Bassist for Sly and The Family Stone from ’66 to ’72, Larry Graham Jr is not only known as being an unbelievably good slap bass player, but is also credited with inventing<\/i> the technique.<\/p>\n
Below is a video of what Larry is all about, and he explains that the reason he started thumping the bass is to make up for a lack of drum accompaniment. It’s a sound that stuck, sounded great and has been that way ever since.<\/p>\n
Now of course, the key to Larry Graham Jr’s sound is technique. While true we have many Jazz Bass style pickups to choose from<\/a> (with many players having very good results with Bartolini pickups<\/a> in particular,) it’s training the plucking hand that will make your slap bass sound come alive.<\/p>\n Something you will also immediately notice is that Larry is a very physical bassist. You will see many wide hand movements and many instances of outright grabbing strings and snapping them back to the fretboard hard. This is not a dainty bass playing style by any means.<\/p>\n The best information to take from what Larry says below is how he developed the technique in the first place. Approach your bass as if you had to be both the bassist and the same person providing the rhythm. Bring out the thumps, ghost notes and fret clacks and trade them equally (more or less) with actual notes…<\/p>\n …but Larry explains it a lot better than we can. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n