Can't decide to focus on Slapping or Fingering

Hi Team, I’m here to asking your opinion and suggestion about Slapping or Fingering. They are really both interesting, however my time so very limited to acquire them daily. I’m currently working my Bass buzz course and I’m on module 8. I’m still thinking which one should for Begineer/Intermediate guy to focus. even though I can play those things but I need to see a huge output in one particular technique before try to another. Which one is good and highly suggested. Thank you.

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IMHO, I’d go finger style first and get really proficient at that. The reality is that most of the stuff that you hear on songs is good ol’ finger style, so you can cover most genres.

Slap is hard - I’m 11 months in to playing the bass, finished B2B at the beginning of this year - and I cannot do it with any proficiency. In fact, I’m cra@p at it!!! But that isn’t a problem (for me). While I think that slap, in moderation is cool (a little accent here and there), as a primary way of playing, no. It is (again, IMHO) tedious. As an example, Mark King of Level 42 is a fantastic slap bassist, but I can’t stand Level 42 as the contant slap & pop just bores me. That and his singing voice.

Anyway, that’s my £3.50 on this… :wink:

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My personal opinion is to master the fingering first. The more I practice I notice that Im adding some slapping by instinct every so often. I would say that you will be able to play a wider array of songs with a solid fingering method.

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After bass buzz course is completed, so will you recommend to get an advance level such as scales, chord tones, etc ?

Thanks for sharing. sounds good. Actually I do slap but not in good form. before I took this course. I covered songs of RATM and RHCP just a bit simple slap I could, thanks to Bassbuzz to correct my form and to start again.

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After this course I actually plan on retaking the course again.

  1. I want to see how much I may have picked up the first time through.
  2. I want to see if I missed any details I should be concentrating on.
  3. I hope to see a diiference in the ease of going through the course.

This will hopefully tell me what I have improved on and what I need to improve on as well.

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Slapping takes sometimes to master the fundamentals. It’s like earning interest. You don’t have to branch out and focus on slapping but it’s a good idea to go through the fundamentals now and retain a few basic skills now the where, and how is important at this stage to get your foundation in place. Then you can move on.

While warming up you can throw in a few bars of slapping, the next thing you know you’ll get solid tones from your thumb and popping becomes natural.

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Slap is super fun, consider spending a few minutes on it in a practice session and then balance it out with fingerstyle work. Sorry, I realize this goes against your original request to focus on only one.Josh’s 10 Minute Slap Workout helped me a lot, he actually shows some before and after clips of @Paul_9207 and I trying it :slight_smile: . I struggled to slap for a long time, often ignoring it entirely for months and then spending hours struggling to learn a cool line when inspiration struck. In hindsight it was short consistent practice that changed the game for me.

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I don’t slap. I’m bad at it, and I don’t practice it mush, which is why I’m bad at it.

But there are bassists I admire who predominantly slap.

Here Mina is taking her new bass out for a spin, showing you need to do both

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We need to borrow @howard to Mina so he can sort some of her sounds out.

On the topic… I want to get my fingering first… and unsure if I’ll try Slapping or jump to tapping / chords after… maybe the latter because it’s the type of sound that resonates more with me.

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As in private lesson? @howard will be too busy for her,

not! :joy:

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I do accidentally know where she buys her gear but yeah I just don’t see schedules working out. I’ll have my people call her people :rofl:

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Is is wrong that I just see a green Danelectro that I want?

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Giggity

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Dtop them a message asking for a collab!

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no

I wish I can plug the string with such anger like her, :laughing:

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Nice use of two vocaloids in the second one (Hatsune Miku and Gumi)

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I doubt you’ll find anyone (even the most prolific slappers) who doesn’t play finger style but you’ll find the majority of people don’t slap. Finger style or pick are the foundation of pretty much all playing.

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IMO pick is much more important than slap but YMMV.

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