle in our wrist, or with our fingers not meeting the fretboard at clean, perpendicular angles. This might have been out of necessity, because at that point, we didn't have the spare strength to do it a more "correct" way. Then we practise that for years and it becomes difficult to change. I was never going to be any better than a very good pianist because I had loads of uncorrected bad habits that I'd formed as a child, and my hands ended up entirely the wrong shape as a result. It is difficult to undo habit, but it can be done with practice.
Diagnostic Practice: Once you're happy with posture, take your set and run through it. Or just take other songs etc that you like to play. Try playing things extremely slowly. Check which bits feel like stretches or strains, where you can feel yourself struggling. You're looking for pinch points, but where it feels like strenuous to play, or where you notice your posture chance (do you find yourself lifting the neck for certain points, does your shoulder ever move, does your elbow point inwards towards your ribs at any point?). In an ideal world, this shouldn't happen and we're trying to find these points to alleviate them.
Take these sections of music in isolation and concentrate on working out exactly how little effort is actually required. There's a very good chance that you're fretting things harder than you need to because of learned habits, so relax and see how little effort/squeeze is actually required. This will feel odd. Try to notice tension in your hands, your wrist, your forearm, your shoulder, then play again trying to keep that part relaxed. Play slowly, consciously relaxing as much as possible.
You might find yourself adjusting posture/setup again at this point, as issues become clear.
General practice: Play scales/arpeggios etc with the same approach. We're not really looking for speed here, just smoothness. This is teaching your hands how to relax.
Throughout all practice, think about how little actual work and effort is required to play. The fretting hand is four fingers, each moving maybe half an inch, placing a very gentle pressure on the string. This should not be strenuous. It's difficult and requires high degrees of concentration and co-ordination, yes, but it should not require any great gripping effort.
For picking hand technique, I would do take a similar approach. I'm fast on the guitar, not bass, though. I know how to pick efficiently and quickly, but my bass picking is sort of just good enough for what I need. The same principles apply, though. Take it slowly, watch out for bits that feel strenuous, make sure you aren't putting in more muscle than you should, make your technique as smooth and efficient as you can. I'd go through scales, arpeggios or exercises that are 2 notes per string, 3 notes per string 4 notes per string etc. Practice alternate and hybrid picking, again making your wrist as relaxed as possible and your movements as small and gentle as possible.
I would also think about getting a couple of lessons. We have this notion that lessons are fine when we're teenagers and getting started, and that once you're good, you're set. This isn't the case. You don't need someone to teach you how to play, but maybe just having someone very good running their eye over what you're doing and coming up with solutions would be useful. I'd think about getting a lesson with someone, then a follow up a month or two later, then again after that. Or monthly for six months. Might be tricky to find someone willing to take you on on those terms, though. I know you don't like to do it, but you could always name drop that you're mates with PJ Harvey and Steve Albini.
Without knowing, I'd imagine posture is a big part of it. That, and learning to relax. Possibly what you're experiencing is a combination of unuseful posture and inefficient movements leading to issues. We'll deal with these things separately. I'll lump posture and setup together as they relate to what it is that you're asking your hands to do, then we'll look at technique, because that's how you go about getting your hands to do those things.
It's usually a good idea to go back and run like a diagnostic on both these things (posture/setup and technique). Things should feel easy and you should be playing without strain, and this gives us a chance to find out the issues and fix them.
Setup and Posture
Double check your posture, play higher if you need to. Move it around until you get a posture where everything feels relaxed and natural. If you go too high though, it can cause tightness in your picking hand shoulder. (I play bass with fingers for this reason, my picking hand is propped over the top of the guitar so my shoulder isn't holding the weight of the arm, my hand ends up lying more or less where it should at the strings).
You mention pick thickness, scale length and string tension. I'm not sure string tension matters as you aren't bending on bass (I assume?). If the bass is well set up with appropriately low action, it shouldn't take much (or any) strength to fret. Similarly, I'm not sure pick thickness makes that much difference. Maybe if you're digging in for a certain sound? But otherwise, I'd soften my picking hand, pick more gently, and let the eq/amp settings do the work of giving you any attack that you want.
