Description
Simple Steps To Slap Bass
The Ultimate Step-By-Step Slap Bass Method For Bass Guitar
52 step-by-step lessons working from the absolute basics of slapping all the way through to advanced double thumbing techniques
Click Here For Full Course Info PDF
‘I can’t say enough about Simple Steps To Slap Bass. Best money I ever spent on anything music wise!’ Kevin Masih – USA
‘I never had any kind of slap technique, so I purchased the Simple Steps to Slap Bass and I’m amazed at the improvement.’ Dave Imbarrato – USA
‘Simple Steps To Slap Bass is astonishing and really changed my approach to this technique. I saw a huge leap in my bass playing!’ Fernando Maspero – Argentina
‘At first, I wondered why every lesson was so easy to take. Then I realized that was what made the course so great.’ Thierry – France
Check out more reviews of the course in the Reviews tab above!
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Simple Steps To Slap Bass Course?
The Simple Steps To Slap Bass Course is a complete, step-by-step method for mastering the slap bass style from the absolute basics of the ‘thumb slap’ all the way through to advanced techniques such as machine gun triplets, double thumbing and flamenco rolls.
What Will I Learn?
After finishing the course you will have acquired the following skills and knowledge:
- A solid foundation in all areas of Slap Bass technique
- A clean up of your overall playing utilizing the Home Position principles
- Knowledge of common scales and note choices used in developing a Slap Bass groove
- A solid grounding in funk 16th note rhythms
- Many original slap riffs written specifically for this course
- The ability to use ghost notes effectively within a groove
- Advanced techniques such as Double Thumbing, Hammer On’s, Chords, Machine Gun Triplets and many more
What level of player is the course aimed at?
The complete course is aimed at players new to the slap technique that need a step-by-step path of development to an advanced level.
How Long Are The Lessons?
The lesson length’s vary but the complete course contains 14 hours of video content.
How is the course presented? Do I Download Anything?
The course is hosted on the Talkingbass website so there are no video files to download. There is a lesson material zip file for each module containing a Course Workbook and any relevant practice tracks
rilleman (verified owner) –
A couple of years ago I started playing double bass and bass guitar again after almost 30 years of absence.
I started playing double bass in the late seventies, when I was 10, educated in the genre of classical music. At the age of 14, I joined my first rock band, which was really fun.
I’ve always liked slap bass and thought I was an decent self-taught player but lacked the right technique.
Then I saw this course and thought I’d start from scratch (I’m in the middle of vol 1). When I learned how to use the ghost notes and choking correctly, it was a big step forward. For example, I’ve always struggled with Mark King’s slapping technique, but suddenly I understood how to play Love Games and “43” by Level 42 correctly, and it was like a revelation to me and really fun.
I look forward to learn a lot more from this course and improve as a bass player.
Thank you Mark.
b y (verified owner) –
I have tried many other slap bass curriculums, free, paid, etc. I have followed them all and the best my slap playing got was “sloppy mediocre”. With Mark’s program, my playing was noticeably better from the first lesson! He breaks things down and explains them so well that anyone can succeed. If you have tried other programs and not found success, this is the one for you. You will not be disappointed.
Andrey Vasilyev (verified owner) –
Having completed Simple Steps to Slap Vol 1 and currently taking Vol 2, I can confidently say these courses are a must for anyone wanting to master slap bass. Mark’s teaching style is straightforward and effective, breaking down techniques into manageable steps. The lessons build logically, and the included exercises are both challenging and fun. A fantastic way to develop your slap skills from scratch or take them to the next level!
William Connor (verified owner) –
Outstanding course!!! offering a step-by-step guide to slap bass with clear instruction, demonstrations and exercises from a first class teacher that you can do at your own pace. Well worth the money and highly recommended whatever lever you are at. Thank you Mark.
Steven Rullo (verified owner) –
I really enjoyed the course. Even if you have no interest in the slap technique, the course will help you improve your muting and rhythm skills.
William Connor (verified owner) –
The exercises in this slap bass course are perfectly paced to help you develop a solid slap bass technique. Each lesson is well explained and helps you to grow-as-you-go in speed and accuracy. I am thoroughly enjoying this course and I have already marked my next purchases from the TalkingBass shop. Thank you Mark for a great course. I’ve tried for years to get to where this course has taken me in just one month.
Bart Roels (verified owner) –
Thank you TalkingBass
Almost halfway course. Been playing bass for aprox 30 years and still new things and technique appears. Slapping is new for me, was looking for new challenge. Mark is a great teacher and explains everything in a simple way. I am sure to take more courses in the future. Thank you TalkingBass !!
