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The Beef with Slap

#82
i don't slap
i am not comfortable with the technique and i have accepted that
i admire people who can
however, the best players don't have to slap to get my attention.
occasionally, i get a type of GAS to be able to play like a certain bassist, but then remind myself to do what i do and not worry about it-it isn't a competition.
i agree with the person who said learn all the techniques and styles and know when to use them. taste is everything in music. if you are really good in the context of a song,you should become nearly invisible; if you stand out too much, you are probably doing something wrong.
just my 2 cents
 
#83
I don't know of many, if any at all, PRO players who overuse the technique. I would say that mostly belongs to the weekend warrior type musician who is just being showy.

There's a local guy in my area who plays in a rock/blues band and he just (slaps) thumps on every frikkin' song! Just horrible! And it doesn't fit but this dude thinks he's the coolest thing since apple pie. Wears a beret backwards, a glove on his playing hand and he likes to 'pose' a lot. He'll never be a PRO player no matter how good he is. It's good to know the style and play it in the appropriate places.

While I am a thumper, I play way more finger style. I have experience playing in several genres of music and I did my studying in school and in the real world. I have been a PRO in a past life (just not the life for me). I see what y'all see. If we want the 'wanking' to stop, we have to educate the ignorant! Do clinics like Walt and Jauqo do. In fact I'm planning one, along with another bassist/luthier friend of mine.

Lastly, the prejudice towards the style must stop!
 
#84
It's like playing drums on bass and a lot of the same things that make for a good drummer make for a good slap bassist. You know that drummer who rushes everything and overplays to show that polyrhythmic lick he's worked on all week on the gig? Yeah, that guy. Don't be that guy......
 
#85
I'll admit that I love to thump and pluck. And I'll admit that when I play that way my attitude is I want everyone in the house to stop what they're doing and listen in. Not because I'm all that. I'm just an an average, normal player but I have put a lot of study time into the technique and I want folks to realize hey, that cat sounds pretty good and tasty. Having said that, I just got a call for a gig and I'll probably slap on 10% of the songs we play LOL!!!!!!!!!!!! It's just another technique to add to the menu. Wait till I get that tapping and Adam Nitti sweeping thing down. Then look out :-)
 
#86
DWBass said:
I don't know of many, if any at all, PRO players who overuse the technique. I would say that mostly belongs to the weekend warrior type musician who is just being showy.

There's a local guy in my area who plays in a rock/blues band and he just (slaps) thumps on every frikkin' song! Just horrible! And it doesn't fit but this dude thinks he's the coolest thing since apple pie. Wears a beret backwards, a glove on his playing hand and he likes to 'pose' a lot. He'll never be a PRO player no matter how good he is. It's good to know the style and play it in the appropriate places.

While I am a thumper, I play way more finger style. I have experience playing in several genres of music and I did my studying in school and in the real world. I have been a PRO in a past life (just not the life for me). I see what y'all see. If we want the 'wanking' to stop, we have to educate the ignorant! Do clinics like Walt and Jauqo do. In fact I'm planning one, along with another bassist/luthier friend of mine.

Lastly, the prejudice towards the style must stop!
Click to expand...

Darn, this means I might have to make a road trip to see the FunkFather :-)
 
#87
Roy Vogt said:
It's like playing drums on bass and a lot of the same things that make for a good drummer make for a good slap bassist. You know that drummer who rushes everything and overplays to show that polyrhythmic lick he's worked on all week on the gig? Yeah, that guy. Don't be that guy......
Click to expand...

Er, I thought all drummers were like that? JK :).

The only time I guess slap makes me frown a little bit is when that's all the player can really do. I've seen quite a few guys who can slap all day, but couldn't fingerpick their way through a major scale in time and with audible, even notes to save their lives.

OTOH, then, you have players like myself who can only fingerpick and can't slap to save their lives.... so I probably make a lot of guys frown also lol....

Otherwise, I like slap fine but not when it's overused or used where there's an opportunity but it still just sounds awful. Eg. I've heard guys slap through "Pick Up the Pieces" and "Long Train Runnin'" and, though you'd think it would sound good because of the funk-like guitar lines, it actually sounds really horrible for some reason....

But then listen to Louis Johnson and so forth and it's perfect...

So go figure.......

LS
 
#88
I recently watched a CTA concert, (that's Chicago to the youngsters) and Jason Scheff pretty much thumped whenever the focus was on the horns (and that's a lot) and the rhythm section was providing pulse. He used the technique along with fingerstyle.
 
#89
unclejane said:
Er, I thought all drummers were like that? JK :).

