Fret hand wrist pain

Hello everyone. I'm new to the bass or any instrument for that matter. I'm 28 and decided that I wanted to learn an instrument before I got too old. I always wanted to learn something but never attempted to. I don't wanna be an old man who looks back and regrets never even trying.

So anyway, I started practicing about three weeks ago and everything seems to be going well except for my left wrist (fret hand) position. On most of the internet lessons I've been told to bend the wrist which helps spread my fingers to reach across four frets with four fingers. It's still very difficult for me to do this but if I don't bend my wrist to almost a 90 degree angle than it's nearly impossible. The problem with this is that it's killing my wrist. I always have to cut my practice sessions short because of the pain. By the way I do all the hand and tendon exercises before and after practice.

So my question is.....should I stick with it and maybe my wrist will get use to being in this position? Or should I keep my wrist more straight and only spread my fingers across three frets? Since my hands are average size at best the latter is more comfortable to me but I don't want my progress or potential to be hindered.

Are you playing sitting down or standing up?

If you're standing up, then it may be that your bass is too high or too low, and your wrist has to bend too much in order to reach the frets.

The general rule of thumb is if it hurts, stop doing it. You may feel a few aches & things whilst your hands adjust to stretching & the pressure you have to put on the strings etc., but nothing too bad. I'd recommend doing whatever feels natural to you, as opposed to what you're told via the internet

I also had this exact problem, which has finally stopped. I noticed I didn't have the pain after a few hours jamming with my friends, standing up btw.

I didn't know what I had changed, but now that I think about what smaz said, I definitely changed the position of my bass. Since I'm pretty tall (around 6 feet) I put the body of the bass low and the neck up high, that way my fretting hand/wrist doesn't have to bend much at all.

If it actually is your finger spread, not the angle, I would suggest gradually implementing the stretch. There are plenty of exercises for this as well, probably the best solution, scales for example.

Just one last thing to add though, you should probably give your wrist a few days break to heal. If anything, you don't want to make the pain last longer.

Thanks for the replies.

Well since I'm a beginner I've been experimenting with multiple positions with my bass both standing and sitting. It seems like the higher I bring the neck up, the less I have to bend my wrist. I'm only about 5' 9" by the way.

When doing scales I can hit the notes while keeping my hand in the same position as long as my wrist is bent. If I straighten my wrist than I loose a lot of my finger spread therefore I have to actually move my hand up and down the fret board to hit the notes.

Is this okay to do until my fingers can stretch far enough to reach all the notes. It just seems unlikely that my fingers can stretch out far enough to do a C minor scale on the E string for instance.

If you're moving your hand around the lower frets, then that's fine. You might end up (or anyone might end up) damaging your hand and/or wrist from the stretch if you keep forcing it to stretch in that way. You don't really want to move your hand around too much when doing a scale or whatever in the higher frets, though.

You might also want to adjust the strap hight so that both your fretting and plucking hand each have a comfortable amount of bend (or none at all, but one wrist will suffer that way).

Keep enjoying bass

There is NOTHING wrong with moving your hand! =]

I still do it. Coming from keyboards[cause I got sick of everyone telling me I had ****ing "Pianist Fingers"] I had a very different finger spread going, Plus, small hands.

Moving is fine. Some peoples hands are build for different instruments, Im sure thats at the beginning of all instruments. =P

A good riff to play for that is the riff from 'Take The Power Back' by Rage Against the Machine, its supposed to be Slap/Pop, but that doesnt matter cause we're focusing on your other hand.

Heres a quick tab for you

Code:


G-----------------------------------
D----------------3------------3-------
A--------3h5--------3h5--------------
E--0-0--------------------------------

Or throw another open in there

G-----------------------------------
D----------------3------------3-------
A--------3h5----------3h5--------------
E--0-0--------------0------------------

h = Hammer On [If you dont know what that is, ignore it and play normally]


Its a good riff to get that going. I found, anyways

I don't know if it's actually the low bass playing but today when i went to my english class and i was told to write something my plucking hand shaked like hell!But now i can write all well.

Drakon7 wrote:There is NOTHING wrong with moving your hand! =]

This, people have different sized hands and not everyone has big shovel hands like Jimi Hendrix. When you are playing you have to make yourself as comfortable as possible otherwise you will loose something that is very important in playing an instrument, feel. If it hurts to make a stretch, then don't stretch, move your hand. Some passages don't require you to hold one note while you reach for the other, in fact some songs benefit from that. Years ago I used to play until my hand was ready to fall off from pain, I'm very lucky that I didn't do some serious damage as I wasn't even doing hand exercises or anything. I used to think it was good for me lol, 'the pain means I'm getting better' feel the burn type of thing.

I certainly don't want to cause any permanent damage to my hands or wrists but If I can get my fingers to stretch out to their full potential over time than I think it'd be worth the growing pains. Especially now that I've been practicing keeping my wrist in a straighter position which has compromised my fingers' ability to stretch. I have fairly small hands so I'm looking to get any and every advantage I can.

I'm wondering how much practice it takes to notice a significant increase in finger spread.

The Jman wrote:I certainly don't want to cause any permanent damage to my hands or wrists but If I can get my fingers to stretch out to their full potential over time than I think it'd be worth the growing pains. Especially now that I've been practicing keeping my wrist in a straighter position which has compromised my fingers' ability to stretch. I have fairly small hands so I'm looking to get any and every advantage I can.

I'm wondering how much practice it takes to notice a significant increase in finger spread.

Ehh...don't bend your wrist 90 degrees. Just don't. It can do severe damage. Just make sure your hands are comfortable and the finger spread will come. Good luck!