Barney Kister (verified owner) –
Another solid class working from simple fundamentals to build up to lines and groves. Especially liked the section introducing 16th notes and how those lessen can and are applied to bass lines. One are think could be expanded is the thumb slap/thumping technique addressing both the method of bouncing off the string or pushing the thumb thru the string. I taught myself to slap and popping the bass in the late 70’s and put away music for a long time, so 40 something years later and the slap with the bounce was not working for me. I kept playing around and found if I slapped thru the string, I got the sound I was looking for and was better able to keep hitting where I wanted my thumb to land. I kind of thought I was doing it wrong until I saw a Victor Wooten video and he was slapping the strings the way I found naturally. That made all the difference for me. Again the content builds on itself like Mark’s other classes and over the course you put the parts together and it works. Looking forward to cracking open the 2nd Slap course but before I do plan on working the 15 bass lines that are shared in this course to perfection.
Daniele Alessandro Colletti (verified owner) –
Great course to start step by step. Mark’s teaching is simple and very effective.
Pete Kiley (verified owner) –
I finished simple steps to slap bass some time ago, until I found this course I was spinning my wheels trying to learn to slap,it seemed my technique was all wrong.But the way Mark breaks the lessons in small pieces,and couples that with easy to understand and comprehend teaching style i was off and running and am now almost halfway through vol 2
Elkmar Winter (verified owner) –
Although I already play bass guitar since a lot of years I never really learned to slap. Doing this course showed me how to dive into it by a comprehensive step by step approach. It took me some time to develop the patience to really focus on the essentials but in the end I made my way and I am really happy having invested the time.
Marc is a master in explaining. Thank you so much!
Vincent Lee –
I am new to slap bass, and it seem after the first few lesson of practicing with the video. I am able to get the percussive sound now, I think is the step by step technique from Mark does help me a lot. The exercises can be boring but going through them everyday, I can see the difference in my playing, Thanks Mark
Joseph Jonas (verified owner) –
I struggled for years to learn slap bass without success. This course was the key. The results are amazing. It goes far beyond anything you can find by searching the Internet for “how to play slap bass”.
If you already have a good foundation on the basic slap/pop technique and your progress has stalled, this course will definitely lift you out of your rut. It contains dozens of points on the finer details of advanced slap technique.
Claudio Eluchans (verified owner) –
This course is wonderful! So accurately built up in a simple and clear path and so challenging in mastering every single step… A real adventure and satisfaction in realizing that you have REALLY began to SLAP! ✨
Brandon Gallagher (verified owner) –
Absolutely outstanding! Mark is a top-notch teacher and breaks down slap bass into very simple steps and helps you build a solid foundation in the technique with this course. Highly recommend! Thank you Mark!
Nick Lindley (verified owner) –
This course is great for anyone wanting to learn slapping from the beginning, or enhance their existing skills. I found the hints and tips that Mark gives during the lessons were so helpful in assisting me to hone my slap technique. As a result I am also a lot more relaxed when I play slap these days!
Robert Zasio (verified owner) –
Absolutely loved this course. I’m a big fan of players like Victor Wooten and Les Claypool, and this continuation into the slap style was incredibly enjoyable and fulfilling. This course will take some time. Be sure to start each lesson slow and dial up the speed only when you can play relaxed. It helped me to realize that if a riff sounds good at full tempo, it should still feel good at half tempo, and that made playing things slowing more emphatic and enjoyable. I occasionally go back and review the stuff in this lesson as one pass through is still far from mastery.
Robert Zasio (verified owner) –
This one is a bit tricky for me to review. I had already been playing for several years and knew how to slap, but I wanted to develop my technique further and wasn’t sure if I should start with volume 1 or 2. Everything in volume 1 ended up being review for me, but it was still good to go through, and for those just starting out with slap it’s important to start slow.
Liam Goethals (verified owner) –
Slappa da BASS
Gary Riso –
Great fundamentals course. Being primarily a rock player who occasionally plays around with slap licks, this course has me on track to learn the proper technique for slapping. Whether I use it or not, I can see where I’ll understand it better.
Isaac Yee –
I loved the step by step approach that Mark uses to teach Slap Bass. It was something that I tried learning from various youtube videos but could never really get a hang of it. This pace of this lesson and the practices kept me motivated and interested throughout. While the exercises were simple, my slapping and popping gradually sounded better and better and became effortless. I found that suddenly my right hand could slap and pop the right strings at the right time without my consciousness. I would recommend this to anyone wanting to learn slap bass. Looking forward to starting on Volume 2!
Elkmar Winter (verified owner) –
Great course and a decent step by step approach to slap bass playing.
It is recommendable for both, newcomer and also to redefine everything you know already.
Thumbs up and action!
Claudio Eluchans (verified owner) –
Following this very accurate guided path through the basics of Slap, paying attention and focusing each time on every little exercise and details, allowed me both to practice, have fun and clean up the technique a lot… So much that I surprised myself on how clean and melodic I can sound beating hard a bass! 😜
Great work!
