Victor Wooten

[ptg]

Any of you seen this? Putfile - Victor Wooten Slap Bass Lesson

(Is my fretless SR4 here yet?)

 

[KennethB]

Yes, that's from Bass-Day '98, right?

 

[brooklynfall]

Le sigh.

I have a feeling that if I had watched this ten or eleven years ago (when it meant something to me), I would be a very different player today. Glad I didn't.

Not that Vic isn't mind-blowing and a very gracious and kind person; I love his playing. But I love my playing more.

Phil

 

[Baird]

Very cool.

I will have to try his technique when I am near a bass. I have never bothered with the "thumb up" thing which will absolutely open up my playing to new and different styles.

 

[SLUGGO]

Does Wooten have any other instructional videos or was this just a quick one shot? He explians things cleary, and demonstrates at a speed that the human eye can actually see!! (at first....)

I would be interested in checking out his DVD's just for the entertainment value alone. Anyone got any feedback to offer?

 

[ptg]

Sorry, I don't know what year that video was from or if he has any other instructional tools. I just happened to come across that.

Brooklyn Fall, I admire your outlook. After many, many years of beating myself up over my deficiencies, while I can't say that I like my playing, I've decided to be the best little bass player I can be.

 

[strummer]

I have decided to be the happiest bass player i can be See, that was easy

 

[Baird]

I just tried doing the Wooten slap technique. That looks so easy in the video and is so extremely difficult for me.

I slap with my thumb pointed almost straight up (vertical) and this technique makes you slap with your thumb almost horizontal.

Great technique, but I don't really want to invest the time and effort required to learn this and completely change the way I play, hold the bass, angle of my arm, etc.

Man is that different than the way I was taught!

 

[KennethB]

Ok, what I wrote in my previous post is correct. It is from BassDay '98 (arranged by Bass Player-magazine,I think). It is a "back-stage"sort of thing where he explains his slap-technique. In the concert itself he plays some of his tunes. "U Can't Hold No Groove" and his arrangement of "Norwegian Wood". The concert features many players. Rocco, Manring, Oteil and Pattitucci to mention some. I think it's available to buy on DVD. I have it on VHS, so it's been a while since I've seen it myself.

 

[ptg]

I have decided to be the happiest bass player i can be See, that was easy

Never said I was happy, but glad you made it to that wonderful place!

 

[Figjam]

When I started, i slapped like flea; thumb down. My technique has evolved and now I play the same way Vic does. I forget when the transitoin occured but I started slapping through the string, rather than bouncing off (like flea) and it has been a whole different ballgame since then. It has probably been about a year and a half since I stared doing that. I do the same triplets that he does where he goes thumb down, thumb up , pluck. I do this alot, I do the 'quadruplet' with the thumb down, thumb up, pluck index, pluck middle, sometimes as well, but it is not as useful so I have not worked with it much. Vic has been a big influence on me. He is not my favorite bassist by any means, not even close, but I like his technique.

 

[dlb1001]

There are a couple of youtube segments that Victor talks about his technique. The one thing that he kept emphasizing over and over that whatever technique you use or develop, it should have some musical purpose. Also, I found another clip by Larry Graham and I was surprised to find that he was doing double thumping, too. Now, who did it first is up for debate.

 

[strummer]

Never said I was happy, but glad you made it to that wonderful place!

You are a happy bass player to, I know it

 

[bassmancb]

Never could pickup on the double thumb lick although it did help me improve. And yes I too am a happy bass player!

 

[Rano Bass]

I tried and learned some double thumping a few years ago but i use it close to never in a band situation, i like the simpler, more effective Marcus Miller style, even if he's not as technically good as Wooten IMO.

 

[ptg]

I have a terrible confession to make: When slapping came to be popular in the 1970's, I was playing in an all-original band and said, "I'll never have any use for that stuff." I was young and close minded.
Now, having only learned the basics later in life, I use it sparingly and am mostly just a plain old vanilla fingers player.

On a good note it's nice to see so many happy bass players!

 

[headsup]

Victor Wooten on SMV's Thunder

Three of my favorite bassists Stanley Clarke, Victor Wooten, and Marcus Miller have united to create the bass super group SMV. They just released a new album titled Thunder. It is definitely something worth checking out.
Thunder : SMV - Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller, Victor Wooten : Concord Music Group

 

[ampegjoel]

Ill be shot for this post!-Ok i look at it this way-yes i wish i could slap like victor or louis johnson )--plays as fast as stanley-ect. hell i wish i could play a B3 like jimmy smith-ect-my point is yes it all looks easy but as someone posted back it has to be musical -and yes we are BASS players hold the bottom-these guys are virtuosos! best thing to do is take what you can from them -fit it into your bag o tricks-but hold down the bottom -on point and and especially -in time- some of the trill notes -tuff to do and not fall a slight outta time -lol-if it was that easy-buy the dvd and learn !!

we all quit our day jobs -lol-lol- as much as i love stanley-victor -marcus-and flea- i still very much dig Jamerson who was so damn solid ----ready for my bullet -lol

 

[RobertB]

Any of you seen this? Putfile - Victor Wooten Slap Bass Lesson

(Is my fretless SR4 here yet?)

Edit: didn't realize this was getting so long. Oh well, feel free to skip it if you're not interested in Vic.


Yeah, this one's really good, as far as breaking down the fundamentals of his thumb technique. It's not from the bass day dvd. I have that, and he does go through a very similar description/demonstration there too, in response to a question from someone in the audience, between tunes.

