Welcome Back to Chateau Groove: Learning Slap Bass

Introduction to Slap Bass

Alright, welcome back to Chateau Groove. Today, let's look at how to play slap bass.

Using Your Thumb

I'm going to show you how to use your thumb and then we're going to incorporate that for the warm-up.

What is Slap Bass?

When you're playing slap bass, what you're really doing is hitting the strings with your thumb and then hitting the fingerboard.

• I could do anything to hit the fingerboard and I would get a slap sound like that, ow! Maybe that wasn't so smart.
• Typically, I use the thumb.

Hand Position

• My hand position for the thumb is as follows:
  • I hold my thumb in a thumbs-up position.
  • I hook these fingers into a little curve.

Now, I'm going to drop that thumb down. Remember when we were playing pick style and I had the thumb going parallel to the string? I'm going to apply the same concept here.

Backstops

• I'm putting the thumb right up against the end of the fingerboard.
• This creates two backstops with what I'm doing:
  • If I hit the E string, one backstop is the next lower string.
  • The second backstop is the fingerboard.

You can see that the thumb is making contact with both the fingerboard and the lower string.

Moving Across Strings

Let's look at that again as I move to different strings:

• A string: Same technique
• D string: Same technique
• G string: Here, I don't have any backstops available, so I use the body of the bass guitar as a backstop.

First Exercise: The Four by Four

Now, let's revisit that very first exercise we did in lesson one: the four by four.

Count:
1, 2, 3, 4.
1, 2, 3, 4.
1, 2, 3, 4.
1, 2, 3, 4.

Now, I'm going to use downstrokes with my thumb.

• It goes like this:
  1, 2, 3, 4.

I'm starting with half notes, just getting used to this.

Notice Your Technique

I want you to notice something:

• I'm not using my thumb muscle at all.
• If you're watching my right hand, the thumb is like a drumstick.
• I'm just letting my wrist rise up and curve, then hitting the thumb into the string.

Now, I'll do that again with half notes.

Moving to Quarter Notes

Let's do quarters:
1, 2, 3, 4.

Double Thumbing Technique

Now, I'm going to treat that thumb like a guitar pick.

• I'll perform: downstroke with the thumb and upstroke with the thumb.

This technique is called double thumbing. Notable players who use this style include:

• Victor Wooten
• Stanley Clarke
• Marcus Miller

Actually, it'll feel like I'm playing with a guitar pick. The same movements apply: down, up, down, up, down, up.

Key Point

• The only difference is that I'm using just my thumb and not a pick.
• Remember, what creates the sound of the slap is really the string hitting the fingerboard, so I'm utilizing those backstops.

Eighth Notes Exercise

I'll do eighth notes now. This is kind of advanced. You might want to save this and work on it a little bit later as you get more comfortable with slap bass.

Here's the four by four exercise with double thumbing!