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Hey everyone, hope you had a great week!

I've been seeing a lot of requests for beginner slap bass lessons, so here you go! 

In this lesson I break down slap bass technique into its fundamental elements - slaps and pops - I give you some exercises to develop your skills and I teach you one of the most famous slap bass lines of all time, "Higher Ground" by Flea.

As always, let me know if you have any questions and I'll make sure to answer ASAP! And any feedback is also appreciated as I'm always trying to bring you the best possible experience.

Thanks for coming here and practising with me, see you in the next lesson!

Charles


Video download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qjo0fs9y45tqfu3/beginner%20slap%20lesson%201.m4v?dl=0

Tabs for exercises are attached

Comments

Dr. J

I have what's probably a really, really stupid question. When trying to angle my thumb horizontal or slightly upwards, it brings the neck further away from my body and makes it difficult to get my left hand situated appropriately. However, rocking the neck upwards to get better left hand positioning means the right thumb becomes angled downwards relative to the string. Outside of bringing the bass up to my throat, what should I be doing to correct this?

Ralyks

Good question. I've noticed that all the really technical players have their instruments up high. Typically around their chest level and angled up at sometimes even a 45° angle depending on the technique or style they're playing in. Take a look at Polyphia "Playing God", Tim Hensen has his instrument really high so that accessing every note on the fretboard isn't too difficult. Sitting while playing also makes reaching every note, particularly with Slap, easier to do. Davie504 plays pretty exusively while sitting and he's got gigantic hands with them long spindley spider fingers. I can't imagine reaching anything is difficult for him, yet he still plays sitting

Nelly Stella

It’s been about four weeks of everyday practice and I still fumble through Higher Ground. I don’t sound even half decent, I keep hitting the wrong strings, I want to get better at slap bass but I’m really struggling.