Slap newbie here. I only use rest strokes when I slap. It feels the most natural to me, sounds better to my ears (and is closer to the “pop” sound), leaves the door open to double thumb whenever I want, and mutes a string for free. After a few weeks of practice when I started looking up slap bass tutorials, I was shocked to see that the rest stroke isn’t the primary slap stroke for most players. Seems like Wooten’s the only guy who slaps in this manner. It was a similar kind of thing to the floating thumb technique. I was shocked that Gary Willis is the only guy who plays fingerstyle in the way that seems the most natural to me. In both cases, I’m very happy with my technique, and even though I don’t have many great players to model my playing after, Vic Wooten & Gary Willis are more than enough, hahaha
I’d been watching videos where people used both of these techniques, so I wasn’t sure which to use as I learn slap bass. It’s so helpful to see a comparison of the different approaches. Cant recommend this video enough.
When I first heard Level 42, I thought, "that's some tight and tasty bass playing!" Then I watched a concert and saw Mark King playing those parts while singing. Moreover, he makes it look so easy... Great lesson, Mark! I'm not really into slap bass (I main a fretless with flats) so the rest stroke slap technique is somewhat new to me. Cheers and keep it up!
+Finn V. Arthur Yes. Mark King is a BEAST! He also lives just down the road from me which is kind of cool although I never see him around. I should try to get in touch really.
I'd been messing around with slapping every once in a while. I was never really satisfied with the sound or trying to get accurate with the pop. After watching this and working on the exercise at the end I got the best sounding slap thus far. The resting stroke is so much more satisfying and easier to practice. This is the first person I've seen spend so much time focusing on this rather than the bounce.
This really cleared some stuff up, i thought i was doing something wrong because i always get the muted harmonic sound when using the bounce slap on the higher frets. Thank you for this video.
The perfect lesson to understand how important is DO THE BASIC RIGHT.Now I got into account that rest stroke make sound better up to 12 frets !I was struggeling with this using bouncing up to 12 frets that never work !Notice that point guys ! so important .Thank a lot Mark, you always bringing light to the darkeness !
When I first tried to slap the D A or G, I couldn't get the sound to ring out at all (probably not bouncing quick enough). So, what I started doing was to slap downward, like a strum. In effect, I was using the resting slap without resting. Lots of new technique to practice. As always... thanks so much!
Mark you can't literally verbatim go through the E and rest on the middle of the A string. It would just be be effectively a pluck. Your thumb must still be hitting the E string onto the the frets and neck as you confirmed to an earlier query, but at a different angle to the bounce. If the bounce off is 0 degrees & going through the E to rest on A is 90 degrees, what is the rest stroke angle? I think it is 135 degrees.
Thank you so much, this video is a LIFE SAVER to me!! Since I've tried to work on double thumb, I've noticed I couldn't mix my "normal" (bouncing) slap with it. Then I got confused when I saw some bass players playing "regular" lines with the rest stroke. I've been wondering if my technique was really right since I've learned how to slap, until I watched this video! Phew, i wasn't wrong, it's just 2 different techniques...
@@Nathan_North Interesting :D For me I feel with bouncing I need to pull my wrist back to get the speed, but than I feel like this limitates my ability to pop quickly after. But otherwise I get plenty of overtones. Maybe I just need to practice more
Hey Mark really good lesson, I appreciate it a lot. Hope you see this to answer my question. I've been playing with the bounce technique for quite a while now but have never tried the rest stroke one. This video really helped me out I was just wondering(you didn't say this explicitly in the lesson) wether you also do the same wrist movement (like turning a knob) when playing rest stroke and also which what part of your thumb you strike the string with when playing a double-thumb up-stroke?
+Jan A. Hiya! When you hit with rest stroke it's more of a straight strike downwards rather than the door knob although there can be a bit of a twist. Different players do it differently. Some people use more of the arm. The up stroke is definitely the most confusing part of the technique. You catch the string pretty much with the thumbnail. Some people (like me) try to catch with a small corner of the nail, some people get right under and come up with the middle of the nail. A lot of it depends on how far down the string you are striking and what is below you under the string. I find it works best at the end of the neck, coming down onto the neck. Some people do it over the pickups. The G string can be a bit of a puzzle because you end up hitting down towards the body. You just need to practice to get it right. Check out some of Victor Wooten's instructional vids and some of the other guys on RU-vid. Scott Whitley does a good Double Thumb lesson as does Josh Fossgreen.
Hey Mark, awesome lesson as always. I’m a huge fan of your Study Book of Scales and I advocate it every chance I get. Quick off-topic question regarding the fretting hand: Let’s say you’re doing a simple box shape like A to B, then D to E (5th to 7th frets on both E and A strings, respectively - like in the last riff in your video). The more common technique seems to be using the fingertips for each note on the fretting hand, so the fingers physically move from the E string to the A string (as you do in the video). However, some players like Billy Sheehan tend to keep their fingers more vertical and “bar” the frets so that the fingers don’t have to move down or up the strings physically as often. It seems like the 2nd technique is significantly more efficient, but at the same time fretting in this way seems like it’s more prone to unintentional buzzes, missed notes, accidental staccato, etc. What are your thoughts on both of these techniques? Is it worth practicing both, or should I stick with one and work on honing it? I hope all this makes sense. Thanks again for all the great content!
+Steve Synan Billy Sheehan used to be my hero when I started out and I used to do exactly what you're mentioning. I'd barre the finger and use it as a kind of anchor point for hammerons. It works really well in doing fast hammerons and chordal lines. I don't know how it happened but I just stopped doing it. Bear in mind though that he doesn't do it all the time. A lot of these stylistic quirks (like the slap bounce and rest stroke) become a one-thing-or-the-other kind of thing but most technical aspects of playing are just a consequence of trying to achieve a certain sound or play a certain line. It's probably best to try different technical approaches and see what works best for the thing you're trying to play.
Mark this was a good lesson , thank you. I have a problem with remembering notes on the fretboard . What do you recommend for your students who have dyslexia. I know the name of all notes but cant place them on the fretboard , I can go to any given note by sound , scales by shapes. Also can you do a video on popping and quick ghost note pop- pluck , I found I have better control by propping my little finger and ring finger against the pickguard for better pull on the pop and fast ghost note pluck.
+Mark S B. Thanks Mark. I used to have a student with dyslexia and it was particularly problematic with sight reading. The notes on the page all tended to get visually messed up. You just have to go slow. I think the notes on the fretboard might be easier to address than the notes on the page although I'm not 100% sure how to approach it. You'll probably be better addressing each note in isolation rather than seeing them all as related and seeing the neck as one big confused mess. Be sure to use the fret markers as anchors and work from them as a basis. Hopefully that'll help a little.
+Jay Haron Strings always hit the fretboard (frets) which gives it that particular sound. The frets don't mute it. In terms of choking/muting, you should always be in control of how long the note lasts so you want the string to ring out until you mute.
@@kennethadams9322 Do you bounce with your thumb up or down? It may be more difficult to adjust for thumb-down slapping because your forearm angle has to change so much to do the rest stroke.
@@kennethadams9322 Sounds to me like you're doing everything right! Check out this video and let me know if it helps. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--xWgRV5YUJI.html
@@talkingbasslessons Great stuff! You both produce really useful content! I don't really use slap in any of the music I make, but I was thinking about learning it properly and was getting a bit tied up in knots over this rest vs free stroke business, so this video is dead useful
Double thumbing is a LOT faster than bouncing as I point out in the video but the bounce is easier for playing fast flurries than rest stroke on it's own (no double).
