[QUOTE=basskid]how serious can the damage get if you slap on a fretless....Ive been slapin on mine for a while before i saw this. the only damage I see, is I can see where my strings have been hitting. can that get worse?[/QUOTE]

The damage where your strings are hitting is what will happen, yes. It can get worse, it can get quite bad. I'm not an expert in this area, but there are ways of stopping it. Ask in your local guitar shop, or look round the forums.

[quote=FreakOfNature]wintermute you say that the Ernie Ball MusicMan Stingray often claimed the best for slapping, ive never heard this but im sure its very good but id say that the very best bass for slapping would have to be the Fodera Victor Wooten Classic 4 is the best for slapping because he said it himself that it was his best bass for normal playing and for slapping out of all the basses he has.
[/quote]

This is a little pedantic, don't you think? The Ernie Ball Musicman Stingray is commonly regarded as the best STANDARD PRODUCTION bass for slapping. Most people can't afford a Fodera, and even if they could it's only a matter of opinion whether it would be the best, you may well find Carl Thompson custom basses, as endorsed by Les Claypool and Stanley Clarke to be the best.

I mention other good slapping songs in the main lesson at the beginning, but I'll go back and add some more now. Marcus Miller is indeed a good choice though. That guy has incredible slap tone.

i tried all of those songs and they were too easy except Classical Thump which i already know. If you have any more suggestions they would be greatly appriciated.

Cheerz, this topic has helped me greatly, i used to slap with my thumb horizontal, but through reading this topic i have learned a lot, thank you.
There is only one problem for me now, and that is speed, i cant get enough pace as i would like to with my slappin, i practice but it seems like it aint gonna happen for me.

Is there any more tips for 5 strings, coz i have a 4 and a 5, but would like to be able to be as good on both.

[QUOTE=Blink'd]to mute the strings so it doesnt buzz for too long, get your sisters or your prison mates hair tye- the scrunchy fuzzy ones, and wrap it around the neck, like a capo for bass, this is what such bassists as victor wooten and p-nut do! cheers[/QUOTE]

or you could just mute it with one of your fingers on your left hand, just dont press down

[QUOTE]Originally Posted by Blink'd
to mute the strings so it doesnt buzz for too long, get your sisters or your prison mates hair tye- the scrunchy fuzzy ones, and wrap it around the neck, like a capo for bass, this is what such bassists as victor wooten and p-nut do! cheers[/QUOTE]

ive done this before and i havent been able to find a good scrunchy to use on it. you have the strings all at a certain height for the scrunchy to effect it. what i use for my steinberger is this thing i made out of medical wrap. i just stapled it together in a circle and it works perfectly, but the only problem is it will only work for headless basses.

Well some of you might remeber me having the five string slap questions.. well I dropped the five string and got a four...

the four is sooo much more easier! I can really bust out now on this, since I was playin on the 5 for soo long.

^ see it is easyier because the strings are further apart, so i dont understand how anyone can think they slap better with a 5 string over a 4 string.

Good introduction yo :).

Man I wish I had have been on these boards when I first started bass.

I had been playing for a year before I taught myself slap, my bass teachers showed me the technique but I never understood. For so long I honestly thought I would never be able to do it.

But hey, now I can, live and learn.

^^
Ha, at least you had teachers. I taught myself to slap by watching the video of Claypool playing the Awakening. In fact that video made up a good deal of my bass education.

The string spacing makes it easier to slap cleanly on a four string, but going from one string to another is easier on a 5 as there is less distance to travel.

If you find the suggested songs too easy then you've gone beyond this lesson, which was intended after all as an introduction. There have been many many threads made about hard slap songs and such, go search for them!

Wow, all's silent for ages, then I spend ONE night under a desk in an airport and EVERYONE comes to the thread!

ya i had to teach myself how to slap also and i didnt even have a video to do it. i had a teacher but he couldnt slap because he was a classical guitar player. how fun it was to learn bass from him.

Wintermute nice thread on slapping. It took awhile to understand what slapping should sound like but this thread helped alot. When you first played that part from "Higher Grounds" I thought it was impossible. Couple days later I was able to play it full speed. Good job on the thread it's helped so much. :D

[QUOTE=FREAKofNATURE]^ see it is easyier because the strings are further apart, so i dont understand how anyone can think they slap better with a 5 string over a 4 string.[/QUOTE]

Yeah I've noticed in tabs that slapping on a FIVE and a FOUR use two differnt techinques. FIVE string bassist like Dirk Lance who used to play for Incubus use more of a finger tap for the slap.

I'm workin on that thumb now, since converting to a FOUR.

I've not watched Dirk Lance, but you commonly see Les Claypool going ape slapping away [i]with his thumb[/i] on his six string.

Bass-Newb - Glad to help. Slapping is a lot easier than it looks and sounds, and so it continues as the ultimate weapon in our war against the guitar ;)

lol war against the guitar, to slap on a 5 6 or 7 string all you need to do is have a **** load of practice. i know this guy who has a 7 string and he goes crazy slapping on that thing.

