There are many different styles of playing bass guitar. It is common practice for rock bassists to use a pick, or plectrum, so they can get a more clearly defined sound out of each note. Plucking four or five strings of the bass guitar with one's fingers is often done to create jazz, funk and blues styles. Bassists playing pop music usually use whatever sounds best for the sound of the group as a whole, favouring either finger-style or picked-bass but this depends on the specific sound required for each song. Because picked bass can be a bit harsher on the ears, it cuts through recorded mixtures relatively easily, thus providing a more booming and driven live sound, which tends to lend itself well to rock music. Most punk bands have picked-bass styles, such as Green Day pop punk bassist Mike Dirnt.
However, to truly control the dynamics of each and every note played, one must play bass with their fingers because a person's fingers are more sensitive to the feel of the vibrations through the strings that create the bass frequencies that you hear from an amplifier. For example, a trained bassist will feel when he or she has struck a note too hard because the string will buzz again the guitar's frets, producing an unpleasant tone. Acclaimed South African jazz bassist and music lecturer, Carlo Mombelli, teaches guitarists a great exercise - fret one note and then play the same note repeatedly with each one of your four fingers, making sure that the volume and tone from each note produced is exactly the same. This requires your bass to be plugged into an amplifier and that you constantly adjust each of your fingers striking the strings, depending on their thickness, so that you can produce the exact same volume and consistency from playing. One of Carlo Mombelli's main influences is the bassist, Jaco Pastorius, who is definitely worth listening to!
Used in funk, slap bass also requires finger style but completely different application of your gingers to the guitar compared to the smooth bass tones produced for blue or jazz genres. A slap bassist literally slaps the strings with the side of the thumb to produce each note, while the other fingers are used for what is termed 'popping', or pulling the string a little outward away from the fretboard then releasing so that it produces a very bright sound once the string reaches the fretboard once more.
Listen to popular bassists like Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten to hear finger style bass and check out their collaboration album, 'Thunder' (the group's name is 'SMV' after their initials). This album is probably the best example of finger style bass and is truly amazing.
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