- Apr 1, 2000
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Slapping techniques, ways?
- Thread starter Bassopotomus_2
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whats the problem with using diffirent tuning once ina while? it can obviously vary your tone and perhaps even help with engineering your own specific sound but then all you do is drop the e and play it open over and over again with perhaps 2 other notes (if your lucky) then i feel sick
it seems the problem always starts with the mentioning of the F word 
no not that one! the KoRn thing that starts with F and ends with ........ well you know eell"d"
no not that one! the KoRn thing that starts with F and ends with ........ well you know eell"d"you all make a valid point, but if i want to tune my bass to something other than a "standard"tuning i will, if that is what helps me to get my sound. personally i dont bother with alternate tunings but that is my preference, if i need to go lower i am lucky enough to own a 5 string if i need to go higher.. well that is something else entirely!!!
Don't get introverted by all the asinine comments you've received...
I'd lide to take up the suject of the bass tuning first:
The electric bass guitar evolved from the classical upright bass and the electric guitar. The tuning in fourths just makes it easier to play most music. But, did you know that the upright bass had only three strings and that the tuning was up to the performer? There are uprights with extensions on the "E" string as well as 5 and 6 strings. Stuart Hamm used a Kubiki Factor bass with such extension for years. Billy Sheehan uses a Hipshot D-tuner that allows him a low "C". And lets not foget Michael Manring, who has created some of the most beautiful music by using dozens of different tunings! So don't let anybody tell you how to tune your bass; "EADG" is not a mandate from God.
On the slap: try using a heavier gauge string for your "C" and keep you thumd closer to the string. I recomend Alex Sclarevski's video on slaping as well as Stuart Hamm's.
I'd lide to take up the suject of the bass tuning first:
The electric bass guitar evolved from the classical upright bass and the electric guitar. The tuning in fourths just makes it easier to play most music. But, did you know that the upright bass had only three strings and that the tuning was up to the performer? There are uprights with extensions on the "E" string as well as 5 and 6 strings. Stuart Hamm used a Kubiki Factor bass with such extension for years. Billy Sheehan uses a Hipshot D-tuner that allows him a low "C". And lets not foget Michael Manring, who has created some of the most beautiful music by using dozens of different tunings! So don't let anybody tell you how to tune your bass; "EADG" is not a mandate from God.
On the slap: try using a heavier gauge string for your "C" and keep you thumd closer to the string. I recomend Alex Sclarevski's video on slaping as well as Stuart Hamm's.
Whats up guys! Music doesnt have any rules so no one can tell someone that they cant do something. But I think everyone, or maybe just me, that says alternate tunings are bad is thinking that people should master the basics before striking out into new territory. If astronauts couldnt find the space shuttle just down the road, then i dont think they would be able to get to the moon. Um..sorry guys, that was a ******** analogy, but maybe another wierd person will understand it.
The majority of music is played in standard tuning, so be careful not to limit yourself. If anyone wants a quick solution to the debate........ listen to Stanley Clarke. He grooves like no other w/ STANDARD TUNING, and does some unbelivable stuff on piccolo and tenor basses that have different tuning accordingly.
Plus he is better than all these guys
Who is this Fieldy guy??
The majority of music is played in standard tuning, so be careful not to limit yourself. If anyone wants a quick solution to the debate........ listen to Stanley Clarke. He grooves like no other w/ STANDARD TUNING, and does some unbelivable stuff on piccolo and tenor basses that have different tuning accordingly. Plus he is better than all these guys
Who is this Fieldy guy??
I agree that basics should be mastered first and the example of Stanley Clarke is a very good one. The ability and necesity to expand beyond the conventional is more productive when one understands the role within the context of what's being played and the understanding of the workable principles that make "standard music training".
Ronald
Ronald
i apologize for not reading the entire post but bassboy_jordan and lo-end are so wrong it pisses me off. ryknow said in bass player magazine that he uses GCGCF tuning on his 5 string so that he can have 2 open slap octaves. Gurgg the guitarist of mudvayne uses CGCFAD tuning so ryknow tunes down to accomidate that. also the tritone that you are refering to is a flatted 5th and the riff goes like this
F|------8-|
C|------7-|
G|--------|
C|--00----|
G|--------|
im not even sure that you guys listen to mudvayne from the way that you talk about them.
if you have seen the video of dig it clearly shows that ryknow is using the vox diablos chord there. i bought a tape of 5 mudvayne shows off of ebay and every show they play dig and that s how ryknow plays it.
next, for lump, if youre so worried about how everyone else tunes and if they are "breaking the rules" then why are you a musician? i agree with what you said about kids tuning a certain way because their idol does, but have you thought about why they would tune different in the first place? i play a 6 string so that i can achieve a greater range i also tune it standard tuning. i believe that that range is sufficient but if you want to b*tch at somebody about tuning, then why dont you talk to JT, the man John Turner, are you going to complain about the way that the man tunes his 7 string fretless? when i played 4 i rarely tuned different even when my guitarist went dropped d. i dont like to retune that much but i can see why some one would. i get extremely tired of standard e sounds and even d sounds sometimes so i can see why. just dont diss on others methods.
