Hey guys,

Im a relative bass newibe. I wanna get into slap, but its so damn hard!! I still have trouble getting good sound when thumb-striking any string but E. I'm also fairly slow at popping. Any recommendations for some songs with some beginner slap basslines? (PS plz dont say flea's Aeroplane, people say that all the time, but I think its hard as hell)

Or just some practice techniques I can use to get better.

Higher Ground by RHCP.. but if a bass player ever hears you playing it, he will probably kill you. It is the most over played slap bass riff played by bass players. It's like Freebird, Mustang sally, or Stairway to Heaven for the bassworld.

buy a recorder,
start slowly at about 50 bpm
slap on 1, pop on &

make up your own slap bass lines, they are not that hard

RHCP's Can't stop was the first thing I learnt slapping,

Very easy

Luke

thx for the input guys

but I've found those songs are kind of hard. I mean, how do you guys pull off thumb striking the F# and the G so quickly in higher ground? It seems almost impossible to do without hammerons. And in can't stop, flea does some really fast thumb striking as well.

I guess I just need more practice? Or maybe I should be playing the songs differently...?

Start off slow. Then slowly accelerate.

This is what I have learnt:

Its easy to attempt to play something at a fast speed and just about get through it.

Its alot harder and takes more skill to be able to play it a lot slower and perfectly in time. If you start slow, then gradually increase your speed like mentioned above, you should find it easier

The first slap song i learned was Take The Power Back by Rage Against the Machine. I learned it 2 months after playing bass and once you get it down good you can have some real fun with the fills

before you learn a song your going to have to practice.

G:|-----------------------------------------
D:|--2---3---4---5---6---7---8---9---10----
A:|-----------------------------------------
E:|0---1---2---3---4---5---6---7---8---9---

G:|-----------------------------------------
D:|--3-----4-----5-----6-----7-----8-----9-
A:|-----------------------------------------
E:|1---2-2---3-3---4-4---5-5---6-6---7-7-- and so on

pratice those just get fast and fsat the you can change the patterns like a slap then 2 pops.

Again, I posted this in 2 other threads now... but again, it seems appropriate here...

Two words... "Slap it!" Tony Oppenheim

http://www.slapit.com/

This book is what I used years ago to learn the mysterious world of slappin' and poppin' - it is very easy to understand with this book. And back when I bought the book it came with, what at the time was a state-of-the-art teaching aid - a sound page! Now I don't know how old you are, but in the old days, before CD's and MP3's we used to use this thing that the rappers and DJ's use today, called a 'turntable' to play our 'records' on... This sound page was a flimsy, vinyl, square 45 that let me hear these exercises as I was reading the notes... All the differnce in the world! Get 'Slap it!' today and I promise you, next week you will be slappin' and poppin' like a pro!

--tz

The best place to go for slap is the beginning, i.e. SLy and the Family Stone...Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself. That song is the definition of funk to me. Simple and not too fast.

On the more modern side, I think Suck My Kiss by RHCP is a groovier, slower slap song and TONS of fun to boot.

The best place to go for slap is the beginning, i.e. SLy and the Family Stone...Thank You For Letting Me Be Myself. That song is the definition of funk to me. Simple and not too fast.

On the more modern side, I think Suck My Kiss by RHCP is a groovier, slower slap song and TONS of fun to boot.

Suck my kiss is a finger style song. I would reccommend that you learn take the power back by rage. First slap song that I learned and its a great little slap groove to bring up in a jam.

lowsound

This is what I used to learn how to play slap. I found it very helpful:

http://www.fenderplayersclub.com/pdfs/lessons/slap_bass.pdf

(in pdf format)

As a slap bass beginner, I advise working your way through a lesson/exercise book, such as Slap Bass Essentials (http://www.halleonard.com/item_detail.jsp?itemid=696563&order=0&catcode=00&refer=search&type=product&keywords=slap+bass+essentials+).

The book's level of difficulty is more suited for a slap bass beginner through intermediate player.

Ted

a very easy slap song is Lenny Kravitz's Fly Away. Play with a metronome too, I found it difficult to get the pop right on time at first.