Customer Reviews

Slap Bass: The Ultimate Guide

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
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Ed Friedlin is a monthly writer for bass player magazine. He covers in an excellent way how to slap, pop, mute, develop a groove, how to play with drum machines, ghost notes, and does some licks in larry graham, louis johnson, and marcus miller style and it is laid out in a very good manner. very good instructional video.

This DVD cleared up alot of problems I was having trying to learn this style. After viewing this DVD many times, I feel I have a solid foundation in which to build on. I am by no means a super slap funk player, but I do have mucho more confidence going into grooves that require this style as a result of studying this DVD. I highly recommend it.

If all instruction material was as solid as this, I would have 50-100 books/DVDs in all (for bass, guitar, mandolin), not a 1000 or more.

There is enough easily usable information here to build your technique from scratch to as serviceable as any normal contemporary bass player's slap technique needs to be in typical playing situations. Only if you play in a solo or a bass-dominant musical context, would you need anything more.

Of course, once you fall in love with the possibilities of playing slap & pop (and tap etc.), you WILL need more. At that point you should get Stuart Clayton's ULTIMATE SLAP BASS, which actually is as complete a guide on any style on any instrument ever written (I otter know, coz I've invested more money in instruction material than any other human). Still, Clayton's book might be overwhelming because of its thoroughness; Ed's DVD has the essentials and intermediate stuff, but there's a load of them in here and the booklet is generous by DVD standards.

The only 3rd slap instruction you will perhaps need is the Hal Leonard book FUNK BASS by Chris Kringel as that gives you some real famous songs to learn. Of course, you can later progress to Victor Wooten's and Primus's transcriptions. In any case, for less than 20 buckaroos, this DVD provides the maximum wham for the whampum!

Not considered: Double thumbing, chord playing, and strumming. Of course, no tapping either; although in performance at a high level, tapping is often interspersed into slap technique.

i really haven't seen any other instructional bass video, so i don't have anything to compare it to. that said, i would say it's a good video for beginners. i think it covers all the basics for slap, and even goes into to some advanced stuff as well. he also gives good licks and exercises and goes over slap, pop, dead notes, and other stuff i can't think of. he also goes into getting a good sound for slap, and some funk history. the one drawback, is i would say he's not the best speaker, so sometimes you can tell he's not sure how to explain something, but overall he does a good job.

It is useful for beginners. It is not intended for experienced players, but I think it describes the basic techniques for beginers very well. Do not expect it will rocet your slap playing, but if you are just starting, it will give you very solid basic knowledge.

I am a good bass player. Primarily rock, but play a little bit of other styles. I bought this just as a tune up, mostly because I had a coupon and couldnt find another use for it.

This DVD is excellent. It starts out VERY simple. It may be boring for many at first, it was for me at first, but it gets better quickly. Ed Freidland gives excellent, easily understood instructions. I enjoy his style of instruction.

If you start in the beginning, actually do the drills & only move on after you 'master' the section, you will truely gain a lot from this DVD. Even an experienced bass player, like me, enjoyed it. Sure, the early parts were easy & relatively boring, but I breezed through them quickly. You will see that some of these skills & drills are much harder than you think if you force yourself to master them before moving on.

Overall, it took me about 3 weeks to work through this DVD this way. Most of which was the last few sections, they are much harder than they seem. I knew how to play "slap bass" prior to this DVD, but using this DVD properly truely made an improvement on my skill.

This is 1 item I can truely recomend to anyone who plays bass. I enjoyed it.

This DVD is great for learning funk/slap base. I just plug some headphones into my amp, put the DVD in my computer, and I can practice all the base lines without disturbing my roommates. Ed Friedland is a very well spoken and patient teacher. In the excercises he first plays them and then plays them again at half or quarter-speed so you can catch on. I'm having a blast learning some of these techniques. The DVD is very easy to navigate. My only gripe would be that he only plays grooves that are kind of old-sounding funk lines, which is fine, but it would be nice if he strayed a little from the formulaic stuff. It's realy not much of a gripe though. Love the DVD.

If you wan't to quickly improve your slap technique, this is for you!

This DVD will help you master basic techniques like slapping and popping as well as more advanced techniques like left hand slap and other cool funk techniques.

The DVD is well done, easy of use, you can jump from exercise to exercise quickly and follow the ''teacher'' with your booklet.

This is truly a great buy for anyone who wants to improve his slap bass techniques.

I found this video to be very helpful. I wish it had gone further but it takes the slap beginer through the steps to get started.

Ed Friedland is one of those rare musicians who can both play and teach. Of my collection of instructional videos for bass and other instruments, this is among my top picks (I also own Ed's excellent DVD for stand-up acoustic bass). The content is logically organized and progresses to more complex riffs. Each technique is demonstrated and then the movement is slowed down and analyzed so the viewer can duplicate the line.

Before buying a teaching video, I first check out a sample clip on youtube.com if it's available. In this case, I found the content appropriate for intermediate musicians. The presentation moves at a lively pace and Ed offers solid information and many valuable tips gained from his years of experience as a performer and recording artist.

After a few hours of practice, I became quite comfortable with many of the slap and pop techniques presented in this video. Some of the more complex moves will take additional time to master. This is the kind of "stretch" I hope for in a teaching video... but rarely get. If you're serious about learning slap bass technique, this DVD is highly recommended.