Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. What would any art form be without cool tricks alright. So, today I’m going to be talking about two of them. One of them is a hammering on type of trick and it involves each string and its going to look something like this. Ok, it’s something for, it’s fun you can put it in the middle of your solo you could be like, ok for a little bit of a trick. How do we do that. Slap on this open G string and we are going to hammer those two notes. Then we are going to do the same thing on the next three strings. So. Let’s try that quicker. Ok, another trick is using percussion you can throw that in the middle of a solo. Ok, playing like a drummer. And this third and final trick that I love involves three notes, ok sped up it sounds like this. How do we do it, so there are three things the first is the pop, I’ve got this finger holding the strings and muting them so I can pop the next thing I’m going to do is slap these three fingers down and, followed by a slap. So pop, slap. Have a good one.

Transcript

“Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. The key element to rhythm in blues is gona be space [plays guitar], lots of space [plays guitar]. Okay so lets look at blues, the rhythm in blues, chord progression [plays guitar].Rhythm in blues has its very own vernacular, its own language, and you’ll hear lines like [plays guitar], lines like that are very lyrical in nature they almost sound you are singing, you’re gona throw those to your R&B bass playing [plays guitar]. Marcus Miller is probably the best to look up for that style.
Some of my favorite artists to listen for R&B is Sly and the Family Stone or Stevie Wonder, Funkadelic and aslo some more modern people like Anita Hill is great at, lots of great R&B plays in her records.”

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. Applied slap bass technique time signatures. OK. So, in music we use a lot of different time signatures. I’m going to use two examples in this segment. First one is going to be from a very popular TV show. The bass line goes something like this… [plays bass] Do you recognize it? It’s in the time signature of bottom four, which is the most common time signature. By and large, you’re going to find that’s what’s most of your songs are going to be in pop bands like Kiss. Pretty much stick to the 4/4. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. I was like Frank Zappa. Like to use a variety of different time signatures. And my other example is going to be another famous song that was made famous by a band called Red Hot Chilli Peppers, originally by Stevie Wonder. OK? Now that time signature is 6/8. One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six. So these are different time signatures that you can hear throughout slap bass and its history. I hope you have a lot of fun with that. Cheers!

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. So you’re at a gig, you’re playing alone, same old songs. The guitar player looks over you and says – Take a Solo. What do you do? Okay, well, first thing is gonna happen is most of the guys are gonna drop out which is gonna give you an enormous amount of space and the drummer is gonna stay with you. So the first thing, take your time. Take your time, take it easy. Leave some space. A little slap riff like that. Okay. Take your time use lots of space. If the song is in the key of E and you know your pentatonic E scale, you can work all over the instrument. Now I am using a lot of syncopation. I’m popping. It’s the trademark sound of slapping is that pop sound. So, syncopation put it where it ain’t. So you wanna play around the drummer. Hammering – all the techniques we talked about in the early lessons make good bass soloing. And using that with taste, leaving space. Most beginners want to jump in and just start slapping straight away and there is nothing like creating tension and drawing an audience in than leaving space for your big finale.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. I want to start by talking about Larry Graham. He is probably the Godfather of slap bass. You can see him all over the internet, Larry Graham. He popped a little bit differently. He pinched like that. But he build solo’s unaccompanied, just him and a drummer, that usually started with an open string and then worked its way up the neck. Something like this… Stuff like that. So I highly recommend his work. Okay, the next person I would like to talk about would be Marcus Miller. Marcus grew up, he was playing at a very young age with very very top notch players. He played with Miles Davis for many years. One of the key things about Marcus’s playing is melody. There’s a consistent since of melody in his solo’s that you don’t hear with most players. Stuff like..yeah, Melodic fragment like that Marcus really brought to the table with the slap bass. And you can catch him, again, all over the internet, Marcus Miller. You’ve all heard of a band, Red Hot Chilly Peppers? I assume. Flea, like me is from Australia. Pioneered punk rock slap bass, with a furious amount of slapping and popping. Your all familiar with many of his songs. One of them is something that you can find on line that sounds something like this… That is something that he would do live during a live show, and a great solo. Those 3 players demonstrate a wide variety of different approaches to slap bass and I think that they are worth while to investigating their styles so check them out. Marcus Miller, Flea and Larry Graham. Have fun with that!