F|------8-|
C|------7-|
G|--------|
C|--00----|
G|--------|
im not even sure that you guys listen to mudvayne from the way that you talk about them.
if you have seen the video of dig it clearly shows that ryknow is using the vox diablos chord there. i bought a tape of 5 mudvayne shows off of ebay and every show they play dig and that s how ryknow plays it.
next, for lump, if youre so worried about how everyone else tunes and if they are "breaking the rules" then why are you a musician? i agree with what you said about kids tuning a certain way because their idol does, but have you thought about why they would tune different in the first place? i play a 6 string so that i can achieve a greater range i also tune it standard tuning. i believe that that range is sufficient but if you want to b*tch at somebody about tuning, then why dont you talk to JT, the man John Turner, are you going to complain about the way that the man tunes his 7 string fretless? when i played 4 i rarely tuned different even when my guitarist went dropped d. i dont like to retune that much but i can see why some one would. i get extremely tired of standard e sounds and even d sounds sometimes so i can see why. just dont diss on others methods.
Boy, this is an old thread. But having nothing better to do than respond to a lecture by a 13-year old, I reviewed my old posts. I guess I didn't state my opinion clearly enough.
I am not "worried" by alternate tuning. I just think it's stupid. And if you think being a musician is about "breaking the rules," you need to watch less MTV and start thinking for yourself. You have more potential than being a Whino wannabe, my ovine little friend.
And how do you get tired of a certain note? There's only 12, you know. You're gonna run out of 'em pretty soon.
And JT can do whatever the f*** he wants. He's paid his dues.
In my OPINION. My last post on the topic; you're not changing my mind. "Diss" away, laddie.
Right on lump - I agree wholeheartedly - changing tunings is not experimenting or breaking rules its just stupid - for people with low attention spans IMO.
True experimentation is about things like breaking away from playing everything squarely on the beat and strictly within the bar lines or finding alternative scales that fit etc. etc.
Who cares how the guitarists tunes - be independent - I don't need to look at any guitarist's hands to know what to play!
Play music - not what fashion dictates! If its Eb then play E flat, don't tune your strings down a semitone - this is the most ridicluous thing I've ever heard. My bass has about a dozen places I could play an Eb so why should I detune just to get another one?
I play a four-string in a rock band with a guitarist who always detunes, so I might as well follow him. He says he does it because he that way can have use a higher string gauge for a meatier sound, and with the detuning it makes them more slinky and comfortable playing... but it could also have something to do with his limited voice capabilities
. To add to the meat, the open E string (Eb) on the bass can actually come in handy sometimes, since many rock tunes seem to be in the key of E (or Eb) minor.I wouldn't totaly discredit the concept of alternate tunings - e.g. Michael Manring bases a lot of his playing around them... although admittedly, it's a bit more than just drop-D-set-it-and-forget-it kinds of tunings - and sometimes he changes tunings in the middle of a song. Fashion's got nothing to do with his playing.
Also, there are instrumentalists who stick with an odd tuning because they feel it lets them play the instrument the way they want to play it. As an example, I think Devin Townsend (a fully decent guitarist) has tuned his guitars CGCGCE for almost 10 years, but his work is still as musical as it would have been with standard tuning. Fashion's got nothing to do with his playing either.
So I just can't see why alternate tunings are stupid? Isn't it all about the music we play anyway and not HOW we choose to play it? Lump, Bruce, Voodoo, Please elaborate! It seems I can't quite grip your way of seeing it.
All that said, I do fine with EADG myself.
Well this is the part that I can't understand - why follow him, why not do what you want to do - it just sounds like people are only playing the root of what the guitarist is playing, which just sounds very lazy and "unmusical" to me. I feel that this is what gets bassists branded as guitarist wannabes or worse leads to the situation where you aren't heard and might as well just be the guitarist's octave pedal!
So there are all these people saying they detune to break rules or be experimental etc.- whereas what we suspect they are doing in fact is just copying what the guitarist does and not learning about music as such or alternative things to play.
OK - so a guitarist is playing some sort of Eb chord - well if we took EbMajor 7 that has 4 notes : G, Bb and D as well as the Eb - why not base a line around these notes or a related scale or even add some passing tones? There are so many things you can do - why just be content to slavishly follow the guitarist?
To me - tuning down (or up) means you aren't learning about music and the "sound" of what you are playing, so you can't apply this elsewhere - it's just like "dumbing down" of your role. Oh I won't learn what it sounds like to play in another key - I'll just flick a switch and change the whole thing - it's like a keyboard player who only ever plays in C but switches the "transpose" button on their electronic keyboard - that's just "playing by numbers"!
Well Bruce, I would tend to think that I'm being pretty creative and unorthodox as a rock bassist, despite I tune my bass the same way the guitar player tunes the bottom four strings on his axe. Believe me, in my rock trio, my playing is by far the most intricate things coming out of that setting. You would agree if you heard me.
