First post here - just made it through the main 15 modules (outstanding course! I’m in love with this instrument, now) and I am super stuck on the slap masterclass.
Slap really appeals to me because:
It’s just badass
I come from a clawhammer banjo background, so using thumb + index (or middle) just feels natural to me
I can get a decent tone out of the E string, even fretted, with a pure bounce. I cannot for the life of me get a good tone out of the A string, especially fretted, with just a bounce. I’ve spent hours just bouncing my thumb, trying to keep it relaxed/loose, but the A string just sounds weak/low volume and the pops completely overpower it.
I can get a much fuller/louder sound if i use the edge of my thumb and roll off the side of the string, more like a strum. I’m still flicking my wrist with a forearm twist, and I’m not pushing through to rest on the next string, but I think this is still more akin to the ‘slap through’ technique than the bounce technique.
I know Josh seems to prefer the bounce technique, and I don’t want to form bad habits I have to break later, so should I just keep trying for a pure bounce? Should I be rolling off the side of the string at all? Is this a problem a compressor can solve?
Listening through headphones helped me realize I was actually getting a much better sound than I thought - since I was practicing through an amp at very low volume, the acoustic noise from my strings was throwing me off. Either that or I figured something out in the past couple of hours. Having some success without any of the ‘rolling off the string’ I mentioned.
I’ll have to try that myself. I’m horrible at slap and not really sure if it’s me or my basses. The working ones are 2 shortscale with flats and the other is a 5 with flats, which aren’t ideal for slap, apparently, but possible. Makes it harder to learn, though. I swapped basses briefly with my teacher this past Tuesday to have him try my shorty P bass and he could do it but not well. While his Fender Jazz with rounds was ringing out perfectly, even for me. I just get nothing but fret clack unless I go so soft it can barely be heard, but then switching plucking styles mid song is way off volume wise. Kinda makes me want a jazz now….heh.
Coming back to this and still really struggling with the bounce slap, particularly on the A string. I can get a decent sound with a more ‘strike-through’ style, but I’m really determined to figure out the bounce style so I can really compare them.
The E string isn’t a problem, and I can get a good volume with a pure bounce IF I angle my thumb down and really hammer on the A string, but this makes it almost impossible to avoid the E string, requiring constant muting. If I lower my elbow (to put myself in a more thumb up position), I can more accurately hit just the A string but I just can’t get the same strength with my thumb strike and it sounds much weaker.
Has anyone else REALLY struggled with this and pushed through or had some kind of epiphany?
When it comes to skills, most of the time it’s not incremental, it’s exponential. You can be struggling to make a decent contact one day and the next week, but somehow the next day you’d consistently connect with your slapping and Boom! Welcome to the club.
When I started slapping I remember it took quite sometime to get it right, I just kept at it.
