Really struggling with position of right hand - see photo

redant

Hi everyone,
I am an ex-guitarist, and keen to learn bass. Got a good deal on an entry level one, and have been checking out a few Youtube basics.
Now right from the start, I have an issue.
I have no idea where to position my right hand (arm).
If you look at the picture, this seems to be how many players do it, with the arm / palm resting on the guitar. But you can also see what a terrible angle that makes for my wrist and forearm.

It feels like there is no space for my arm on the guitar to rest on while maintaining comfort and not stress.

Your input would be greatly appreciated.

https://goo.gl/uycbb5

V8

I also struggled with getting my right hand into a comfy spot when I crossed over to the fun(ky) side.

I see you are sitting in the photo - try it on a strap (experiment with positions) - it helps. Finger-style does take a bit of time to develop the muscle memory and strength - after two years, I'm still way better with a pick than fingers.

I had tried a bunch of basses - all sit a bit differently - but easily the best thing was play consistently with a strap. Now muscle memory is such that I'm selling my short scale because it feels like a toy ?

Studybass is a grand resource that reallly helped me (and still does!) : https://www.studybass.com/lessons/bass-technique/holding-the-bass/

babbalute

redant wrote: Hi everyone,
I am an ex-guitarist, and keen to learn bass. Got a good deal on an entry level one, and have been checking out a few Youtube basics.
Now right from the start, I have an issue.
I have no idea where to position my right hand (arm).
If you look at the picture, this seems to be how many players do it, with the arm / palm resting on the guitar. But you can also see what a terrible angle that makes for my wrist and forearm.

It feels like there is no space for my arm on the guitar to rest on while maintaining comfort and not stress.

Your input would be greatly appreciated.
https://goo.gl/uycbb5

You will simply have to find a position for both your arm and bass that is comfortable for you allowing you to do and play the way you think is right. Look at pictures or video's of other bass players and see how they do it.
It will be different for all of us, as our arms, hand and fingers have all different lengths etc. Videos of other telling you how to do it is just an indication, everyone has their own "technique" or "method" to do certain things. The end result counts. And like you picked a guitar for the first time years ago it did feel strange then and required some muscle pain etc. It will be the same for a bass as it is not the same. You get used to it after a while.

peterleroux

There are two things you can adjust-height of the bass, and the angle of the neck- to get both your left and right hands comfortable at the same time. Lately I find that having my bass much higher than is considered cool gives me a good right hand position, but for a long time I was playing fairly low with a steep neck angle so that my right wrist was almost straight and my left hand was up close in to my shoulder. If you watch bass players, you'll see lots of variation in how they hold their instrument.