C'mon! "Smoke On The Water" is an awesome guitar technique, right up there with sweep picking and two-handed tapping.
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"Slap is overused"
- Thread starter Traynor
- Start date
C'mon! "Smoke On The Water" is an awesome guitar technique, right up there with sweep picking and two-handed tapping.
I don't know. I think it pops up every now and again in todays pop music. California Gurls by Katy Perry had a slap bass line and so does Do What U Want by Lady Gaga. The Song Falling by Haim has a little slap bass in it and those are just 3 off the top of my head. Perhaps their's more or maybe not.
1) Slap is an effect.
2) It's most often very poorly executed.
3) It's most often attempted in the over-used key center of E Minor - rather actually, E Dorian. (This is the 2nd strike against it). Slappers, for the most part, are unfamiliar with any other Tonal Center.
4) It's most often used inappropriately - musically and location (i.e., Guitar Center)
5) There are many more reasons...
1) It's not an effect, it's a technique.
2) It's executed poorly as often as any other technique.
3) Wrong. Sure there's lots of slapping in E, but there's lots of picked bass in E..lots of fingerstyle in E..etc. Plus, since when is one key less valid than the others?
4) Basing your opinion on bass playing/music in general from what you've heard in Guitar Center is not going to give you the most accurate overview..of anything.
'Treasure' by Bruno Mars is another recent and massively popular track with a thumped bass line. It's played on a P bass and sounds fat as anything.
There's been so many threads like this lately I'm surprised this hasn't been locked by now, to be honest!
I can't slap, and I really don't like to hear it. But, the non bass playing audience I truly believe think it is a sign of a player that knows what they are doing. No matter how poorly executed I always see folks turn and give a clap or a whoop at the antic as if it was a short guitar solo - I rarely see that with a nice harmonizing line. I think that is why so many up a coming players latch onto it with such fury, it makes them look good! Like it or not, a lot of listeners think it means something. Now, this is genre specific and varies with a sophisticated audience for sure, I am speaking of the casual listener getting drunk.
For those who are saying the slap they hear is poorly executed.....exactly where is this happening???? Guitar Center? Open Mics? Where? Surely not by professional bass players in pro situations!
You know every so often a thread like this pops up with so many unwarranted and misinformed opinions! Many just downright hateful of the technique! These threads tend to get out of hand and eventually they get closed. I think we got the message by now! A good % of you guys hate slap! We got it already! Can we stop with these types of threads already?!?!
You know every so often a thread like this pops up with so many unwarranted and misinformed opinions! Many just downright hateful of the technique! These threads tend to get out of hand and eventually they get closed. I think we got the message by now! A good % of you guys hate slap! We got it already! Can we stop with these types of threads already?!?!
Slapping dated? How about walking bass!
Slapping tends to show up limitations in bassists' time feel more than fingerstyle. For me it's not that slap is overused, it's that most people don't do it well.
Bad bass players are overused.
Slapping tends to show up limitations in bassists' time feel more than fingerstyle. For me it's not that slap is overused, it's that most people don't do it well.
Bad bass players are overused.
Ask the average person what bass sounds like and they might say, " You know, it's like the music on Seinfeld."
Slapping dated? How about walking bass!
Slapping tends to show up limitations in bassists' time feel more than fingerstyle. For me it's not that slap is overused, it's that most people don't do it well.
Bad bass players are overused.
This!
Disclaimer: My background is URB and mostly finger style on bass guitar and I've never practiced enough to develop a good stap technique. Having said that, I agree that it is a technique that is often poorly executed. I do have a couple of instruction books on slap, both old school and modern players, and the exercises if properly done will lead to playing within the chord changes - improvising over the changes as a jazz player would do. Rarely do I see slap player (except those who have clearly practiced) execute within the changes - it appears mostly random. As with any technique, it takes A LOT of woodshedding to do it right.
Slap has been utilized in almost every style of music. And folks are coming up with new techniques all the time.
It's not just slap bass! There are poor players of all techniques all over the world. Poor players are not pros or semi-pros. Poor players clearly do not woodshed! Practice makes perfect! You say 'rarely'? I'd stop hanging around those musicians!
Well, most of the people I hear. The best slappers I've known have come from either a funk or fusion background. Neither of those styles have been in style for a while now. What has been "in style" is Flea-inspired hyper slap and Wooten-inspired triplet-filled double thumbing - both of which can very easily sound sloppy. Again, most bass players I've heard don't have a fantastic sense of time to begin with. That questionable sense of time is magnified when slap is introduced. Slapping is also often a go-to device when it comes to solos - regardless of how comfortable the player is with the technique. I've heard audiences go wild after a bass player has bungled his way through some truly awful slap passages. Slap gets people's attention, and most people aren't discerning enough to know good execution from bad (at least, it would seem, not on the spot).
But I still wouldn't say that slap is overused. I think that it is underused these days - just like I think funky rhythm guitar parts (and beats, for that matter) are underused (especially in pop songs).
