Thanks for your interest in my bass "style".
I will attempt to shed some light on how I approach "slap" bass.
As for techniques I do incorporate anything and everything, I use "traditional" techniques, double thumbing, double popping. All in all I just want to not be limited in what I play with the slap sound so the more techniques I can use the less limited I am.
As for my grooves I tend to think of things in terms of groupings.
2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, 6's etc. For each grouping I can use a number of techniques, for instance, let's say I'm thinking a grouping of 3, I attatch that to say an OPEN-HAMMER-POP sequence, THUMB UP-THUMB DOWN-POP sequence, THUMB-POP-POP sequence (or whatever you choose) the thing to REMEMBER is that ANY attack can be any note, pitch or a muted note!!!
Now I can mix and match different groupings along with note choice to create grooves/rhythms. Let say I'm playing in 4/4, if I'm playing a sixteenth note groove I can mix and match groupings to equal 16 (one bar) for example:
2 groupings of 5 plus 2 groupings of 3 equals 16.
1 grouping of 5 plus 1 grouping 3 plus 2 groupings of 4 equals 16
This is agreat approach in that when you play in odd time you can use the same concept. Let's say I'm in 5/4
2 groupings of 5 plus 2 groupings of 3 plus 1 grouping of 4 equals
20
As you can see there are MANY combinations of techniques, rhythms and notes so the skys the limits!
Ray
