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Originally Posted by Alvaro Martín Gómez A. Very interesting, Tony. I always thought you used the term "lift-off" (L) to avoid confusion with popped notes, which would share the same notation with "pull off" (P). |
Alvaro,
Hi! Nice to hear from you again!
I went thru a few different lettering schemes, but a Lifted-Off note was always an "L" (once I decided to use letters) since it didn't conflict with anything.
...but you know, I wasn't going to use letters at all originally.
I thought about adopting bow markings from my string bass studies. If I remember correctly the idea was to use only three markings:
Down bow for a down stroke with the thumb
Up bow for an up stroke with the thumb*
A Staccato or Accent mark for a popped note
Hammered and Lifted notes would be indicated only by a slur, they wouldn't get a special slap marking.
I remember that this system appealed to me because it was all standard notation, but then there was a problem because of Hammered-On Dead Notes and Double Plucking or Popping.
Consider a Dead note on the E string played with the Thumb followed by a Dead note also on the E string that was Hammered-On (a Left Hand Slap). It wouldn't make sense to use a Slur because since the dead notes would be the same pitch it would read as a Tie rather than a Slur, which would be confusing since there would be two articulations. I didn't want to use a standard notation symbol in a way that conflicted with what every musician was taught.
On the other hand, instead of T for thumb, I wondered if it should be S for Slap (it is called "Slap Bass" after all), but then what would I use for a Slide, so I ruled that out.
Also, before I decided to mark every note I thought about using S for Snap (rather than P for Pop), but again, when I decided to mark every note I needed that S back for Slide again.
Anyway, I kept coming back to the system I'm still using today.
T = Thumb
P = Pop (usually first finger, but can be a double stop)
H = Hammer
L = Lift
S = Slide
In order to incorporate other techniques I've also added the following for some of my newer slap lines:
U = Upstroke with Thumb
P2 = Pop with second finger only
P3 = Pop with third finger only
PO = Pull-off (and here I'm referring to the left hand pull off)
Anyway, that's where it stands for me these days.
Cheers!
Tony
* Those of you who are familiar with my stuff know that Slap It! doesn't have any double thumb lines, but I went to school at Berklee with a bunch of great slap players who all had incorporated double thumb into their playing, so I figured I'd have to account for it in my notation system even if I was double thumb challenged myself
)
