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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.

You can learn more about machine gun triplets in the Slap Bass – Intermediate Level video course, which you can find HERE. Don't forget to hit the Download Resources button above to receive the PDF worksheet and audio files that accompany these lessons.

This course 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. This one is played as a popped note followed by a fretting hand ghost note, which in turn is followed by another ghost note slapped with the thumb.

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. The final bar includes a simple fill utilising sliding octaves.

Exercise #50

The machine gun triplet that opens the first three bars of this exercise is played in a different way. This time, the first note is slapped with the thumb, is followed by a hammer-on (the fretting hand element), then followed by another slapped note.

Exercise #51

This G minor groove follows a simple opening phrase with a more complex answering line. The machine gun triplets used in bars 2 and 4 are played in the same way as those in the first two exercises of this course.

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.