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Why Does Jeff Berlin HATE Slapping?

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#85
old thread..geez...Jeff doesn't hate slap. I remember playing some slap stuff in ensemble class one day at Players School and Jeff made some very nice comments on what I was playing and encouraged me to develop that style.
 
#86
ok. honistly i dont really know much bout jeff. but why should it really matter if someone likes slapping or not. ive had it millions of times when trying a bass in a shop or trying for a band getting asked if i can slap or not. well yeah i can slap but its not part of my style. not every song needs slap. hence why for me bands like red hot chili peppers and primus get old quickly. ill admit not every rhcp or primus song has slap but to be fair it has no place in my style.

id rather play a sweet little melodic bass line over the heavy guitars than simply hit my bass like a drunken redneck hitting his wife
 
#87
PhatBasstard said:
I may have this comment engraved somewhere. F'ing brilliant!


Jeff Berlin makes a ton of sense (usually). Most people simply get mad after skimming only the surface of his comments (i.e. "Jeff Berlin says metronomes are bad!" :mad: ).
No...., he said they were counterproductive to certain areas of learning new material.

The only thing he said that I dissagree with is "you can't improve (on your instrument) away from your instrument".
I often think through Jazz tunes I've just learned, away from my instrument, before perfoming them, just to get the "mathmatics" of the key/changes a little more clear. I feel this definately improves my initial performances of them, rather than just hitting the changes.
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I think he said that because you can't develop dexterity without your bass in your hands, you can play faster if you don't have your bass etc. You can't be better technicaly without your bass in hands. But yeah, ear training, you can have another instrument to be sure you are spot on.
 
#88
On topic, I'm kind of sick of slap because it seems to be always around some funk or stuck in 4/4 stuff that too predictible.

I prefer Victor Wooten over Marcus Miller just because everything Marcus put is hands on it become lock in some kind of R&B flavor.
 
#89
Mayers said:
I think he said that because you can't develop dexterity without your bass in your hands, you can play faster if you don't have your bass etc. You can't be better technicaly without your bass in hands. But yeah, ear training, you can have another instrument to be sure you are spot on.
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It depends on what he means by "Improve on your instrument". If we're talking just mechanics,...yeah, you're probably right. But if we're talking about musical performance I still disagree.
 
#90
Being very eclectic, 'slap' to me is all about context. I use it as required and greatly enjoy hearing it tastefully done. Also, imho even one minute of directionless lightspeed wanking is too long, but I could listen to Marcus for two hours. Why? - he takes it to a level of melodic artistry that nobody else does. Marcus GOES someplace with his slapping, even his solos put wankers to shame.
 
#91
I think slapping sounds very similar in general. When i hear someone slapping its like "another one playing the same stuff as millons slappers..."

The only bassist i enjoy to hear slapping is Les Claypool. He has truly a unique style to do it.

I can slap, i forced me to learn just to get more jobs/gigs. But i hate it too..
 
#92
Loooong before slapping became the thing to do, bass players were laying down the bottom for R&B. I hope Mayers is not saying Slapping is exclusive to R&B just because that's what he hears when listening to Marcus Miller. If he is I suggest listening to some old school R&B. Not a slap to be heard
 
#93
I had an incident a few weeks back where I sprained something in my plucking hand due to only 20min. of slap n pop(practice). But, essentially, music I listen does not feature slapping nor does 99.9999999% of MY music....however I do respect the technique.
 
#94
it seems to me that Jeff is just a hater i have a 2000 issue of bass player with Geddy Lee and the interviewer asks him about slap and i don't have the issue in front of me but it was something to the effect of "I would love to learn how to do it but i asked Jeff (Berlin) about it and he told me slapping ruins bass players and i would lose his respect if i did...so i don't". Yea i don't slap at all, i mean never and this might be a TB first but i don't even know RHCP's version of higher ground but i don't see what having a problem with a technique is, if he doesn't like it fine then don't do it but don't rain on somebody's parade . while he is an awesome bass player and i have mad respect for him, he's like one of those rich house wives that don't give their kids fast food and try to get it outlawed (see Penn and Teller's bullsh*t episode on fast food for a good example)because if they don't think anyone else should have it either...ok rant over
 
#95
bassman2020 said:
Loooong before slapping became the thing to do, bass players were laying down the bottom for R&B. I hope Mayers is not saying Slapping is exclusive to R&B just because that's what he hears when listening to Marcus Miller. If he is I suggest listening to some old school R&B. Not a slap to be heard
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No no, I just listened to 3 Marcus Miller CD and to SMV and everything he does has that RnB feeling, I just think he could show us more if he does something else for a change.
 
#96
Marcus used to do more straight fingerstyle when he was a session guy. But now that he's doing a lot more solo stuff, he tends to rely on it.

Anyway, who cares what anyone else thinks? If you want to slap, slap. Jeff's not going to my gigs, anyway (not that I do much slapping...I rarely do it anymore). But his whole point is that once someone slaps, they instantly become an imitator of Larry Graham and Stanley Clarke. He says the same about playing fretless and Jaco, too. But while I disagree with him that you can't have an original voice in either style, I do agree that there are WAY too many fretless Jaco clones and slappers who bring absolutely nothing new to slapping and made it a cliche.
 
#97
JimmyM said:
But his whole point is that once someone slaps, they instantly become an imitator of Larry Graham and Stanley Clarke. He says the same about playing fretless and Jaco, too.
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So by this logic,everyone who plays fingerstyle is an imitator of the first guy that used his fingers on the original P-bass instead of utilizing the lower mounted tugbar and playing with his thumb?
 
#98
Russell L said:
I don't slap. I don't play five-string. Eat very few carrots.

I don't model myself by anyone else either. I'm just me. The rest can do as they like, I don't mind. Just don't tell me I should be like anyone else.
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When I've said before I don't care to use the slap technique, I was told I should use it as it's a tool that every bassist should learn even if you never have a chance to use it, because it's better to have it and not need it ...
And I'm like :confused:
Don't try to tell me what techniques I should or shouldn't use. Might as well tell me what genre of music I should play.
 
#99
5StringBlues said:
So by this logic,everyone who plays fingerstyle is an imitator of the first guy that used his fingers on the original P-bass instead of utilizing the lower mounted tugbar and playing with his thumb?
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I don't pretend to understand Jeff's logic there, but that's what he says. He also explains away the fingerstyle thing by saying there was no one person identified with getting fingerstyle going, so it's not imitating, but slap and fretless have highly identifiable people who are known for starting it, so that would be an imitation. I can totally dig the concept of blazing your own trail without imitating anyone else, but I think he goes a little overboard with calling everyone who does slap and fretless "imitators."
 
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