How shall I practice slap and pop?

[Miserato]

I can play songs like dark necessities, can’t stopand a few more however I want to get better with slap and pop technique… any suggestions or exercises?

 

[loukash]

I started to practice slap bass more seriously only last year, after a few decades of being fine without, because at least some slapping was required for a few covers with one of the bands I play with.
Very helpful were instructional videos by Scott Devine on YouTube, he's got plenty of them.
My current technique is still pretty inefficient, I guess. But meanwhile good enough for slapping a few bars every now and then. On a fretless, nota bene…

 

[Miserato]

Thankyou

 

[JonathanPDX]

I can play songs like dark necessities, can’t stopand a few more however I want to get better with slap and pop technique… any suggestions or exercises?

Practice all your scales with the technique. Can you slap your scales? Can you slap/pop your arpeggios? Can you walk the bass with your thumb?

The great players use the technique to play music, rather than licks. I hear a lot of guys get stuck with slapping where all they practice is octaves.

The next step is going back and learning the classic slap lines that guys like Flea grew up learning. Brick House, Thank You, Got to be Real, Glide, etc.

 

[loukash]

I hear a lot of guys get stuck with slapping where all they practice is octaves.

Yeah, that's the easy part. I'm now at the point where I'm trying to move beyond that.

 

[bass12]

There are probably hundreds of slap instructional videos available on Youtube. One thing I would say is go slowly. Make sure you have really solid fundamental technique. Be able to get a strong, controlled note out of your thumps with every hit, across every string. Make sure you're muting any unwanted string noise or notes and make sure you are playing in time. To me there's nothing worse than sloppy slapping - especially when people try to get fancy before locking down the basics.

 

[Miserato]

Practice all your scales with the technique. Can you slap your scales? Can you slap/pop your arpeggios? Can you walk the bass with your thumb?

The great players use the technique to play music, rather than licks. I hear a lot of guys get stuck with slapping where all they practice is octaves.

The next step is going back and learning the classic slap lines that guys like Flea grew up learning. Brick House, Thank You, Got to be Real, Glide, etc.

I don’t know my arpeggios yet but I’ll surely practice it

 

[-Stingray]

As previously mentioned, SBL Academy (Scott's Bass Lessons) has a plethora of slap tutorials.

 

[JonathanPDX]

I don’t know my arpeggios yet but I’ll surely practice it

Sounds like the best course is to work on scales, arpeggios, and music theory, then apply your slap technique to all of those things as you work on them.

 

[Les Fret]

There are probably hundreds of slap instructional videos available on Youtube. One thing I would say is go slowly. Make sure you have really solid fundamental technique. Be able to get a strong, controlled note out of your thumps with every hit, across every string. Make sure you're muting any unwanted string noise or notes and make sure you are playing in time. To me there's nothing worse than sloppy slapping - especially when people try to get fancy before locking down the basics.

I agree. If you want to learn the basics there are tons of videos for that on YouTube. If you want to go beyond that transcribe your favorite slap players or dive into specialized slap books or do both.

 

[Shenron]

I can play songs like dark necessities, can’t stopand a few more however I want to get better with slap and pop technique… any suggestions or exercises?

I am not familiar with those 2 songs specifically but being from Red Hot Chili Peppers, if you can play such songs then my guess is that you have already figured out the basic mechanics of slap & pop, or at least one way to do it.

So instead of dry exercises without musical context, why not picking more slap lines from other RHCP songs and use them as exercises?

Some example from the top of my head that's still not fast: Higher Ground, Naked in the Rain, Aeroplane, Backwoods, Walking on Down the Road...

 

[loukash]

I actually remember my first attempts on slap bass while I still was a guitarist, back in 1990 using my flatmate's Warwick. My favorite "exercise" then was the ultimate slap classic: Thank You by Sly & The Family Stone. We've even recorded a demo on my Tascam Porta One with my then-girlfriend on vocals… Our version was more inspired by the electro funk version by Shango (Bill Laswell, Material, Africa Baambaata) though.
Long story short: Definitely check out bass lines by Larry Graham = Sly & The Family Stone and Graham Central Station.

 

[vindibona1]

Interesting. The thump has always come naturally to me. My thumb can thump very quickly, mostly accurately from a variety of positions. In fact I think I can often be lighter with the thump. But I'm not quite sure how to get the best pop. I can do the "door-knob" rotation just fine but my pops are always lame and slow.

Any thoughts on how to best engage the "pop" strings to get that sizzle? Also how much muting does one give the pop relative to ghost notes? I also need work with the left hand slap, but that's another issue altogether.

 

[loukash]

Oddly, I'm much better at popping than thumping. I've actually done some popping as a guitarist already, somewhat inspired by Johnny Guitar Watson's popping sound – even though he actually used to pop with his thumb.
Whereas when thumping with the thumb, I actually sometimes miss the string, hehe…

 

[tshapiro]

Resign yourself for a period of time to only play with the thumbing and/or popping technique for everything. I did this for more than a year and I’ve become very accomplished at it.

 

[edwinhurwitz]

Interesting. The thump has always come naturally to me. My thumb can thump very quickly, mostly accurately from a variety of positions. In fact I think I can often be lighter with the thump. But I'm not quite sure how to get the best pop. I can do the "door-knob" rotation just fine but my pops are always lame and slow.

Any thoughts on how to best engage the "pop" strings to get that sizzle? Also how much muting does one give the pop relative to ghost notes? I also need work with the left hand slap, but that's another issue altogether.

How are you positioning your thumb? Parallel or perpendicular to the strings? I find it much easier to get good articulation and phrasing by having my thumb parallel.

That said, play everything with slap and pops.