Bass Lick of the Week #13

This exercise is an uptempo slap line that uses the triplet popping technique that was pioneered by bassist Stuart Hamm.

After playing the F# at the beginning of bar one, a semiquaver triplet is played on the second half of the beat. All of the notes here are ghost notes and are performed as follows: slap the A-string with the thumb, pop the D-string with the first finger, and the G-string with the second finger. These three notes are played quickly, so you’ll need to work on this at a slower tempo if the technique is new to you. These notes are followed by some ghost notes on the A-string and popped F#’s on the G-string. in the second half of the bar the line moves down to E for a basic slap and pop figure. The second bar reuses the sequence from the first bar, but starting on C# and moving down to B.

The third and fourth bars of the exercise are much simpler to play and require only basic slap and pop technique. This line was performed on a Kubicki Ex Factor bass, which was the instrument used by Stuart Hamm in the early part of his career. It’s a great bass for slap and pop lines such as this.

If you’d like to learn more about the triplet popping technique, be sure to check out my book Ultimate Slap Bass, which is available from this website.

To download the backing track and PDF worksheet for this exercise, please visit the Free Stuff section of the website.