Bass Playing Styles

This page is all about styles of playing electric bass, and for slap bass it is better to use a bass with frets. I'm not going to tell you which notes to play, but you'll find with your own practice and experience that certain styles tend to favor common note patterns.

For example, in the slap style, it is very useful to thumb a note and then 'pop' the octave of that note - extremely popular and produces a great effect. A lot of the very mellow tapping stylists play close to the body of the bass - the high notes - which is also a wonderfully melodic way of playing.

Whatever style - or styles - you employ on bass, your starting points are the scales and common chords. If you know your way around these, you'll be able to add musical interest to your basslines, and of course, play notes that fit nicely with what everyone else in your band is playing!

So good luck in exploring the bass styles and I hope you find your style.

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Slap bass is generally characterised by striking the strings with the thumb of the right hand, using the left hand to fret notes, hammer on, or add percussive muted slaps. The fingers of the right hand are used for 'popping' or 'snapping' usually the D and G strings against the fretboard.

Slap bass is a very percussive style. It's invention (on electric bass) has been credited to Larry Graham, of funk bands Sly & the Family Stone, and Graham Central Station, allegedly improvising on an occasion when their band was left without a drummer! Larry Graham refers to the technique as "thumpin' and pluckin'".

In addition to Larry Graham and Mark King, other bassists known for using the slap style include: Stanley Clarke, Bootsy Collins, Victor Wooten, Marcus Miller, Louis Johnson, Stu Hamm, Les Claypool and Flea.

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Tapping on the bass produces a very mellow and melodic sound. The notes are not plucked in the conventional sense, but result from hammering on with both left and right hands on the fretboard.

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Fingerstyle is one of the most common ways of playing bass, and is pretty self-explanatory. The notes are played by plucking with the fingers of the right hand.

A commonly employed version of fingerstyle play is called walking bass. It's usually associated with jazz and blues, but can be found in other styles of music.

Unlike a lot of slap bass, especially that used in the funk style, walking bass is usually unsyncopated, and consists of quarter-notes (or four-feel in jazz terminology).

The sound of a walking bassline is generally ever-changing rather than a simple riff following chord progression. The walking line can use scale tones, arpeggios and passing tones, and provides an undulating melody that rises and falls in tone over several bars.

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Pickplaying involves the use - obviously - of a pick (or plectrum) and is used commonly in the punk and rock styles.

Bass Art Print
Soan, Hazel
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