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. Typically, punk rock is fast and it is loud, and it is furious, so it is no exception to the slap bass. What you want to do is use a whole lot of notes. So, how do we construct something like that. Well, we turn it on pretty loud as you do in a punk rock band. We use a lot of syncopation, okay we also use a lot of sliding, Flea would be the greatest example of this type of playing. He really made it famous with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Fishburne, great example of punk slap bass, all through the 90s. Les Claypool from Primus, one of the greatest slappers of all time. Higher ground by Stevie Wonder, this is the Red Hot Chili Peppers _____. So, that is another example of punk bass playing, lots of notes, it is the opposite of R&B, no much space, lots of notes, lots of texture. So, I think you should have a lot of fun with that.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. Advance Slapping, Sliding and Phrasing. So let’s talk about Sliding. Sliding is when you take this finger somewhere on the left hand and you gonna slide up to the neck.[music] Let’s do that![music] so I’m starting on this fifth fret right here and sliding up to the seventh fret.[music] I’m gonna finish that with a pop.[music] Okay that’s a cool sound, isn’t it?[music]. So let’s look at this, you gonna slide, same way we did then you gonna slap one more time.[music] and then you gonna pop, so[music] You can try that. Now I’m going to do all the way up to the neck [music] Okay, so that’s one way of Phrasing using Sliding. Here’s another.. [music] If you have heard that [music]Okay that is pretty popular on Bass, to slide up the string all the way.. [music] to the twelfth fret..[music] and then pop, right up there on the twelfth fret. [music] So, I want you to really have fun with this stuff. Happy Slapping![music]

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. Advanced Slap Bass Syncopation. Syncopation is the great art of playing between the beats. One of my favorite bass players told me slap bass is putting it where it ain’t. So a lot of times you’ll have a drummer beating out a beat – pretty straight ahead: one, two, three, four. When we play on those beats, we get. Syncopating is finding that space between the beats one and two and three and four. So let’s speed that up and see how that sounds. Syncopation is a great tool. It makes me want to dance. This is my metronome and I have it set at 84. So I want you to try to get that first line that I just played. Where we’re slapping down and we start on the third fret and move our way up so one. Ok. You can do that.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. applied slap bass, how to read bass tabs. Tablature’s come a long way in the last fifteen years on all electric stringed instruments, bass no exception. So right here I have a piece of tablature with me now. I’m going to talk about how to read it. Down here we have the tablature; four lines, each one representing a bass string. I like to think of it like this: if you turn a bass upside down and align it, this top line is the equivalent of this top string. These numbers represent frets. So this number right here, 5, is on the second string from the bottom. So we’re going to find 5th fret, one, two, three, four, five. That’s where we’re going to start this piece. The line above it indicates a hammer. From 5 to 7, so we’re going to… [hammers bass] You see how I hammered 7 down? So I’m going to read through this. The next bit. OK. Up here we have “T”, stands for thumb; “H” stands for hammer; “T” for thumb; “P” for pop; and “H” for hammer. So we’ve got… [plays bass] hammer. These “x”s here indicate muted slaps, which sound percussive. So first off it’s going to sound like this. [plays bass] I’ll do it again. [plays bass] So now I’m going to play all my way through, the whole line, which should sound something like this. [plays bass] OK? So, again, we see these “x”s over here, meaning muted strings, which are typical in slap bass technique. When you speed this up you hear something like… [plays bass] So that’s basically how slap bass tablature works. I hope you have lots of success with that.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. So right here behind me I’ve got a metronome. Playing with a metronome is probably the single most overlooked and undervalued part of learning the bass, or any instrument. In theory it seems simple to play along with the beat, but in practice, most bass players downfalls, particularly beginners, are where they tend to get away from that beat. Now for those of you who don’t have a metronome, because they’re kind of expensive, there are many free metronomes available online. Just look it up on Google, metronome. You can also get very inexpensive apps for your phone that have metronomes on them. So what I’m going to do here is just blith. I’m slapping in time with the metronome. Seems simple what I’m doing but what I want you to do is to just try and do the same thing. Either you’re gonna fall into one of two categories. You’re either a rusher or a dragger. A rusher will be like this. You hear I’m getting ahead of the beat, happens all the time with young bass players, or I drag. I’m getting behind the beat. So these are things that are absolutely key to being a bass player. Remember you’re the backbone of the band, you have to keep the beat. Sometimes you’re gonna get a drummer that speed up, what do you do in that situation? The drummer’s never going to be able to hear you, you gotta go with the drummer. You can complain after the gig, but during the gig, you go with that drummer wherever he takes you. Playing with a drummer or a metronome involves always keeping one ear on what you’re doing and the other ear on the beat. It’s a skill that you must develop as a musician on any instrument. So I highly recommend, practice with that metronome. Have fun with that.