Frank Paul –
This is a really great course, and Mark has done a superlative job designing and delivering it, for a number of reasons I can think of: 1) For beginners, even people picking up their very first instrument without necessarily possessing oodles of reading skills, the content is totally accessible, and Mark explains every last detail of every aspect of the technique cleary understood; 2) Conversely, for more experienced players (and I would include myself in that category) who feel a need to “get back to the basics” in terms of foundational technique, this is a truly great resource – I found myself correcting a bunch of bad habits I had picked up along the way (such as “choking” aka muting, which I had always done less efficiently); 3) The course beautifully reflects the concept of progressive learning, i.e. you master one simple skill, get that under your fingers, then move on to the next which builds upon it, and in no time you would have to realize you have gained a lot of technique – without feeling inundated or intimidated; 4) Unlike the old days, where you might have a book only, or maybe book + CD if you were lucky, the multi-modal format of how these lessons is really great, combining a good balance of notation, video presentation, audio clips, etc. I find that watching Mark’s video segments feels as close as I can get to having a live, one-on-one lesson with a teacher in the same room as me. All in all, I would strongly recommend this course to anyone branching out into slap technique, regardless of prior experience level with bass playing in general. I can’t wait to see what goodies await in level 2 of this course!
Elkmar Winter (verified owner) –
I have never really managed to play slap bass lines cool. Coming across this course I started from scratch once again and it works out quite well. So, there is a clear “thumbs up” from me.
Antti (verified owner) –
I used to play bass in several metal bands back in the days (20+ years ago). After years of not too much of activity I wanted to start playing again more seriously, and to learn new skills along the way. Slapping was one thing I never really mastered so it was about time to dig in deeper. I was looking for a course and bumped into Mark’s YouTube channel. His style of teaching hit me right away so I decided to try the course out. And I have to say I like every second of it. I’ve just finished Volume 1 and will continue to Volume 2 next while frequently coming back to the slap riff exercises from Volume 1 to hone my new skills.
Celia B (verified owner) –
Now I’ve completed the first volume of the Slap Bass course, I wanted to do a review to encourage people to get the course, because it has been really great. Most of the lessons are short (less than 30 mins) so I was able to work through at least one on each day I practised. I prefered to practice along with the videos because as well as teaching you how to do the technique, Mark coaches you through the exercises and you can play along with him, building up speed till you can play along with the drum track. Most of the time I couldn’t keep up when Mark played with the drum track but I can easily go back to lessons and keep practising until I get there. I started as a complete beginner and I had to go through some pain (in my fingers and ears) and persevere when I felt like giving up because I just wasn’t getting it and it didn’t sound like it was supposed to. But Mark has an encouraging style of teaching and I’m glad I kept going with it because I have made a lot of progress in the end. Another thing I like about this course is the teaching on 16th note rhythms which is useful for learning other styles and techniques, for example fingerstyle and plectrum, as well as slap. A lot of the exercises are written out underneath the video in music notation and tablature, which is useful if you’re able to read music (or learning how to).
Marcel van Maasdam (verified owner) –
This course is truly a must for developing slap bass style, playing it the right way from the start. I really like the way that next to the techniques, the typicall slap bass rhytms are getting explained so clearly, with an immediate application in practical use. Fantastic. This helps me a lot in playing those funky baselines I love to play so much. And play that funky music right! Now that i have the various techniques and rhytms ‘under my thumb”, it is much more easier to pick up those lines and, as a bonus, I already notice a much more accurate timing as well. Thanks Mark! On to level 2 for me! And who knows, maybe level 42 is in reach after all, and sooner then I first imagined.
Robert Shackleton (verified owner) –
As a complete beginner to the slap style I really needed “simple steps”, and this course fitted the bill for me perfectly. Mark starts right at the beginning and beaks it down into well explained easy to follow stages, which gradually build up good technique from a solid foundation. Having worked my way steadily through the course I’m pleased with the cool stuff I can now play. Thoroughly enjoyed the learning process. Now on to Volume 2.
Celia B (verified owner) –
The TalkingBass Slap Bass course is without doubt the best course I have come across for learning this technique (I speak as a member of several other bass learning sites). The lessons provide a detailed explanation of technique in easy to manage steps with practice exercises and backing tracks. I know that I’ve made progress with this course because I’m on my 3rd time going through it and I can see myself that I’m getting better and developing muscle memory for the techniques – if I ever use material from other sites, I notice that I’m playing as Mark has taught and other teachers have left out important details which Mark provides. I love Mark’s teaching style and I’m never bored repeating lessons, instead I get more out of it and I notice things I missed before, so I’m gradually building up expertise. I’m really very happy with this course and can’t recommend it highly enough.
