Hey, James here!
"Never click or tap that bass guitar", is the advice that a very well-meaning semi-professional musician said to me when I was 15 years old which stuck with me for the best part of 20 years. I want to talk about this whole concept, whether you should click or tap the bass guitar from the vantage point of 20 years from now. With that said, I will share one super important tip, which will make all the difference.
I'm here to tell you that that advice is complete nonsense. But I want to tell you something super, super important about using extraneous clicks and taps. You need to be in control at all times. What happens with some musicians, is that they use it as a bit of a crux. They can't control it. Typically they put it on beats two and four to help them with their timing. But the crucial thing is you need to be able to control it and take it in and out. For instance, if you are in a recording studio and the producer says to you, "What's that awful tap going on? It's really interfering with the snare drum!" You can say, "That's me. I'll take it out." What I want to do today is take you through a process of starting off with a simple base groove, putting some taps in there, and then even taking it to the next level of putting dead notes in there. Not so bad, right?
Just go out there! Listen to players such as Marcus Miller, Richard Bonner, who has this beautiful percussive effect, and Francis Rocco Prestia with all of his dead notes. All of these extra little details are what really can put the funk into the notes.
By the end of the video lesson, you will notice you've got this really kicking groove with so much momentum to propel it. But the trick with all of this is to make sure you've got control of your dead notes and your snaps and your cracks, and your snapples and your pops, and all that good stuff so you can really be in control of your sound!
I'll see you next week!