Advanced Tutorial
Learn Stu Clayton's techniques and unleash your fingers on your fretboard like caffeinated woodpeckers
Destroy boundaries with the stratospheric Stu Clayton
Welcome to the latest instalment in my long-running series on the tapping technique. If you’ve followed this column since the beginning, you’ll now be in possession of some seriously powerful tapping chops, which will enable you to employ many ideas on the bass that just aren’t possible with conventional playing techniques. Over the course of this series, we’ve covered all elements of the tapping technique in great detail, and we’re now at the point where we can put them all together and use them in some advanced solo pieces.
For the next few issues, we’re going to be looking at some longer, more complex études which you should treat as material that you’ll work on over weeks or months, rather than hours. These pieces will often be contrapuntal in nature, meaning that there will be two distinct parts being played simultaneously. As I said, think of them as study pieces for the long term, as they won’t be lines that you’ll get down overnight. With all that being said, the two studies that we will look at in this issue are actually quite approachable, if you have a strong grasp of the fundamentals of two-handed tapping.
Like the examples in last month’s column, Example 1 combines several techniques together – slapping, strumming and tapping. Fortunately, it’s not as difficult to play as it might seem. Don’t be put off by the 9/8 time signature. If you’ve been following my colleague Phil Mann’s
column on time signatures, you’ll know that 9/8 is similar to 3/4 time: there are three beats in the bar, in this case, they subdivide naturally into three, resulting in a triplet feel. This creates a swing feel.
The A section is played as follows: strum the open A-string and the B and the E at the ninth fret of the D and G-strings respectively. As soon as you have strummed this chord, play a hammer-on to
C# the at the eleventh fret of the D-string: note that this hammer-on is performed with the fretting hand. All three notes of this A major chord are then played again
“THE PIECE MIGHT LOOK BUSY WITH ALL OF THOSE SIXTEENTH NOTES, BUT NOTICE THAT THE TEMPO IS VERY SLOW”
using a basic slap technique: slap the open
C#.
A, pop the E, and then slap the
In the second bar, strum the chord again, then tap the D and E at the twelfth and fourteenth frets of the D-string with the picking hand – these notes should be played staccato. The strum and slap parts are then repeated, this time with a D major chord in second inversion. In bar 4, this chord is strummed again, after which the picking hand taps the D and A at the nineteenth fret of the D and G-strings, pulling off to sound the notes fretted below. After tapping the A at the nineteenth fret, drag the finger back to lightly pluck the A-string, sounding the final A in the bar. The B section and
C section of this étude are then performed using the same techniques.
Example 2 uses the two-handed tapping technique to play accompaniment figures for a chord progression in the key of C minor. The piece might look busy with all of those sixteenth notes, but notice that the tempo is very slow at 65bpm. To play this example’s A section, begin by the fretting hand outlines a root, fifth and octave pattern from C; I recommend using the first, third and fourth fingers for these notes. You’ll need to ensure that you play these notes firmly with the fingers of your fretting hand.
The picking hand then adds additional
Eb, Bb, chord tones – G and the minor third, perfect fifth and minor seventh of the chord respectively. As you play this part, try to let the notes in both hands ring for as long as possible. All of the notes form part of a Cm7 chord, so will sound great together. In the second bar a double stop is played in the picking hand – G and C, the major seventh and major third of the Abmaj7
chord (note that the bass notes now change to reflect this chord). This double stop is played twice while the fretting hand outlines the simple bass part. As before, don’t be afraid to let the notes ring into one another where possible. These two bars are then repeated.
The B section of the piece is quite simple to play. The fretting hand plays the root and fifth of the Fm7 chord. The picking
(Eb) hand then plays the seventh before
Eb immediately tapping a double stop of
Ab and (minor seventh and minor third), sliding up a tone, then returning. The bar is completed with a simple ascending line played with the picking hand. The same techniques are used for each of the four bars in this section.
The C Section of the piece is largely a repeat of the A section, although you'll need to watch out for the altered bass part in the penultimate bar.
I'm sure that's more than enough to be going on with. Remember to be patient and take it as slowly as you need to. We’ll regroup next month. Good luck!