Strumming

Strumming chords on the bass can be very effective, and certainly works well in conjunction with the slap bass technique. There are many bassists who incorporate strumming into their slap playing, including Stanley Clarke, Les Claypool, Mark King, Victor Wooten, Flea and Michael Manring.

Chords are strummed with the fingers of the fretting hand. When doing so, you’ll want to be sure that you are striking the strings with the fingernails - this will result in a nice, strong attack. To be truly effective with chord strumming you’ll need to comfortable with playing upstrokes as well as downstrokes, catching the strings on the way back after a downstroke.

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