I’ve been practicing my slap bass recently, using the book Funk Bass by Jon Liebmann for guidance. I realise that slap is something that should be used sparingly and can quickly become tiresome when overused (much like wah guitar), but the technique is new to me and I’ve a beginner’s enthusiasm for it. The book is quite good; the first four chapters are exercises to build strength, introduce various rhythmic ideas and extra techniques (hammering and pulling notes, trills, etc.). It doesn’t really cover the actual mechanics of slapping, but I found that I had a fairly instinctive grasp of the motions involved, and only really needed it pointing out that when your thumb hits the strings for the slap, your popping finger simultaneously moves under the string you’re about to pop, such that a slap followed by a pop is a performed by a single flick of the wrist. The last couple of chapters are exemplified on the audio CD that accompanies the text, and are various grooves and snippets for use in solos. One of the basic slap and pop patterns shown is an octave-based warm up, like so:
1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...1. G ---------------------------------- D --2---3---4---5---6---5---4---3--- A ---------------------------------- E 0---1---2---3---4---3---2---1---0-
Frankly with this under your belt you can do 90% of disco, just listen to the chorus of Car Wash, Filthy Nasty by the Scissor Sisters and Alright by Jamiroquai for good examples.
Looking around at various websites discussing slap bass, the name Victor Wooten cropped up enough times for me to go looking for his website. There are some interesting lessons on his site, some of which illustrate what is apparently his signature technique, the “open-hammer-pluck.” This is put to use in a little piece called Classical Thump, which is transcribed on his site and which I have been annoying Kyla with for the past few days. The basic pattern looks like this:
A: 1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4... G ------4---4---------5-4-5-4-2-------5---5---5---------4---4----- D ----5---5---5-----5-----------5---5---4---4---4-----5---5---5--- A --5-----------5-3---------------5-----------------5-----------5- E 3-----------------------------------------------3--------------- B: 1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4...1...2...3...4... G ------x4--x4--------x5x4x5x4x2------x5--x5--x5--------x4--x4---- D ----x5--x5--x5----x5----------x5--x5--x4--x4--x4----x5--x5--x5-- A --x5----------x5x3--------------x5----------------x5----------x5 E x3--------------------------------------------------------------
(Where x represents a thumbed open string and the following note is hammered on.) He then repeats the first three bars in semi-quaver triplets using the open hammer pluck technique, then finishes with a descending G major scale down the G string (again in triplets). It’s quite fun mucking about in this kind of style, though I am reminded my learning to play Satriani‘s Day At The Beach, which is played entirely using left and right hand tapping. It’s a nice piece, but I don’t think I ever transferred the skills I learnt while practicing it to any other part of my playing! Ah well, sometimes it’s fun to do something that is technique-driven simply for the show-off factor.