I know a couple of players in the 50s/60s who play shortscale basses because of issues with their wrists. I'm never sure I'm convinced by this. The difference between scale lengths is the first fret. I think that a proper setup, proper posture and proper technique play a much, much bigger role and that those adjustments will overcome any difference in scale length. On the other hand, I'm not going to argue with lads that have been gigging 5 nights a week for 40 years and tell me that it's the thing that has saved their playing.
Technique and Practice
This is harder.
There's a really tricky part of learning where you go from being "pretty good" to "advanced" (this are really shit words for what I'm talking about, sorry. With more time and care I'd find better ones) where you have to go back and break down the fundamentals again. We can all play guitar, but when we learned, we probably learned to do it in our own way that was good enough to get the job done. We probably learned with "incorrect" or inefficient technique because we needed to get it working one way or the other. So when we learned barre chords as an example, we might have learned to do it with a weird angle in our wrist, or with our fingers not meeting the fretboard at clean, perpendicular angles. This might have been out of necessity, because at that point, we didn't have the spare strength to do it a more "correct" way. Then we practise that for years and it becomes difficult to change. I was never going to be any better than a very good pianist because I had loads of uncorrected bad habits that I'd formed as a child, and my hands ended up entirely the wrong shape as a result. It is difficult to undo habit, but it can be done with practice.
Diagnostic Practice: Once you're happy with posture, take your set and run through it. Or just take other songs etc that you like to play. Try playing things extremely slowly. Check which bits feel like stretches or strains, where you can feel yourself struggling. You're looking for pinch points, but where it feels like strenuous to play, or where you notice your posture chance (do you find yourself lifting the neck for certain points, does your shoulder ever move, does your elbow point inwards towards your ribs at any point?). In an ideal world, this shouldn't happen and we're trying to find these points to alleviate them.
Take these sections of music in isolation and concentrate on working out exactly how little effort is actually required. There's a very good chance that you're fretting things harder than you need to because of learned habits, so relax and see how little effort/squeeze is actually required. This will feel odd. Try to notice tension in your hands, your wrist, your forearm, your shoulder, then play again trying to keep that part relaxed. Play slowly, consciously relaxing as much as possible.
You might find yourself adjusting posture/setup again at this point, as issues become clear.
General practice: Play scales/arpeggios etc with the same approach. We're not really looking for speed here, just smoothness. This is teaching your hands how to relax.
Throughout all practice, think about how little actual work and effort is required to play. The fretting hand is four fingers, each moving maybe half an inch, placing a very gentle pressure on the string. This should not be strenuous. It's difficult and requires high degrees of concentration and co-ordination, yes, but it should not require any great gripping effort.
For picking hand technique, I would do take a similar approach. I'm fast on the guitar, not bass, though. I know how to pick efficiently and quickly, but my bass picking is sort of just good enough for what I need. The same principles apply, though. Take it slowly, watch out for bits that feel strenuous, make sure you aren't putting in more muscle than you should, make your technique as smooth and efficient as you can. I'd go through scales, arpeggios or exercises that are 2 notes per string, 3 notes per string 4 notes per string etc. Practice alternate and hybrid picking, again making your wrist as relaxed as possible and your movements as small and gentle as possible.
I would also think about getting a couple of lessons. We have this notion that lessons are fine when we're teenagers and getting started, and that once you're good, you're set. This isn't the case. You don't need someone to teach you how to play, but maybe just having someone very good running their eye over what you're doing and coming up with solutions would be useful. I'd think about getting a lesson with someone, then a follow up a month or two later, then again after that. Or monthly for six months. Might be tricky to find someone willing to take you on on those terms, though. I know you don't like to do it, but you could always name drop that you're mates with PJ Harvey and Steve Albini.
Fuck. Just can't help yourself, can you?Freddy V-C wrote: Mon Feb 02, 2026 11:57 am *Hilariously it turns out PJ Harvey was in the audience.
