Upright bass slapping: liven up basslines with percussive sounds

When you hear the expression "slap bass", you're not wrong to immediately think of 1970s funk electric bass players slapping the low strings and popping the high strings to create a percussive, rhythmic groove. However, there's two types of bass slappin' in the bass world: electric bass slapping (which is associated with funk, latin, and some styles of pop music) and upright bass slapping.

Upright bass slapping is used in bluegrass, country, rockabilly, psychobilly, and some types of jazz to add percussive sounds to the plucked bass notes. Slapping involves hitting or snapping the strings against the fingerboard. The simplest slapping technique is to play a "two-feel" bassline, with bass notes plucked on beats one and three, and then slap the fingerboard on beats two and four, giving a rhythmic backbeat to the music.

• What's a two-feel bassline?

  • A two-feel bassline is often used in country ballads. To create a two-feel, bassists often play the root on the downbeat (beat one) and the fifth note of the chord on the third beat.

  • They often play the fifth note of the the chord below the root (thus it's a fourth below, interval-wise) to create the characteristic sound, although you can play the fifth above the root as well. Indeed, for some bass notes, like an open E on a four string bass, you have to play the fifth above, as you don't have a low B.

In a blues song with a 12/8 feel (so 4/4, but with triplets on each beat), another approach is to pluck bass notes on each beat, and then slap on the third triplet, right before the next plucked note. This gives a rhythmic drive and propulsion to the music. For ease of reference, we'll call this the "3rd triplet upbeat slap".

You can stop your slapping journey there, and you're already adding a new dimension to your sound and to the band's sound. If your band is a duo or trio, say, with several guitar players, adding upright bass slapping can add in some of the rhythmic roles that a drummer or percussionist might provide in a larger ensemble.

More slapping techniques

But if you want to explore more, there's a lot more slapping techniques to learn. If you can develop the calluses on your plucking hand (often the right hand), you can pull the string so hard off the fingerboard that it makes a "snap" sound when it hits the fingerboard. Then if you do the offbeat slap or the "3rd triplet upbeat slap", you're getting more percussive sounds in your basslines.

This is going to sound like an advertising pitch on late night TV, "but wait, there's more". If you're playing a bassline in "two feel" on beats one and three (in 4/4), you can also play two slaps on beat two and two slaps on beat four. This can seem intimidating when you see YouTube videos of rockabilly or psychobilly players doing it at rapid tempos, but if you start at a slow tempo, it's quite doable.

There's a triple slap that some players can do. I'm just starting to learn it, thanks to videos posted by psychobilly bassist Frankie Bats. He can play walking lines in which he does a triple slap between the notes of the walking line. I can manage to do this only once in a blue moon, if all the stars are aligned correctly. I have chatted with him online, and I hope to arrange some online lessons so I can improve my ability to play this technique.

He told me to experiment with different hand and arm positions. I tried standing with the bass in a more perpendicular position, and it makes some multiple slap techniques easier.

I encourage anyone wanting to learn upright bass slapping to start with the simplest slapping techniques, like slapping off-beats in a two-feel bassline.

Questions and Answers:

• Do you need to have gut or nylon strings to do upright bass slapping?

  • Gut or nylon upright bass strings aren't essential, but they are easier on your plucking/slapping hand, because they are more flexible. When you slap gut or nylon upright strings, it is also easier on your fingerboard. Slapping steel strings against the fingerboard will wear a groove into your fingerboard more quickly.

• Do you need a second fingerboard pickup or a mic on the fingerboard to do upright bass slapping?

  • In an all-acoustic or mostly acoustic setting, like playing at tiny coffeeshop or playing in a living room jam, you don't need a fingerboard pickup, as the sound of the strings striking the fingerboard is loud enough. But in a noisy pub or in a big nightclub stage, the acoustic sound of the strings hitting the fingerboard isn't loud enough. Yes, the bridge pickup "hears" some of the slapping, but it's not direct enough. Besides, most bass players roll off treble from the bridge-mounted pickup to reduce finger noise and get a deep bassy tone, so the slapping coming from the bridge pickup is muted.

  • There are two ways to pick up the sound of the fingerboard slapping:

    • Fingerboard-mounted second pickup: This pickup is exclusively intended to capture the percussive sounds of slapping the strings on the fingerboard. The approach is to have two pickups. The bridge-mounted pickup captures the deep, resonant bass tones. The fingerboard pickup captures the high, percussive snapping, slapping and clicking. You need to mix the two signals together. There are purpose-built preamp-mixers like the K&K Rockabilly Preamp-Mixer that do this (see photo). I use the K&K Rockabilly preamp-mixer and it works well. Alternatively, you could buy a small two-channel or three-channel mixer and put it on top of your amp.

• Small cardoid condensor microphone mounted on the bass: This microphone is aimed at the fingerboard and it captures the percussive sounds of slapping the strings on the fingerboard. The approach is to have a bridge-mounted pickup captures the deep bass tones and a condensor mic to captures the high, percussive sounds. As with the two pickup approach, you need to mix the two signals together.

  • It's more complicated, though, because the condensor mic needs phantom power, which most two- and three-channel mini mixers don't provide. There's four solutions: buy a standalone phantom power unit; buy a larger 8 or 10 channel mixer that has phantom power; buy a condensor mic that has a battery to provide phantom power; or lastly, buy a specialized bass or acoustic instrument preamp/blender ($$$) that has onboard phantom power

• In some photos of rockabilly bassists slapping, they have tape on their fingers. Do you need to tape your fingers to do upright bass slapping?

  • When busking with a rockabilly band, we don't use amps on the street. To be able to be heard outside, I snap every note of every song until it hits the fingerboard. To be able to do this, I wrap several layers of fabric athletic tape around my fingers. In the photo below, you can see that the athletic tape is on the first and second finger.

  • When playing with a pickup and an amp, you don't have to play as loud, so I will often play without the athletic tape.