Bassista! A Great Lesson In Slap Bass

All of you regular visitors here know how I love to post videos of bass players from around the world [outside the U.S.]. Here is another one of my favs. Gianni Serino "The Bassista"

One of my pet peeves is the amount of players we see playing "Slap Bass" who really are just Slapping a bass. Few people really have a sense of musicality in their slap technique. Maybe we should call it "Beat Bass"! Seriously, check out the videos below and do your best to work through the language barrier. It is worth it.

Steve Bailey and Harmonics....More than just bass!

I was poking around on the forums a couple of days ago and someone was asking about playing harmonics on the bass. Right away Steve Bailey came to mind. Check out the video that I have included to see how Steve has perfected his unique technique of using his index finger to touch the "point of harmonic" while plucking the strings with any one of his other 3 fingers. Amazing! Notice how easily he moves up and down the strings to correspond with the position changes in his left hand. Harmonics are not a deep dark secret most players make them out to be. While there is many harmonics that can be played in many positions, most players seem to easily go to the 5, 7 and 12 frets when plaing harmonics. Maybe it is from using these positions to tune. Anyway, just for a kick start to your "harmonics convergence" you need to recognize that if you play a note at the 2nd fret for an example, you now have those same common harmonic intervals at the 7th,9th and 14th fret. Thats right, just add two frets to each harmonic. If you play a note at the 10th fret those same intervals for harmonics would be the 15th, 17th and 22nd frets. So come on, try one right now. Play a F note on the 10th fret - G string. Now place your index finger gently on top of the 22nd fret and right behind it pluck the string with your middle finger. Easy right?...LOL... Now watch Steves video and you'll really appreciatte what he does.

For more on Steve including lessons check out his latest website "Bass Vault" that he partners with Victor Wooten to bring great insight to the world of bass!