Brad Fischer (verified owner) –
Really glad I made the investment. Self paced course so you can go back and review the videos as required. Mark does a great job of breaking down each of the techniques presented in each course. It’s been great in help retrain my fingers and correcting many years of fully ingrained bad habits.
Tobias Thomas (verified owner) –
Having started as a guitar player as a kid and then playing bass for some years in a rock band I never got in touch with slapping. I do like the sound of slapping and tried a little myself. Since I like Mark’s youtube video’s a lot I decided to try Mark’s slapping course.
This really helped! It is a step by step guide and new things are introduced one at a time in simple steps. I particularly enjoy the “5 xxx riffs” lessons. The given riffs help to practice what was just learned in the previous lessons and sound really great. So it is fun to practice them over and over again – and in the end that’s the only way to learn new stuff.
The course also helps to get interesting 16th rhythms under your fingers.
So far I finished course 1 and am at the beginning of course 2 and still exited.
Thanks Mark!
Ulrich (verified owner) –
You feel and here a little progress with each lesson. After working through the course it’s a big progress.
Mick –
This is a great course to get you started playing slap without all of those bad habits that you pick up from less accomplished players. Mark delivers the information clearly and concisely, guaranteed that you’ll make excellent progress using the TalkingBass library.
Mick –
I find Mark to be one of the best online instructors. Lessons are always clear, concise and easy to follow. The lesson on slap bass is excellent value for money and you get to learn the technique properly without picking up bad habits as you would from less accomplished players.
Bassically (I know it’s not spelt right) you can’t go wrong with TalkingBass lessons.
Oliver Letz (verified owner) –
I had only the most basic idea of slap technique before I started to study Mark’s Slap Bass Course. The most significant thing for me was the clear break-down of all relevant parts of slapping technique with with great demonstrations and perfectly designed practical exercises to master each technique. It took me a couple of months to complete both courses (minus the double thumbing, which is almost impossible to do on my short scale basses with tight string spacing). I re-visit the more advanced exercises frequently to get more and more relaxed and confident in my slapping. I can recommend this program to anyone who wants a deep-dive into slapping bass technique.
Maksymilian –
Hi!
About a year ago, I decided that I am fed up with looking at awesome slap bass videos on youtube and feeling nothing but jealousy. I wanted to sound like that too, but I had no idea what path to take in order to get to my goal. I could do some basic slapping and popping octaves, so I decided to skip volume 1 of this course.
And now I see, that 90% of the amazing slap bass lines that I wanted to play, can be quite easy! Mostly, they are combinations of simple patterns, and when I build the muscle memory for them – they are not difficult to put together. And this course really thoroughly goes through each and every step of learning these patterns, from first simple hammer-ons, to fast double thumb and palm slap sextupletts. Every few lessons, there are a few fun riffs to learn, which make use of more and more of what I learned. This gave me a lot of satisfaction, because I could see the level of difficulty of the riffs I played go up, and I sounded better and better.
Personally, I dont always have a lot of free time during the day (studies, work..), so most of the time I have been going through the course at a pace of about 1 lesson a week (lets say 20-30 min each day). That said, if you have more time, or just a habit of practicing more often, I believe you should be able to complete the course much faster and take your slapping to the next level in no time.
opportunities for improvement: I think a cool addition would be to see some more “real life examples” of when the patterns I practice appear in songs (for example: you can hear such hammer ons in song X by Y) – this would give me even more inspiration for expanding the amount of songs that I can play.
Overall, if you want to learn how to slap fast and sound good – search no further.
Maksymilian B
Richard White Sr –
Hello everyone! I have been playing bass for many years but I recently decided to learn how to play slap and pop style! I have always loved funk and I actually played in a DC go – go band many years ago, although I did very little slapping. So once I decided to learn I went online and after trying many different sites I found TalkingBass.net!!! I spent a few months on the free lessons alone and my skill level went up so fast! But I must say that I really followed Mark’s advice and took it slow. I can’t tell you how many hours I spent just working on my rest stroke slap! And learning to stay in the “home position” was a huge help! So I finally bought the slap bass lesson pack and I can tell you that it was money well spent! I kind of breezed through the first half and after about halfway through the second half I saw that I had rushed myself and needed to start over. And that’s where I’m at now, going through the basics and really taking my time. Mark’s style of teaching makes it easy to follow and he doesn’t push you to do everything “his” way , he tells you to find what works best for you – on some of the things. Some of the fundamentals are just that and there’s only one way to play them correctly. So,I can’t recommend TalkingBass enough!!! If you’re a beginner,or an advanced bass player – you can benefit greatly from Mark and TalkingBass!!!
diego sangiorgi (verified owner) –
The course is very clear and offers a step by step developing of the technique.
Mark is an astonishing teacher who provide tons of useful exercises and very well explained.
Thank you very much Mark!