Re: Hand exercises etc?
I never had an issue with bass, but I would get hand cramps playing barre chords on guitar and I realised I was gripping onto them for dear life trying not to mute anything accidentally. I practiced holding things down just as tightly as you need to and otherwise being as relaxed as possible helps a lot.
Re: Hand exercises etc?
Yeah, for me it's largely relaxing my grip, switching between longscale bass, shortscale bass, and various guitar scales. I can play for hours in practice, but get on stage and a lot of that relaxed hold goes out the window; I'm squeezing the pick, I'm mashing the strings into the fingerboard... and either or both hands or forearms tire or lock up. The brain is a terrible thing.
Donate to Ankhanu Pressekwatts wrote:That's American cinema, that is. Fucking sparkles.
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Freddy V-C
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Re: Hand exercises etc?
Appreciate the detailed advice, Paul! I think you're right that posture plays a big part. I've been experimenting with different strap heights recently, seeing what feels right on the day rather than just leaving it where it is when I pick the guitar up. At the show on Saturday I didn't adjust it on the fly as I have been doing recently (in a bit of a hurry, full of adrenaline etc) and I wonder if it had just ended up at an awkward length without me realising.
I actually do bend on bass, although not constantly or anything. I think you're right about relaxing both my hands, but rightly or wrongly I think I'll find that easier with a lighter pick. My grip is definitely way too tight in general, I always rub off the Dunlop logo almost immediately when I start using a new pick, and back when I used aluminium picks my right thumb was pretty much entirely silver at the end of every gig or practice.
I think running through the set on my own and figuring out where I can pick more efficiently is gonna be helpful. As I mentioned in the OP, I've been trying to incorporate more alternate picking but I'm very much figuring it out on the fly which means it's too easy to switch back to my default mode of primarily upstrokes.
Ankhanu wrote: Mon Feb 02, 2026 5:59 pm Yeah, for me it's largely relaxing my grip, switching between longscale bass, shortscale bass, and various guitar scales. I can play for hours in practice, but get on stage and a lot of that relaxed hold goes out the window; I'm squeezing the pick, I'm mashing the strings into the fingerboard... and either or both hands or forearms tire or lock up. The brain is a terrible thing.
Interesting, so are you saying that switching between different scales actually helps? I did play a 30" scale bass for the majority of the life of this band, but switched to 34" scale a few months ago. I had to play my shortscale for our last rehearsal because the P bass was having some work done, and I wondered if switching back to 34" for the gig might have done me a mischief. But it sounds like maybe in your experience it actually helps to alternate between different scales? To be clear, I was having issues with cramping before I switched from 30" to 34", so I don't think that's the root cause.
plopswagon wrote: Mon Feb 02, 2026 2:15 pm Yeah, I think I said it in our DMs on teh gramz but wrist angle is important. I use yellow Tortex (.73mm) picks because I’m comfortable with them on both guitar and bass though I use just fingers more often on bass. Also try to relax your grip with both hands.
Annoyingly, once upon a time I could only play bass finger style and struggled to play with a pick. But once I figured out playing with a pick (i.e. like 20 years ago) I exclusively did it that way for long enough that I completely lost all muscle memory for finger style. The follies of youth!
For guitar these days I'm using 1.5mm Tortex Sharps, which I suspect is just putting up way too much resistance for bass. Think I'm gonna try out a Max Grip .88 and see how that feels. Definitely need to relax more and I think I'll find it easier to do that if there's more friction/grip from the pick itself.
Re: Hand exercises etc?
No, more that I don't find scale length causes too much extra issue for why I end up with pain or tension... I do find shortscale basses and guitars more comfortable in general, or playing may be easier, but they don't seem to really impact when my hands start failing me in live performance. I think it's more that playing live is likely inducing a low level anxiety that causes me to grip everything harder than I should, leading to fatigue and lock-up through the set. That background anxiety is absent during band practices, allowing me to play with relaxed muscles for hours.Freddy V-C wrote: Tue Feb 03, 2026 1:24 pmAnkhanu wrote: Mon Feb 02, 2026 5:59 pm Yeah, for me it's largely relaxing my grip, switching between longscale bass, shortscale bass, and various guitar scales. I can play for hours in practice, but get on stage and a lot of that relaxed hold goes out the window; I'm squeezing the pick, I'm mashing the strings into the fingerboard... and either or both hands or forearms tire or lock up. The brain is a terrible thing.