Vic actually learned the double thumb thing from his older brother Reggie, who is an absolute monster on guitar. He can outshred anyone I can think of, when he's in neo-classical fusion/hard-rock mode, or he can play the freshest, coolest, most sparse jazz or funk chordal stuff I've ever heard. The dude is a phenomenon. Reggie's nickname is "Teacha". He teaches about 100 guitar students at any given time in the Nashville area, but he got that nickname from teaching his brothers when they were all kids. He started teaching Vic to play when he was 3 years old, and by 5, Vic was performing with his brothers in the Wooten Brothers Band, opening for people like Curtis Mayfield.

There's one instructional dvd from Vic that I can think of - from around the same time as his Bass Day performance, after the Flecktones had become well known - and I've got it around here somewhere, but I don't remember if it includes this type of focus/break-down of his technique. It might. I'll find it & follow up on this thread again later this weekend.

But another great source, is the series of slap courses by Anthony Wellington on the musicdojo. Anthony is Vic's bass tech and is also the "2nd bassist" in the Victor Wooten band. He's a fantastic bassist, and his style/technique are definitely from the Victor Wooten school. In his slap series on the dojo, he expounds on the details of the things he's learned from Vic, including a fundamental technique that Vic didn't describe in the vid in the OP of this thread - the "OHP" (open, hammer, pluck).

In the most basic form of the OHP, between the down thumb stroke and the up thumb stroke, he'll hammer a note somewhere, and the up thumb stroke (which is really a "pluck") will often be the same note as that hammered note. The first note in the triplet (the down thumb stroke) is often times an open string - hence "open, hammer, pluck", but it doesn't have to be. It's more so about the fact that the triplet is made up by that series - thumb down, a hammer, then a pluck (up with the thumb, or with the index finger). And though the pluck often doubles the hammered note, it can of course be anywhere, often muted, somewhere on the G. The number of permuations gets vary large very quickly, especially when you add multiple plucks to it, like: open (thumb), hammer, pluck (thumb up, same note as hammered note), index pluck (some muted note on the G), middle pluck (same note as index pluck). So, 5 events with one up/down flick of the wrist.

That form (and permutations of it) are what enable such rapid passages - that's 5 events, wiith a single down up motion of the hand. So in the same motion and span of time in which most slappers are just bringing the thumb back up into striking position, he's throwing in 4 other events/notes. But his hand - more accurately, his wrist - is not moving any faster. Economy of Motion.

One of the best examples of this is Vic's tune "Classical Thump", in which he starts out with a simple figure, played with downward thumb strokes only, and then he adds to it by doubling the note value each time by using the OHP, without changing the speed of the wrist movement at all. The first 4 measures he just "single thumbs" an arpeggiated chord progression in G Major, in 8ths ... downward thumb strokes only, so G, D, G, B through the I/GMaj chord, for example (on the E,A,D,G string, respectively), with the L hand fretting the chord in bar-chord form. Then the next 4 bars/the next time through the chord progression, he turns it into 16ths by adding an open string note (the thumbed note) before each of the chord tones, which he now fingers with L hand hammer-ons. So now in thumb down/hammer pairs, it's E-G, A-D, D-G, G-B through the I/GMaj chord. Then the next 4 bars, he convers that into a series of triplets by adding the up thumb stroke, doubling each of the hammered chord tones. So in bars 9 - 12, the notes are freakin flying, but your hand isn't moving any faster than it was in bars 1 - 4. So it's down/hammer/up triplets, E-G-G, A-D-D, D-G-G, G-B-B. Beyond the 12th measure, the permutations keep coming - not in the form of adding more notes, but in changing that sequence of events around, and playing through some really cool figures. There are finesse sections to it as well that are really beautiful ... it's not all about "gettin paid by the note" .. but most of it is.

He does have a great book of tab out, and classical thump is included in it. As he tells it, it basically just started out as an exercise/warm-up drill he'd do. But then over time it evolved into something also very highly musical. Sounds like a Bach piece.

I had been playing slap for years before discovering Vic (who I discovered around roughly the same time as I discovered Marcus). Before then, I was into guys like Flea, Les and P-Nut from 311 (I know, these guys and their names). P-Nut does (or atleast used to do) alot of the L hand slap/muting thing, so I learned that from listening to their stuff, and was familiar with constructing very percussive lines using triplet permutations by the time I discovered Vic. But the double thumb and OHP stuff really opened up some rut-busting directions for me. Anything you're doing, you can apply that stuff to, if you want. It's just technique - a method of attack - and can be applied to any musical figure or form.

For example, if you're learning/practicing modes & arpeggios, you can create triplets out of each note in those basic figures, and once you get comfortable with it, you'll swear you can almost play. And if you write original stuff, it'll inevitably find its way into your grooves. But as Vic says, make it your own.

I know it must sound like I own stock in Victor Wooten. Actually, I haven't listened to any of Vic's stuff in quite a while - sort of taking a break and listening to hard rock again. But this thread provoked me, apparently.

Here's my favorite solo bass performance of all time. After the intro section, he gets into very advanced applications of the techniques we're discussing, including a few bars of 32nd note stuff that's mind blowing. Sounds a little trebly on those extra light guage fodera strings he uses, but incredible nonetheless. And overall, the musicality of this piece is just ... I love it.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz7zrkGDBFQ"]Amazing Grace[/ame]

 

[mathewsanchez]

I tried and learned some double thumping a few years ago but i use it close to never in a band situation, i like the simpler, more effective Marcus Miller style, even if he's not as technically good as Wooten IMO.

I'll go one further and say Marcus Miller can be a little too flashy at times. I say take it back to the raw funky lines played by the likes of Larry Graham and Bernard Edwards. (not saying Miller or Wooten are bad, in fact I love their music and idolise them, it's just sometimes less is more)