Having trouble choosing notes while slapping

[JimiLL]

So I don’t have any problems coming up with what notes to play while using finger style, but I always wind up just playing octaves instead of coming up with anything more interesting while playing slap.

What does everyone use for melodic influence? I’m not playing with a band or anything so I don’t have any chord progressions to follow.

 

[TOOL460002]

Pentatonic is the best place to start with slap practice, especially if you're just looking to work out the right hand part. A lot of my slap practice is like 80% ghost notes or mutes or whatever. For some reason locking in my right hand let's me focus on the fretting parts. I like starting with a minor root on your low 5th fret, whatever that may be.

EDIT: Double stops in the form of slap/pop is another way to make string skipping chords useful. Think that more harmonic. Sometimes the slap attack is less useful with harmony. I see why you asked this and why maybe this is less than adequate an answer. Happy bassing!

 

[JonathanPDX]

You answer your question in the last line: try slapping over changes! Grab the chord chart from any song, from disco to traditional jazz, and explore how you'd slap over those changes. You are thinking more in rhythm than melody right now when you play with your thumb, so giving yourself some melodic guidance will help.

Learn slap lines from other songs. There are a million out there. Sit down and learn some Chuck Rainey slap lines, or disco standards, or pick a band you like where the bass player slaps and learn some songs as well as fills.

Lastly, take your practice regimen that you apply to fingerstyle and do the same work with slap. Practice scales, arpeggios, sequencing, etc. Take the stuff you already play and feel good about with your fingers and learn those same parts with your thumb. Ideally using your thumb should be another element to your playing, interchangeable with your fingers. You just might have to put some more work in to get the technique caught up evenly between fingers/thumb.

 

[Groove Doctor]

take your practice regimen that you apply to fingerstyle and do the same work with slap. Practice scales, arpeggios, sequencing, etc. Take the stuff you already play and feel good about with your fingers and learn those same parts with your thumb. Ideally using your thumb should be another element to your playing, interchangeable with your fingers. You just might have to put some more work in to get the technique caught up evenly between fingers/thumb.

Exactly what I was about to say.

Put bluntly, you have a very limited vocabulary of slapping. Open your mind & your ‘muscle memory’ to the following….

Slap all scales
Slap Melodies
Slap fingerstyle bass lines & bass fills.
Slap horn lines.
Slap guitar solos.

That’s 2-3 years worth of homework right there. Get onto it ASAP.


PS. Use a compressor at the start while experimenting. You may not like the new lines you play because they sound like poop. A comp might make the learning curve less steep at the beginning.

Once you find some lines you like, turn off the compressor and put in the hard work refining your technique.