Bass Lessons - Begging Tap For Bass Vol.8 bass tab
We've now covered most of the basic tapping techniques used
by the likes of
Stu Hamm. We'll develop these further in future lessons, but
we'll take a brief
time out from that style to briefly consider the tapping used
by Sheehan. This
syle is more closely releated to Eddie Van Halen's guitar, and
relies heavily
on interplay between both hands on a single string. Physically
these techniques
are simpler, but require a lot of experience to make them work
in a song.
Normaly only a single note is tapped at a time, so its personal
preference
which finger you choose - either the index or middle finger is
fine. Sheehan
places his middle finger behind his index finger to give extra
strenth (and
his little finger behind his ring finger when needed). You may
or may not find
this beneficial - it is however important to hit each note cleanly,
and somewhat
harder than in previous lessons.
Starting of with a simple line on the top G string:
|-12-7--0--12-7--0--|
|-------------------|
|-------------------|
|-------------------|
Tap the octave then pull of to the preplaced left hand, then pull
of to the
open string. By moving bits of the pattern around complex harmonies
can be
implied. This works well on bass, as the large intervals between
the notes
ensure that the sound does not get muddy:
|-12-7--0--12-7--0-|-12-5--0--12-5--0-|-10-5--0--10-5--0-|-9--5--0--9--5--0-|
|------------------|------------------|------------------|------------------|
|------------------|------------------|------------------|------------------|
|------------------|------------------|------------------|------------------|
(this chord progression is based on the intro to "Equinox").
The next thing to do is turn the whole thing upside down! Rather
than starting
at the top, and using pull off's start on the open string, and
hammer on the
7th, then tap the octave. This requires slightly more precise timing:
|-0--7--12-0--7--12-|
|-------------------|
|-------------------|
|-------------------|
once you've got this, try reversing the Equinox line to use hammer
ons.
Once you're comfortable playing the riff in each direction,
try combining both
up and down paterns:
|-12-7-0-7-12-7-0-7-|-12-5-0-5-12-5-0-5-|-10-5-0-5-10-5-0-5-|-9-5-0-5-9-5-0-|
|-------------------|-------------------|-------------------|---------------|
|-------------------|-------------------|-------------------|---------------|
|-------------------|-------------------|-------------------|---------------|
As always experiment different numbers of repeats, and tempo's.
Now lets make the left hand work a little harder, by introducing
a few more
notes:
|-12-7-5-0-5-7----|
|o---------------o|
|o---------------o|
|-----------------|
or:
|-12-7-5-4-5-7----|
|o---------------o|
|o---------------o|
|-----------------|
Of course there's no need to just move in a single direction at
a time. Try:
|-12-4-7-4-12-4-5-4-|
|o-----------------o|
|o-----------------o|
|-------------------|
The variations on this sort of riff are endless, but one particularly
interesting twist can be found on the track "Summer Nights"
(Van Halen - 5150).
|-----------------|----------------------------------------------------|
|-----------------|----------------------------------------------------|
|----------5-4-0--|-7-4-0--4-7-12-/14-\12--7---------------------------|
|-----------------|----------------------------------------------------|
T s s
This riff is played by both guitar and bass immediatly before
the chorus. The
left hand is all hammered on. The right hand part slides the tapped
note up a
tone and then back down in a particulary cool fashion. Practise
this to make
sure so can do it cleanly and quickly (its easy overshoot the
top note). We'll
encounter more complex slides in the next few lessons.
Thats about all there is to say about single string tapping -
the basic
techniques are very simple. The hard part is knowng how they
can be applied.
Practise moving different parts of the riffs around, using
different intervals -
pretty much anything sounds good on its own, so you just have
to try everything,
and learn how it sounds ready for when you need it. Try and work
out how the
notes can be related to chords, as this will make it easier to
integrate ideas
into songs.
This weeks final example is a bit of a killer - the bass intro to
Mr Big's
"Addicted to that rush". Billy himself is quoted as saying of
this track:
"It's like a tightrope walk -it's fun; you've got to balance
and it's a little
precarious. Playing it live, you have to be ON, but the challenge
makes it
more interesting", so lesser mortals are likely to have some
problems (the
main one being the 224 BPM tempo).
|-14-12-14-12-14-12-14-12-14-12-14-12-14-12-14-12-14-12-14-12-14-12-14-12-|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------------|
T p H p T p H p T p H p T p H p T p H p T p H p
This is played 7 times (all those notes are only the first bar!
- for the
curious they're tripplet semiquavers, everyone else just
play 'em as fast as
you can :-(). The A is played alternatly by the left and right
hands. There's
then 8 bars of guitar before the bass joins in again:
|-------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
|-13-10-12-10-7--10-13-10-12-10-7--10-|-13-10-12-10-7--10-13-10-12-10-7--10-|
|-------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
|-------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
|-12-9--11-9--7--9--12-9--11-9--7--9--|-12-9--11-9--7--11-17----9--12----12-|
|-------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
|-------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
|-------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
gs g s
|14-12-9---------------------------|-12-9-12-13-12-9/11-14-12-14-17-14-12/14|
|--------13-12-10-12-10-12-13-12-10|----------------------------------------|
|----------------------------------|----------------------------------------|
|----------------------------------|----------------------------------------|
^1/2
|-17-14-17-20-17-14-20-17-19-17-14-17-|-20-17-19-17-14-17-20----------------|
|-------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
|-------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
|-------------------------------------|-------------------------------------|
Don't worry to if you can't play this at full tempo - start slowly,
and learn
the pattens (you should find that much of it is just variation
on what you've
already seen). Build up the speed slowly making sure you're
still getting all
the notes cleanly.
That should keep you busy for a few weeks!