Interesting, so are you saying that switching between different scales actually helps? I did play a 30" scale bass for the majority of the life of this band, but switched to 34" scale a few months ago. I had to play my shortscale for our last rehearsal because the P bass was having some work done, and I wondered if switching back to 34" for the gig might have done me a mischief. But it sounds like maybe in your experience it actually helps to alternate between different scales? To be clear, I was having issues with cramping before I switched from 30" to 34", so I don't think that's the root cause.
They say practicing and knowing your parts lets you relax in performance, but I'm not sure I've quite defeated that monster even with songs I've played for over a decade
Donate to Ankhanu Pressekwatts wrote:That's American cinema, that is. Fucking sparkles.
Re: Hand exercises etc?
That ability to relax when you're full of adrenaline is a thing too. I suppose that can be practised. It'll feel odd, I'd imagine if you're a particularly energetic, frenzied performer who runs on nerves. I was always a pretty calm (and bad) performer and never really get nervous at a gig, but when I did I'd usually try to ground myself, make sure I stay relaxed, chat to bandmembers etc. I think that comes across in the playing. I think if you're a performer where that anxious energy is part of your thing, that might be trickier, but it's still something that can be played with and experimented with, I suppose.
But as I say, as a rock/pop/whatever performer I was always maybe a bit shit and not very engaging? I was used to classical performance from a young age which is a very different vibe.
But as I say, as a rock/pop/whatever performer I was always maybe a bit shit and not very engaging? I was used to classical performance from a young age which is a very different vibe.
Re: Hand exercises etc?
You could always try injecting botox into your hands and forehead to keep that chilled out and relaxed vibe going
Re: Hand exercises etc?
Never underestimate the setup, for sure - I did a wedding gig for an old friend with old friends a few years back, playing bass on Crocodile Rock (fuckyeah) while the bassist played keys and sang, and it fucking killed my left hand because of the action and neck relief being just a bit too high. He wouldn't let me tweak either, the rat bastard.
It was the same scale length (possibly even shorter) I've been playing for 20-odd years, but it was needlessly uncomfortable, even with a very similar neck profile.
I have had similar issues with very different neck profile putting me on the back, uh, foot too. Sorta like trying to run a race wearing someone else's trainers, albeit a bit less gross.
It was the same scale length (possibly even shorter) I've been playing for 20-odd years, but it was needlessly uncomfortable, even with a very similar neck profile.
I have had similar issues with very different neck profile putting me on the back, uh, foot too. Sorta like trying to run a race wearing someone else's trainers, albeit a bit less gross.
Re: Hand exercises etc?
Oh, also, don't bother with the grip training things. They don't work.
If you really want to train grip strength, use a bucket of dried rice. Plunge your hands in and make fists, open them out, move around etc. Actual grip strength is much more dynamic than whatever benefits the grip trainers get you.
But I don't think it's necessary, or possibly it would be counter productive.
If you really want to train grip strength, use a bucket of dried rice. Plunge your hands in and make fists, open them out, move around etc. Actual grip strength is much more dynamic than whatever benefits the grip trainers get you.
But I don't think it's necessary, or possibly it would be counter productive.
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plopswagon
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Re: Hand exercises etc?
The rice thing is also good in case you accidentally dropped your hands in the water
Re: Hand exercises etc?
OMG!!!Freddy V-C wrote: Mon Feb 02, 2026 11:57 am *Hilariously it turns out PJ Harvey was in the audience.
+1 on Doogs setup point, and have you tried lighter strings? I had hand issues, even as a hobby player when I used to use 11s on guitar. I switched to 9s and the problems went away.