Most of the songs we play (mostly 60's and 70's rock covers) I have learned by simply watching and listening while the guitar player and drummer have played them, and since pitches are a bit difficult to take out when there's a loud distorted guitar and a hard-hitting drummer involved, it's convenient to just look at the guitarists fingers and see what key he is in. Even easier if I can directly copy his position, and not stay there, but rather take it from there.
Also, if he sometimes tells me the chords for a song, he says them as if he were tuned in E, so when he says "A minor" it's really "A flat minor". So I guess I'm lazy, for it's nevertheless a lot easier to me to just adapt his way of thinking than pig-headedly trying to force the "true and real" concepts of music on him. I just follow along and have fun.
I admit that my playing to a certain extent IS "playing by numbers" in that band. After all, we don't do originals (well, we have one or two but rarely play them). At least I am original enough to develop original bass lines as opposed to just ripping them off of the original recording (a lot of the songs I haven't heard the original version of, either). It's much more fun that way, also give me a little challenge in a a band whose style of music isn't very challenging at all.
Although I might play by numbers, I sure as hell don't just play root notes. But I do play them, among other notes, and my lines are based on root notes, as often is the case in rock. The root note is fundamental to rock music, like it or not. You play and listen to jazz, Bruce, I don't play jazz, or at least not in the discussed band I don't. That's why I don't play 7th's or 5th's or passing notes on beat 1 in every measure. They don't fit!
Lot's of slapping technique here... oh well, I do slap during the guitar solos in "Fire".
You would agree if you heard me.Most of the songs we play (mostly 60's and 70's rock covers) I have learned by simply watching and listening while the guitar player and drummer have played them, and since pitches are a bit difficult to take out when there's a loud distorted guitar and a hard-hitting drummer involved, it's convenient to just look at the guitarists fingers and see what key he is in. Even easier if I can directly copy his position, and not stay there, but rather take it from there.
Also, if he sometimes tells me the chords for a song, he says them as if he were tuned in E, so when he says "A minor" it's really "A flat minor". So I guess I'm lazy, for it's nevertheless a lot easier to me to just adapt his way of thinking than pig-headedly trying to force the "true and real" concepts of music on him. I just follow along and have fun.
I admit that my playing to a certain extent IS "playing by numbers" in that band. After all, we don't do originals (well, we have one or two but rarely play them). At least I am original enough to develop original bass lines as opposed to just ripping them off of the original recording (a lot of the songs I haven't heard the original version of, either). It's much more fun that way, also give me a little challenge in a a band whose style of music isn't very challenging at all.
Although I might play by numbers, I sure as hell don't just play root notes. But I do play them, among other notes, and my lines are based on root notes, as often is the case in rock. The root note is fundamental to rock music, like it or not. You play and listen to jazz, Bruce, I don't play jazz, or at least not in the discussed band I don't. That's why I don't play 7th's or 5th's or passing notes on beat 1 in every measure. They don't fit!
Lot's of slapping technique here... oh well, I do slap during the guitar solos in "Fire".
Well I appreciate the honesty!
I have played in rock bands in the past, but I suppose what annoys me is that all we hear about on TB now is people following the guitarist's lead. Whereas when I was in bands like this I made up songs of my own and told the guitarist what to play - why can't it be this way round?
I suppose I resent the assumption that guitarists always know more, are the leader etc etc. There are lots of bands where the bass player is the leader and main songwriter.
I was in a fairly heavy rock band - singer, guitar drums and me. The guitarist and I wrote all the songs in a few weeks together - I never played the same as him and a lot of the songs were based on basslines where I had deliberately put in notes that weren't in the chord - riffs where bass and guitar traded parts and didn't always play in unison etc. etc.
In other pop bands I have been in - the guitar was never really dominant and in one that did quite well, all the musical ideas were worked out by me and the keyboard player - later I had bands where I wrote all the music.
I think there are so many ways that you can get music together, it seems a shame that all the younger people seem to do around here is slavishly follow what the guitar player does and if he tunes down then they have to! It just seems to me to be symptomatic of a general lack of ideas and determination to learn about music.
I have played in rock bands in the past, but I suppose what annoys me is that all we hear about on TB now is people following the guitarist's lead. Whereas when I was in bands like this I made up songs of my own and told the guitarist what to play - why can't it be this way round?
I suppose I resent the assumption that guitarists always know more, are the leader etc etc. There are lots of bands where the bass player is the leader and main songwriter.
I was in a fairly heavy rock band - singer, guitar drums and me. The guitarist and I wrote all the songs in a few weeks together - I never played the same as him and a lot of the songs were based on basslines where I had deliberately put in notes that weren't in the chord - riffs where bass and guitar traded parts and didn't always play in unison etc. etc.
In other pop bands I have been in - the guitar was never really dominant and in one that did quite well, all the musical ideas were worked out by me and the keyboard player - later I had bands where I wrote all the music.
I think there are so many ways that you can get music together, it seems a shame that all the younger people seem to do around here is slavishly follow what the guitar player does and if he tunes down then they have to! It just seems to me to be symptomatic of a general lack of ideas and determination to learn about music.
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