The exercises in this course make use of the fundamental elements of the slap bass technique: thumb slaps, popped notes, hammer-ons and pull-offs. In addition to these basic elements, you’ll need to give consideration towards muting the strings that you aren’t playing, in order to prevent them from ringing unnecessarily.
You can learn more about these fundamental techniques in the Slap Bass – Beginner 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:
This exercise requires only basic slap and pop techniques and features some sliding figures.
This exercise features a lot of space and recalls the playing of slap bass pioneer Larry Graham.
This exercise is played at a quick tempo and is mostly performed with the thumb.
This exercise is a slower groove that nicely reflects the sound of the D9 chord.
This exercise is a real workout for the thumb as there are no popped notes at all.
This line makes use of an ascending slap/pop octave figure that uses slides.
This exercise is a slow tempo groove based on the F# blues scale.
This line will give your thumb a workout!
This one is another workout for the thumb.
This exercise is a slow tempo groove in A minor.
This exercise opens with a double stop (two notes played simultaneously). In this case, the double stop is a major tenth interval, which clearly indicates the major tonality of the line.
This line makes use of some simple root-octave slap and pop figures, but also includes some more intricate thumb work.
This exercise makes use of tenth intervals (compound major/minor thirds) once again.
This fast-paced line is predominantly built on the G minor pentatonic scale.
This exercise is a slow-tempo groove written in the style of legendary bassist Marcus Miller.