The only time I guess slap makes me frown a little bit is when that's all the player can really do. I've seen quite a few guys who can slap all day, but couldn't fingerpick their way through a major scale in time and with audible, even notes to save their lives.

I've heard guys slap through "Pick Up the Pieces" and "Long Train Runnin'" and, though you'd think it would sound good because of the funk-like guitar lines, it actually sounds really horrible for some reason....

But then listen to Louis Johnson and so forth and it's perfect...

So go figure.......

LS
Click to expand...
Like I said, those guys are definitely not PROS! I never gauge what the weekend warriors are doing. I study PROS only! Plenty of cats in my area who are good but don't have a clue as to what works! They can't even lock in with the drummer and that's a whole 'nutha topic!
 
#91
DWBass said:
Like I said, those guys are definitely not PROS! I never gauge what the weekend warriors are doing. I study PROS only! Plenty of cats in my area who are good but don't have a clue as to what works! They can't even lock in with the drummer and that's a whole 'nutha topic!
Click to expand...

Well I did about 98% of my gigging in Austin, TX back in the 80's and early 90's; as far as the bass players I saw there who were professionals, I never saw a bad one. Every one of them just sounded like a virtuoso to me with great tones, rhythm and taste and everything.

The guitarists and drummers, OTOH...... I could rant and rant for hours.... (except for like, Ian Moore and the 2 or 3 guys I got to play with). Talk about overplaying, amps all turned up to 11, speeding up, slowing down, draining all the chicks away from the other band members... and on and on.

So yeah I'm mostly thinking of bedroom warriors and has-beens like myself, but it still tends to annoy me. Even someone fingerpicking at a beginning level is heaven to me compared to someone slapping who never otherwise learned how to play their bass lol....

But yes I don't doubt it among pro bassists either....

LS
 
#92
You know, I slapped when I was 22 because it was a new thing (and when I was 22, slapping was still pretty new). Now I'm 43. I don't want to slap.

I don't care if others do. That's great. Not my thing. I've got a whole different deal I'm working on. Someone who wants to slap -- that's a commitment to a large array of techniques and sounds and styles. I have no beef with that, but I also am only going to comment when what I hear sounds like it is being done well, with devotion and care.

I guess my only beef with slap is when people use it as a gimmick. Hard-pressed to name the last time I heard gimmicky slapping. I think it can be returned to genuine technique status now, as Seinfeld recedes over pop-culture's horizon.
 
#94
maxgrant said:
You know, I slapped when I was 22 because it was a new thing (and when I was 22, slapping was still pretty new). Now I'm 43. I don't want to slap.

I don't care if others do. That's great. Not my thing. I've got a whole different deal I'm working on. Someone who wants to slap -- that's a commitment to a large array of techniques and sounds and styles. I have no beef with that, but I also am only going to comment when what I hear sounds like it is being done well, with devotion and care.

I guess my only beef with slap is when people use it as a gimmick. Hard-pressed to name the last time I heard gimmicky slapping. I think it can be returned to genuine technique status now, as Seinfeld recedes over pop-culture's horizon.
Click to expand...

That's kinda' funny . . . I'm 50 and when I was 22 slapping had been around for quite a while. There was an Era called the 70's in which there was this type of music that was quite popular called FUNK and within this FUNK music there were bass players, such as Luis Johnson, Larry Graham and Chuck Rainey (more than just funk) who were doing a lot of slapping.
 
#97
The one place where I always hear guys slapping is in the music store. Playing alone is the best time to slap. There are very few people whom I enjoy to hear slapping from.... Bakithi Kumalo is one. I just about never hear anyone getting paid for doing it.
 
#98
DWBass said:
There's a local guy in my area who plays in a rock/blues band and he just (slaps) thumps on every frikkin' song! Just horrible!
Click to expand...

I'll never forget one time I did some sessions for a kinda-green band---they had some decent songs, paid well, so what the heck--nice folks too.
Modern rock and pickstyle was what worked best, so that's how I tracked 'em.
So, I eventually catch them live, and the guy they got to play bass slapped EVERY SINGLE song. If it was a driving 8th note rock vibe, he slapped it, or rather, smacked it (and I might add, with more nasty brittle high end than anybody should ever be allowed to use). It was horrendous.
I talked to him afterwards---as far as he thought, his slapping sounded "just like a pick--same attack". Oy.....
 
#100
I just dig the fact that it's so controversial and a great topic for discussion. Like my man DWBass knows try being funky with a Ric and a Pic. Now that's something to master. Still I am a slapper but enjoy fingerstyle too. Nothing so much fun as to play Hamilton Bohannons' Let the Dance Begin or the Dance has begun. Something like that. Name that Bass Player (F.S.)
 

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