New Slap Player

Best slap advice I ever got was start slow, very slow. You need to develop muscle memory to improve accuracy and that only comes through repetition. Octaves up and down the neck are nice for this - maybe with a few thirds and fifths thrown in.

All the fast slapping you hear the pros do is only possible because of hours of slow practice in their bedrooms that nobody ever heard.

 

I'm on the learning process, too. What I've found so far is that, the more skilled I get, the less I move my right arm/hand. I'm developing the attack speed I need, with less movement (Bruce Lee's one-inch punch ), which translates to more accuracy.

Another thing is, if I slap the A string, I pop the D string with my index finger and the G string with my middle finger. Again, more efficiency in movement, translates to more accuracy.

I hope this helps.

 

I'm one of those Old School players that learned Slap from Chuck Rainey's columns in Guitar Player. I therefore keep my thumb right at the edge of the fingerboard and parallel to the string. A minimum amount of movement is needed to get the slap from the string hitting the fingerboard and the pop from the index and middle fingers.
Youtube is your friend. Check out Louis Johnson, Bill Dickens, Stu Hamm, Victor Wooten, Adam Nitti, Anthony Wellington and others for slap instruction and then observe players like Marcus Miller, Larry Graham and that 16 year old kid from somewhere in Asia or South America who plays better than all of us!
This is a Classic and comes highly recommended. Tony also does a monthly subscription site:
http://www.slapit.com/

 

Should also say that I learned most by watching Marcus Miller's thumb technique. It got me out of the rut of thinking 'thumb slap' for E and A strings, 'finger pop' for D and G strings.

 

Perfectly agree with Roy and what he said.
Slap It is the bible of the slap technique but more than others book, it give you the way to improve and create your slap dictionary and your own voice.
Try to study any exercise from that book, plus analyze any possible variation in fingering and dynamic. When you study it try to have same dynamic and tone in each note you play.
It will give you the power to control the dynamic and, than you will be able to give your expression on what you playing, not the inversion.
Last thing: study at 60 of tempo, than when you're feel everything is good enough switch directly to 80 and eventually to 100. It will be the first step for a good time keeping.
If you can apply a good reading too, on what you're studying and don't limit yourself just on what you can hear from the audio cd, than you really reach all the goals of a deep and good studying.
Cheers. Enrico
www.enricogaletta.com

 

You can also try lowering your action a bit. It helps a lot with the economy of motion and can give you a more pronounced slap tone without really having to spank the plank to get it going.