How to make any Bass Line sound FUNKY

In the bass world, one ill-conceived cliche has it that a funk bass line equals slap bass. Wrong! In today’s video we unpack some of the rudiments of funk bass playing to help you perfect your technique and improve your rhythm. The notes are easy - getting the feel right is much tougher!

Creating Space

As bass players, we can be inclined to play lots of notes. Yet as we start playing in bands, it’s often what’s not played that really matters. Knowing where to leave space is a life-long journey, but it’s easy to get started by using dynamics and string muting techniques.

String Muting

Muting a string at the right moment to control its duration allows a groove to really develop. To get the most of this technique you’ll have to hone in on your fretting-hand habits. Once you learn to mute and pluck a string simultaneously, you can also start to incorporate ghost-notes.

Ghost Notes

A ghost-note is a note that’s muted to the point where it’s percussive rather than having an obvious pitch. You can execute a ghost note by resting a fretting-hand finger on the string, without pressing it to the fret, and then plucking.

Slides

It’s always important to integrate some fun into your practice routine, and there are few more feel-good moments than sliding all the way down the fingerboard into a huge E-string finale or injecting a slur into a funk line. When we slide into a note, we’re flexing our bass muscles - there are few better ways to cut through a band and say, ‘Hey, I’m here!’

Playing with a Pick

Good pick technique is all about developing a good right-hand approach. Do what feels natural, but it’s important to strike the string with the broad side of the pick to get maximum tone. Practice alternating between downstrokes and upstrokes.

Slap

The basic slap technique usually combines a wrist-twisting thumb slap with an index- or middle-finger pop. The angle of the thumb to the string can vary from having your thumb at a downward angle to a thumb that’s parallel to the string. The parallel-thumb technique is more controllable and also allows for syncopated ghost notes and funk patterns.

Articulation

In bass playing, articulation can be defined as what happens at the beginning and the end of a note. Sliding into and out of a note is a form of articulation, as is executing a hammer-on or a pull-off. Knowing how the articulation fits into the rhythm is super important, otherwise these techniques are often all about attitude.