Slap Bass Study
The slap bass is one of the most exciting techniques you'll come across when studying the electric bass.
Its tonal power and the way it embellishes a piece of music are truly impressive. In fact, most great bassists have managed to develop an exceptional slap bass technique.
Rich tone, harmony, complexity, beauty—these are just a few words that describe slap bass.
That's why we're going to take a moment to explain what it is, the techniques that go along with it, and how to develop a high-level slap bass technique.
What is slap bass?
You could say it's a whip, a snap, a slap, or a smack delivered to the bass strings.
The truth is that it's a technique in which you strike or pull the bass strings to produce a slapping or popping sound.
Now, at first glance it looks easy to pull off, but the truth is it isn't. On the contrary, reaching even a decent level with this technique is quite difficult and requires putting in hours of practice.
Slap bass techniques
Thanks to the contributions of great bassists, today there is a wide variety of techniques associated with slap bass.
Some of them are:
- Thumb: this is a strike delivered with the side of the thumb to create an aggressive sound that has the ability to fill a musical space intensely.
- Finger pop: this technique can be executed in two ways. The first is pulling the string and releasing it so it snaps like a whip. The other is striking the string with your fingers. This technique can be done using the index, middle, or ring finger.
- Mute slap: to pull off this technique, you mute the strings with your fretting hand and perform a thumb slap.
- Mute pop: for this technique you also mute the strings with your fretting hand while performing a finger pop.
- Palm mute: this technique is a combination of all the previous ones, since you mute all the strings on the fretboard while performing any of the other slap bass techniques.
These slap bass techniques are also combined with more traditional ones such as the slide, hammer-on, hammer-off, legato, glissando, pull-off, pull-on, tapping, and more.
The goal is to achieve the greatest possible technical command while blending different bass techniques with slap bass.
Best bassists with slap technique
In the world of slap, you'll find many bassists who have managed to break through every possible barrier of the technique. Many of them are world-class and do things with slap bass that you won't believe until you see and hear them.
The most important ones today are:
- Wojtek Pilichowski.
- Victor Wooten.
- Gianni Serino.
- Marcus Miller.
- Richard Bona.
- Abraham Laboriel.
- Tetsuo Sakurai.
The players we've mentioned are the cream of the crop when it comes to slap bass, which is why you absolutely should check them out and study them closely.
Slap bass method
Out there you'll find a book that is the most fundamental and complete resource for getting started in the world of slap bass technique.
We're talking about Slap Bass Essentials by Josquin des Pres, which not only includes the book but also comes with an audio file for each lesson.
As always, we're leaving you the book in PDF format so you can download it. For now we don't have the audio yet, but keep an eye out because we'll be uploading it soon.
