Beginning Bass 8:
Slap Bass: Right Hand Only
By Roy Vogt
Bass Instructor, Belmont University 		Print This Lesson
Roy Vogt.
The commonly-credited bassist who developed the Slap and Pop style of bass playing is Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone and Graham Central Station fame. According to the story, Larry was playing bass in a trio gig (with his Mother on piano) and the drummer failed to show up. Larry started striking the lower strings with his thumb to emulate the bass (kick) drum and popping the strings with his index finger to emulate the snare drum.
I feel this gives a good clue as how to organize your slap lines. The thumbed notes are effective where a bass drum note would be (i.e. downbeats for most styles) and the pops are effective as backbeats.

Now to the mechanics:

The best way I can explain how to hold your hand for Slap is to imagine you're hitchhiking. Stick your thumb up in the air and tuck all four fingers into your palm. Now, rest your forearm on the beveled cut on the lower bout of your bass (most J-type instruments have this bevel) and rest your thumb on the E string at the end of the fingerboard. Now you can relax your four fingers into a claw of sorts (I usually keep the knuckles touching). Strike the E string with a downstroke of your thumb-it should strike the string and come to rest against the A string and the fretboard. To answer, pop the D string with your index or middle finger on the way up. The forearm stays locked on the beveled part of the bass and rotates to accomplish all of this. Try to keep as little tension in your picking hand as possible. I tell my students to visualize holding a drum stick.

The first exercise is just using downstrokes to play consecutive chromatic notes at the 5th position. The left hand fingers are 1-2-3-4 and move across all of the strings. You can also experiment with doing an upstroke with the thumb ala Doug Rauch and Victor Wooten.

The second exercise is the time-honored Octave Bass Line used in tons of disco tracks. The key is to not rush the popped notes, but to lay the tempo back a bit.

Beginning Bass 8

Peace and Low Notes,
Roy C. Vogt
Nashville Bassist
Bass Instructor, Belmont University, Nashville, TN

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