Transcript

“Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass.: advanced slap bass, groove construction. So, in this segment I want you to imagine that your thumb and forefingers, these, are like a drum kit. OK? Your thumb’s going to be like a kick drum; and forefingers going to be like a snare drum. So, when you think of a basic rock beat, which starts with a kick drum. Toom tuck toom tuck. And we’re going to create a groove like that. OK. The Queen song, We Will Rock You. Toom toom tuck toom toom tuck. OK, there’s a groove right there. So, by imitating drums and drummers we can come up with grooves. By implying syncopation, we can get away from what the drummer’s playing and create tension which resolves back. OK. I’m syncopating that pop. Let’s look at chords in a good R&B groove. You always have a chord progression, usually going away from r root up to the four chord and then back to r root. For example. [playing bass] OK. That’s R&B. And then in a punk kind of setting, we want to create a texture of madness. [playing bass] OK. Same kind of deal, except we’re just throwing a whole lot of notes in there. So these are some typical grooves that we see in slap bass. Keep on slappin’!
“

Transcript

“Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass.
I want to use a 12 bar blues format here. First I’m going to play it straight up so we got – it’s going to be an A – and here’s our first accord. There you have it: a 12 bar blues.
So now we’re going to look at how we can use some of our Slap techniques in the same song structure; okay, “”Walk up”” like that, “”Walk up””. So that was a way of using Slap techniques in a 12 bar blues. You can apply these to any accord-structure, any song ‘cord-progressing, you want to. It’s just a matter of getting familiar with the roots of you ‘cords, how to approach them: for example I used a “”Walk up””, right there. We went from an A up to a D and then I Slapped my way up there; and I can “”Walk”” back down; I can “”Walk”” up to the E and I used that double stop for the E-cord at the end of the blues.
These are things you can explore and have lots of fun with.”

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I am a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record a for aphorisms. Check it out at samlipmanmusic.com. We are going to be playing some slap bass. One of the things we do not want to do is slap bass. It is doing exactly the same as the drama, so when our drama is playing um, ka, um, ka we do not really want to play that. Occasionally we do, but to create a stand out bass line we want to get away from what he is doing. The best way to do this is syncopation or as my friend tells me put it where it ain’t. So what I am going to do is create the same example, our drama is playing like that so we are going to play around the drama, we are going to go. Okay, you see how I played after and before the down bass. Okay, another way is to use to register the high end of the bass the low end. Using out minor pentatonic scale, we can hammer, all over the bass we can get up high, that is a standout bass line that uses the whole register and occasional use of it is a nice way to stand out too. Remember you never want to over do it, nobody likes a show off.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. So in this segment, I wanna talk about how to, how to take a single bass line and spice it up with a few little fills. The simpler you can keep it, the more calls you’ll get for gigs. Let’s take a grove like this, kinda like the one we learned in the first chapter. Okay, there’s a simple groove, now I’m gonna put a fill in, that used hammering and pull off. The occasional hammer-on, okay that used a bit of syncopation, did you hear it? That combined a little bit of syncopation with a little bit of pulling. Let’s look at something else. Now I’m gonna add a bit of syncopation. Now I’m gonna add a double stop. Now I’m using lots of syncopation right there. How fun was all of that?

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. Double Stopping: the term originally comes from violin when we use one finger to play two strings at a time creating cord type textures so in the bass we can do the same thing. The bass is lower, any double stops around here tend to get muddy and don’t really work in the context of drums in a rock band or funk band so we try to keep it up high in the instrument, where its quite effective. So what am I doing? Have a look. I’m playing a low E, slap and then I’m gonna use these fingers to pop two strings at once the eleventh and twelfth fret on the top two strings and then again up one fret. So let’s look at that. So notice how effective that can be in a bass line? So I want you to have some fun with that and try it all over the neck.

