Advanced Slap Bass Techniques

There is a school of thought – generally among non-bass players – that the bass line should only be heard droning monotonously along in the background, with a simple beat hammered out by the drummer. The lead guitar should shine proudly at the front, be the loudest, and receive all the plaudits.

Well some of the advanced techniques presented here, when executed properly and skillfully, can happily put that myth to bed! The special slap techniques sound great and are fun to play, but do use them with a little reserve – otherwise they won’t be special any longer! As session bassist Ed Friedland has said, “too much of this stuff can be a little obnoxious, so use it sparingly”.

Double Pop Triplet

The first technique is called the “double pop triplet”. It is played as a true triplet – three smooth evenly spaced notes. Slap the E or A string with the thumb, and at the same time position your index finger under the D string and your middle finger under the G. After the thumb slap has sounded, smoothly rotate your wrist away from the bass, so that firstly your index finger pops the D string, and as you continue rotating the wrist, the middle finger pops the G string. It is like peeling your hand away from the strings – and has been called “the funk peel off”.

Practise this until it sounds smooth and the notes are evenly spaced. Here’s an example so you can hear how a double pop triplet can be incorporated into a slap bass line – notice that he plays the double pop followed by the thumb slap (P-P-T) which is a simple variant on the T-P-P technique described here.

Double Pop Flam

The “double pop flam” is played in a similar way to the double pop triplet, the difference being in the rhythm pattern. A flam is what a drummer does when he hits the drum with both sticks, one followed very quickly by the other – so there is a slight gap between the popped notes in a double pop flam.

The rhythm pattern for this technique is a dotted eigth-sixteenth rhythm with an added grace note preceding the sixteenth. Slap the E or A string with the thumb while positioning the index and middle fingers under the D and G strings respectively. Then “peel off” by rotating the wrist, popping the two strings, D then G, leaving only a very small gap between the popped notes. This technique is easier to do than to describe!