vesterberg.se

I like to experiment, try new approaches and improve things. I have written before about the floating thumb technique. Click on the tag “floating thumb” below to read more. After having used the floating thumb technique for a while now, let’s evaluate.

I had to gradually work my way up to speed on the fast songs. Since the angle of the fingers are different, muscle memory has to be retrained. That was no problem. I can actually play faster now, because I find the position of the fingers are more natural.

The most difficult thing with changing technique was playing on the lowest string (E-string on a 4-string bass or B-string on a 5-string bass). The “normal” fingerstyle technique is resting your thumb on the pickup or on the two lowest strings. When you pick with your finger, you land on the next lower string or on the thumb. That way playing on the lowest string “feels” like playing on the other strings. Your finger is stopped by a string or thumb. When you use the floating thumb technique and you play on the lowest string your fingers have to stop in the air by themselves. The feeling is different and I have found it difficult to play relaxed when playing fast.

The advantages the floating thumb technique are many. The angles of the fingers are more consistent whether you play on G-string or E-string, which helps muscle memory. I find it easier now to change from picking with my fingertips to picking with my finger pads in order to change the tone. It is easy to move the hand from playing close to the bridge to playing close to the neck seamlessly, because you are not dependent on having your thumb resting on the pickups. I find the angle of my wrist is more comfortable now. You can easily switch to slapping technique, because your hand is almost in the correct position already. When you play on G-string you are able to mute several of the lower strings (not only 2) with your thumb. I guess that floating thumb is the only way, when you play 6-string, though I have not tested that yet.

It is important to make sure the thumb is resting lightly on the strings. We do not want tension to build in the thumb. Just a light touch is enough to mute them.

Version control should be used extensively in a development project. Not only for source code, but also for documentation, readme’s, configuration files and even test data. Put as much as possible under version control. It is possible by the use of environment variables in Eclipse to have a complete Eclipse project under version control that is used by several developers concurrently. I often use separate version control projects for development environment and source code.

For some projects I have even used two version control programs simultaneously. The source code was under cvs-control and I was not allowed to update too often. On my computer I used Perforce to have my own development environment and the source code under version control. Since Perforce leaves no files or directories this combination was perfect. I could version my code as often as I wanted and at the same time I could release at regular intervals to cvs.

My opinion is that you should version often. Do the work in small increments and be disciplined to shortly describe the increments every time. If you have a good version control program and know how it works it doesn’t take many seconds. I use Subversion most of the time now and it is really excellent. If you have a nicely organized development environment you reduce the startup time when you have to go back and do some work on something you built six months ago.

Reading books are important because books, like nothing else except personal contact, build empathy. Empathy is the ability to experience another person’s feelings and thoughts. Poetry or music also builds empathy. Empathy is sorely needed in this world, so full of misunderstanding and refusal to even try to understand another person’s culture or religion

If we just inform enough about other religions and other cultures people will change their behavior and peace will advance. No! That is not enough. We have to enter into the lives of other people and a great way of doing that is through literature, music and art. Information is important, discussion is important, but empathy is even more important.

Lack of empathy is like HIV for a society, it opens up to other problems that are lethal. When someone can continue to kick a person laying down, he is suffering from lack of empathy.

Is it at all possible that someone can think different than I do? Feel different that I do? Have different preferences in life? Empathy challenges egoism and helps us to discover the lives of other people.