Thumb Slapping Technique (T)
The style of bass playing which involves slapping with the right thumb and popping with the right hand fingers is often just called slap. The best way to begin playing this style is to practice slapping the open strings with the knuckle joint on the side of the right thumb as demonstrated in example 1 and shown in the following photographs.
The best place to strike the string is right at the end of the fretboard. This allows for a bit of "give" in the string and also forces the string down onto the frets, thus producing the sound Make sure that you strike the string clearly and then let your thumb rebound up off the string like a drum stick rebounding off a drum.
If you leave your thumb in contact with the string, it will deaden the sound and none of the notes will be clear. Notes slapped with the thumb are indicated by the letter T (meaning thumb) written above or below the note.
Quarter Note Rhythms
This is a quarter note. It lasts for one beat. There are four quarter notes in one bar of * time.
The Quarter Rest
Rests are used to indicate silence in music. There are different rests for different lengths of silence just as notes indicate different lengths of sound.
This symbol is a quarter rest. It indicates one beat of silence. Do not play any note. Small counting numbers are placed under rests.
Left Hand Damping
As you strike each string with the thumb, be sure to damp the other strings with your left hand by laying your fingers lightly across the strings. In slap playing, damping out the sounds you don’t want is as important as sounding the notes you do want.
As you play all the examples in this lesson, listen carefully to your playing to make sure there are no unwanted notes ringing. If you do hear any, analyze which strings they are coming from and practice damping them out with your left hand.
A good way to get used to left hand damping is to play a quarter note on the first and third beats of the bar and damp the string on the second and fourth beats (indicated by quarter rests) as shown in the following example.
Once you are comfortable with the previous example, try this one which alternates between strings on each beat, with no rests in between. This means your damping will have to be quicker.