With sufficient practice, you can slap virtually anything. Regi Wooten has been known to pull off slap solos on his electric guitar.

i found out i can play the first two parts of classical thump on guitar slapping.

Good.

Right, back to the lessons...

Edit: - To all readers - This lesson has been duplicated in the new, non-archived L&A section - if you have a question or a comment, be sure to head over there, and, as ever, feel free to contact me.

Thread resurrected from the Old Lessons and Articles forum to stem the flow of slap questions in the Beginner forum.

Any questions, ask them here, and I'll answer them as soon as I can.

Later today I'll take a couple of pictures, and include them too.

I was wondering if you'd gone over vic wooten's method of popping or not. I'd look through, but I'm lazy, and there's alot of stuff here.

my slapping sounds too twangy and my popping too metallic, even though i'm following the lesson's instructions. what can i do?

Im still confused...when you say your meant to use your knuckle to slap, do you mean on the side of your thumb where your knuckle is, or that flabby wrinkly part on the very top where your nail is? :confused:

[quote]my slapping sounds too twangy and my popping too metallic, even though i'm following the lesson's instructions. what can i do?[/quote]

Most likely you either have very new strings, in which case just wait for them to wear in, or you can solve it with some EQ tweaking. Ease off the treble, and boost the Bass a bit, see how that goes.

[quote]Im still confused...when you say your meant to use your knuckle to slap, do you mean on the side of your thumb where your knuckle is, or that flabby wrinkly part on the very top where your nail is?[/quote]

The side of your thumb, where the knuckle is.

You said RHCP covered Higher Ground, who did the original?

Stevie Wonder

i thought stevie only helped make it, i didn't know it was a cover

Chili Peppers released Mother's Milk in 1989, Stevie Wonder released Innervisions in 1973.

GREAT THREAD! I love it, thanks ever so much!! I thought slap was a touchy subject but now its so cool!!

i had the same problem
 

[QUOTE=NewFoundBassist]dumb question by a slap n00b, but when I start to slap fretted notes, the strings keep tapping the bottom fret for an annoying 'dead' metallic tap rather than the actual note. any ideas on whats wrong? any help/advice would be appreciated.[/QUOTE]
yeah concentrate on just brushin the string as u pass it. it's difficult to put in writing. as u practice the aim it comes naturally. hit it with the bone that protrudes outta the side of ur thumb. if u hit the string right down u get the metallic tap u talked about. if u just brush the string down and rest your hand on the string below it, it works out perfectly. practice with the ending of stirway to heaven (A, G, F) which is the easiest bass i know. i learned using that. have fun! hope i was of assistance!
sparky.

^^
Thanks for your help, but he asked that question in 2003. The odds are he's got it by now, or he doesn't play bass anymore. Either way I doubt he's still waiting on an answer! :thumb:

(especially since I answered it for him back in '03)

My thumbs seem overly large, and I keep hitting the A string if I'm slapping the E, etc.

Any suggestions for working on accuracy? good songs for something like that?

Antipop, Power Mad and Golden Boy by Primus are all quite good for accuracy, as is just slapping out something like:


G---------0
D--------0-0
A--0-0-0----0--0--0
E-0-0-0-------0--0--0

It doesn't have to sound musical, it's just a physical exercise. The size of your thumb shouldn't affect your accuracy unless you truly have side-show worthy digits. I've seen people pull off slap solos on a guitar before now. It's just a matter of practise and accuracy.

Keep trying! :thumb:

I've started slapping, and found you post very useful, however, I keep getting harmonics sounding in my amp, is it because i don't mute the strings? (Btw, the amp is 20W).

I also find popping quite hard on my fingers, but slapping I can do without so much strength into the slap, am I doing something wrong?

First of all, welcome to the forums. :thumb:

Assuming you are fretting the not properly, if you're getting noticeable harmonics I'd say you're probably letting your thumb rest on the string too long. Just let your thumb bounce right off, keep a nice loose wrist.

As for the popping, it hits a different part of your fingertip to normal fingerstyle playing - your existing callouses won't quite cover it. As callouses build up, it will start to feel less hard on your fingers. You could also be doing it too hard - you don't have to pull it too far away, or hook under too far. When I first started playing I broke a couple of strings through popping - since I got the technique under control about two years ago I've not broken a single string.

im not that good at slapping

Thanks for your reply but i keep getting the harmonics on the other strings, not the one i'm slapping.

This freaks me out. I picked up bass no more than last weekend and I could naturally slap & pop but can hardly play standard style. Man I'm scared.

I guess this is considored a slap question. I'm working on double thumping, and I can't figure out how to get the seconf half of it to sound right. Can someone help with this or supply a good video that has details on what exactly to do?

[QUOTE=TSASI V.2]I guess this is considored a slap question. I'm working on double thumping, and I can't figure out how to get the seconf half of it to sound right. Can someone help with this or supply a good video that has details on what exactly to do?[/QUOTE]
i just posted some videos in the main bass forum, look for 'Video Lessons'