Bass Week: Slapping, thumping – whatever you call it, for over 50 years, bassists have been using this most flamboyant of bass techniques to lay down heavy funk grooves, and endlessly irritate the owners of guitar shops everywhere.
“Slapping was a matter of natural evolution for me,” Louis Johnson told Bass Player. “I plucked the strings with my thumb and tried to find the little clicks and pops I got when I strummed chords on the guitar. Gradually, as I struck the strings harder with my thumb, I discovered all these percussive sounds that coincided with the note.”
