When I turned pro as a teenager, back in the mists of time, I was always a ‘pick’ player, i.e. I used a plectrum, or pick. It didn’t occur to me that it would become unfashionable as the ‘fusion’ era in the UK started in the late 1970s.

The common view was that you weren’t a real bass player if you didn’t play with your fingers, but looking back, it was a UK fad (IMHO). Following the trend I started using my fingers. A few blisters later and I thought nothing of it. However, every now and then a producer or songwriter would ask for a ‘pick’ sound to get a really hard attack at the front of the note or even to copy the 1960s sounds. So, I always carried a few in my pocket.

In the late 1970s, Stanley Clarke, Jaco et al were at the top of the bass tree and they used their fingers so there was a lot at stake with one’s reputation. Gradually, throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, things changed and, as long as you had good groove and learned quickly (speaking as a session musician of the time), no one really cared how you got the sound needed as long as it was what everyone wanted.

I have transcribed four excerpts from 1960s tracks that were all played with a pick, the first being the track that started me on bass when I was 13, Keep On Running by the Spencer Davis Group, composed by Jackie Edwards. I was learning the trumpet then, but this track changed everything.

The song was sung by Steve Winwood, who was 16 at the time, but I loved his brother, Muff Winwood’s hard thumping pentatonic bassline, played with a thumb pick that wrapped around your thumb and is usually associated with banjo players. He played a Harmony H22 bass (try finding one now!) and it had a growl that was helped by the attack from his plectrum. He went on to be chief of A&R at Island Records.

Other famous pick players were Carol Kaye and Joe Osborne, both from the Wrecking Crew LA session band. Check out Carol on Good Vibrations on ‘Pet Sounds’ by The Beach Boys and Joe on Fifth Dimension’s Let The Sun Shine In, on which the producer left him high in the mix because his line was so good. (All on Youtube). And who could pass on Macca’s great bass lines on ‘Abbey Road’ and ‘Sgt. Pepper’s?

So, my advice is to be versatile and be prepared to use fingers or pick, whatever the song requires. Use a reasonably firm pick because soft ones don’t produce enough attack. Also, try picking by the bridge and then by the fingerboard and listen to the difference. There are a few more pick tips but I will run out of space!

Dr. Rob Burns is a retired Associate Professor of in Music at the University of Otago in Dunedin. As a former professional bassist in the UK, he performed and recorded with David Gilmour, Pete Townsend, Jerry Donahue, Isaac Hayes, Jon Lord and many others, as well as playing on soundtracks of many UK television shows including Red Dwarf, Mr. Bean, Blackadder and Not The Nine O’Clock News. Rob is a member of Dunedin band The Verlaines.