Transcript

“Basic Slap Bass Lesson: Popping

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. Basic popping technique. So popping is really important part of slap bass. It’s the response to the thumb. So it’s something you’ve probably heard on shows like Seinfeld. You’ve probably heard it all over the funk of the 70’s and the 80’s. The way we do it is we grip the string. Usually it’s going to be this top string, the G string or the D string, one of those two and we pull it up and let it snap back in place. It’s got that characteristic buzz, that pop. Almost always used in conjunction with slapping with the thumb. So what I want you to do is we’re going to play an octave. Go and play a C on the third fret with your left hand right here and then you’re going to make the octave two frets up, two strings up, right here. And we’re going to go thumb pop, like this. See that? I’m going down for the thumb and then up for the pop. So we’ll do that a couple of times. And now what I’m going to do is play a disco riff. See if you can emulate me. Whew. So try that.
“

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. Combining basic techniques. I wanna combine thumbing with popping, and with hammering, and with pulling off. So let’s look at this riff right here. Okay, so we’ve got thumb, followed by a pop, then I’m gonna slide down here, I’m gonna thumb down, and then hammer. So. I’m gonna continue the riff, with a similar technique down here. And I want to show you a little hammer here. Or, and then, hammer. You try that. Hammer, hammer. And that was a pull off right there. Happy slapping!

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. Hammers-ons and pull-offs both a big part of slap bass technique involving the left hand. So, a hammer-on lets begin with a hammer on. And you may have heard of it from guitar because it’s also a big feature in guitar playing. What you want to do is start out with this finger. I’m going to slap an A. Then I’m going to throw down these 2 fingers. To create the next note. Without this hand. It’s all left hand, so. Do you see that? I’m going to do that all the way across on each string and I’m going to thumb. I’m going to slap and hammer-on. Lets try it real slow. Try to copy me. Ooh. Lets do that again. Okay. That’s hammering. Pulling-off is the opposite. We begin with 3 fingers and we pull these 2 fingers and I like to pull them down towards the floor. Almost like I’m plucking. Leaving this finger to hold the next note, so. Did you see that? And it’s usually followed. I like to follow it after a pop. So, I might hammer and slap and then I’ll pop and pull off. Another exciting way to pull off on bass is to pull off on open strings like this. So, if I’m playing a riff like you can hear I create a lot of tension by pulling off onto open strings. So, happy slapping.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. Hey, thumb technique. All right, this is what we’re going to talk about, thumb technique. Slap bass begins with this guy, the thumb, so what we’re going to do is kind of curl our fingers a little this. Stick your thumb out like you’re going to hitchhike, and you want to keep this thumb relaxed, and you’re going to turn it. It’s just like picking on a guitar. Normally on bass, we think pulling upwards, but thumb is down. The big mistake that most beginners make is they want to slap really hard, doesn’t sound that good and it ends up hurting your thumb. We’re thinking downwards motion, across the string, instead of up like fingering, we’re thinking down. We want to thumb fairly softly so we want to relax that hand, let it fall, turn our wrist into the instrument, and we want to get off that string. We don’t want to sit like that, so what we want to do is go down through the string and stop on the next string like this. By going down, we get a nice tone out of it. Now we want to hit it right here at the end of the neck, so what we’re going to do is play f our notes on each string and then four notes on the third fret and I’ll show you, watch this. Four notes, now I’m going to move up to the next string, next string, four of these, three, four, and then up on that third fret, back down four. Now we’re going to try that on the next string, the D string, third fret and back down, and now let’s try that on the low E string, and that covers basic thumb technique.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I started when I was young in Sydney, Australia where I am from. Went to school there at the conserved time. Moved to New York to study for about eight years. I usually either teach during the day couple of lessons or possibly a recording session. Now I live in Austin, Texas. Where I might play either a jazz gig or I’m playing saxophone, or I might sing. Most importantly, I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms and I really hope you get a hold of it. It features me playing bass, keyboards, pianos, guitars and singing and song writing. So, I am proud of it and that’s my baby. And I am about to have my first baby in August. So, check it out samlipmanmusic.com. I also have a Sam Lipman page on facebook and I really look forward to seeing you somewhere online. We are gonna be playing some slap bass.

Transcript

Hi, my name is Sam Lipman. I’m a multi-instrumentalist. I make records and I will be releasing my first solo debut record here in the fall called ‘A’ for Aphorisms. Check it out samlipmanmusic.com. We are gonna be playing some slap bass. Slap bass started out in the late 60’s with players like Larry gram and Jeff Berlin who literally started by hitting their instruments to create this new percussive textures that fit ion with disco explosion at the time. Disco was affecting all kinds of different music including jazz music. So literally involved slapping your instrument with your thumb until then it had been fingering with the instrument like so and starting to slap it you can hear the difference there is a slightly more buzz slap sound on the other side of that was popping . So that is what these fingers over here creating a almost like a snare drum sound. Slap bass enjoyed a popularity right into the 80’s where suddenly it wasn’t cool anymore. But it’s definitely coming back.