I’m starting to work my way through “Slap Bass Lines” by Joe Santerre. It’s published by Berklee Press.
I’m only on page 3, and I’m already stumped.
Example 9 says, “Hammer on the muted notes in this example.”
The sheet music shows a slap on the open E followed by a ghost/muted note with a H above for hammer. The two notes are tied together.
I can’t imagine how you would hammer on a ghost note. Hammering on would produce a note.
Any ideas?
Slap bass is full of elements where the rhythmic aspect is more important than the harmonic aspect. Also, remember that you can mute with both hands and slap requires a lot of muting at the right moments with either hand.
Beyond that, I don’t have much to offer, other than repeating that I think the (muted) hammer on is purely a rhythmic device here.
@Gio is a master of slap and can certainly chime in with better input next time he checks the forum 
I’d love to see this page!
Can you post a photo?
I’m imagining that the exercise before this had you playing the E string and also some mutes… and now it is changing from muted notes to hammered notes?
There’s no way to hammer on a muted note (or, if there is, it’s very challenging and shouldn’t be anywhere near page 3 of any book)… so I imagine (trying to give them the benefit of the doubt) that there is some context I’m missing.
I’ll take a photo of the exercise and post it when I get home from work tonight.
The Berklee book doesn’t provide much explanation of technique, which is why I’m stumped.
I worked through the technical section of “Slap It” by Tony Oppenheim, so I’m not a total novice. Although I’m still new enough to slapping that I might just be missing something obvious in the Berklee book.
Love that book!
Some killer grooves in there… but all at pretty hard to achieve tempos.
I remember he told me years ago that he was working on a midi version online so you could alter the tempos of everything.
That seemed like a great idea.
Yes!
Post that photo.
I may not get to it right away, but I’m very curious.
I think it’s a muted note done with the left hand.
You play the First eight note then you mute it with a slap with the free fingers of the left hand.
Something like this
I think @elcabesa is on the right track. It would sound like “Doo-dk doo-dk doo-dk …” Should be easy once you get the left hand motion in your fingers. You would slap once and then try to slap with all the left hand to simultaneously slap and mute.
Try turning up the volume a bit to hear if you slap-mute (slam?) the strings just hard enough. It’s inbetween muting and string noise from floating the left hand too lightly.
Yeah, this is making sense. Thanks everyone for the help.
Yes that!
So sorry - I got a bit busy and didn’t get back until just now.
Thanks to @elcabesa for nailing that one!
