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Machine Gun Triplets

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Machine gun triplets are rapid-fire triplets performed using a combination of picking hand and fretting hand techniques. Whilst by no means an essential element of the slap bass technique, their careful use can certainly add some significant rhythmic excitement to a line.

Machine gun triplets are usually performed using a combination of slapped notes, popped notes and ghost notes performed with the fretting hand. Because the individual notes are being split between the two hands in various ways, it’s possible to play them very quickly. Bassists such as Stuart Hamm, Mark King, Marcus Miller and Les Claypool have all notably used machine gun triplets in their playing.

If you require additional help with any of the techniques used here, the following courses (all included in the monthly subscription cost) should prove useful:

Don’t forget to hit the Download Resources button above to get the PDF worksheet and audio files for this piece (available to subscribers only). The worksheet is available with TAB and without, for those who wish to give their reading skills a workout.

This course is 23 MINUTES long and contains the following videos, each of which can be selected from the video player above:

Exercise #48

This line opens with a machine gun triplet played as a pop followed by a fretting hand ghost note, which in turn is followed by a ghost note slap.

Exercise #49

This exercise uses the same machine gun triplet technique from the previous line, although this time two triplets are played in quick succession.

Exercise #50

The machine gun triplet in this exercise is played as a slapped note, a hammer-on (the fretting hand element), then another slapped note.

Exercise #51

This line follows a simple opening phrase with a more complex answering line. The machine gun triplets are played in the same way as those in the first two exercises.

Exercise #52

This rather hectic line is an example of how machine gun triplets can be used as part of a solo. Mark King often plays complex lines such as these as part of his live solos.