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Using Tenths

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Tenths - compound major and minor thirds - are an important part of the bass player’s toolkit, regardless of which playing style you are using. When it comes to the slap technique, tenths are often employed as an alternative to popped octave notes, bringing the added benefit of greater harmonic clarity to a line.

There are two kinds of tenths - major and minor. Each is essentially just a major or minor third interval but played more than an octave above the root note. Tenths allow bass players to suggest or reinforce harmony and occur often in slap bass lines. Tenths can also be played using open strings, something bassists such as Stanley Clarke and Mark King often do in their playing.

You can learn more about using tenths 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 #42

This exercise uses both major and minor tenth intervals to reinforce the harmony.

Exercise #43

This exercise uses open string tenths to reinforce the harmony. Using tenths in this way is something that Stanley Clarke often did in his early solo material.

Exercise #44

This funk rock exercise uses an open string minor tenth for the E minor chord, then fretted major and minor tenths for the Cmaj7 and Bm7 chords.

Exercise #45

This up-tempo jazz-flavoured line requires you to play both notes of the tenths simultaneously. To do so, pluck the root note with the thumb and the tenth with the first finger. Note the use of a sliding tenths figure in the eighth bar.

Exercise #46

This line also uses sliding tenths and is reminiscent of Mark King’s early work with Level 42. Fretting hand slaps also play a key role in this line, another important element in King’s playing.

Exercise #47

In this line, tenths are clearly used to outline the basic harmony.