FLEA: The way that I
learned how to slap the bass is I started making an octave, like this, and I started playing a rhythm that goes like this. I go - [slappidy slappidy] And, you know, eventually you get faster and faster and
you're... [Fleaing harder] JOSH: A couple really surprising
things about this clip. One, Flea actually owns a shirt. Who knew? And two, he used a
stupidly simple speed drill to be able to play stuff like this. We're gonna deep dive on this drill so you can learn to slap way
faster and more accurately. See how this pattern
is Flea's secret sauce for tons of Chili Peppers songs. And easily use this drill to create your own red hot slap lines. First of all, to nail this drill you need solid slap and pop technique. Take it away, Flea. This is a technique that is
done several different ways, and I have a way that I do it. My Flea way is you strike a
low string with your thumb with the bone that's in the
middle of your thumb right here. And the second half of this
technique is the pulling up. You pop down with your thumb, and then you you pull it up with I use my middle finger right here. I will slap down with my thumb, and then with my middle finger, it will go underneath the D
string and pull up like this. Okay, let me fill in a few gaps here. I teach these techniques in detail in a couple other videos here on YouTube, which I'll link in all the places. But here's a lightning round refresher. So listen fast. Fresh roundwound strings,
low to medium action, tone knob up, rotate your
forearm at the elbow, strike the string with
the side of your thumb, set a finger under a high string, then rotate your forearm back up. Put your finger on your mouse, move it to the subscribe
button, and click. A quick refresher on
why you're doing this. It'll build your speed,
accuracy, and endurance. Put some calluses on your calluses, and you're drilling a pattern used by Flea in real bass lines, which
we'll talk about in a minute. So this drill is a two bar pattern, and the order of slaps and
pops is actually very simple. If you ignore the first note, you can see this is just a repeating
pattern of pop, thumb, thumb, pop, thumb, thumb, pop,
thumb, thumb, et cetera. And then the end of the
pattern is pop thumb, but then the final thumb is
the start of the next two bars. So it's really just one
pattern over and over. Pop, thumb, thumb. And all the notes are octaves, meaning the higher sounding
repeat of the same note name. And you can always find an
octave by going up two strings, and up two frets like this,
or the other direction. Down two strings, and down two frets. So you play through that
twice starting on the open E with the octave E like this. Then you move it up a fret. Wash, rinse, and repeat. And once you get past the open string, you should fret all these
octaves index, pinky. Not index ring, which
some students wanna do, but it wastes energy in this situation. So then you play the pattern
twice from the first fret. Again. Then you go up another
fret, et cetera, et cetera. Flea continues this pattern all
the way up to the 12th fret, and then works his way back down. I'm not gonna play the full
drill with you in this video because it takes forever, and I have somewhere to
be in five hours. [I wish] But there's a Noteflight
link in the description with sheet music and tab. Four things to look out for
as you practice this drill. One, accuracy. Are you hitting the
strings you mean to hit, and only those strings? Two, consistency. Are all the notes ringing out clearly for their full duration, and not getting super choked like this? Number three, one of my
favorites, are you breathing? By halfway through this
exercise, you probably aren't, but you should... so you don't die. And four, have you bought my
Beginner to Badass course? Because if not, that's definitely
where you're going wrong. It'll instantly improve
your technique tenfold, so check it out at BassBuzz.com. Please, please, my basses are starving. This poor little P bass has had a crackle in his electronics for over a year now, and the doctors say he
hasn't got long to live. If you're super new to slap, a good beginning tempo to work towards is 70 beats per minute,
which sounds like this. Then as you gradually work
up in small increments of two or three BPM at a
time, you can set your sights on a more intermediate
target like 140 BPM. Finally aiming for Flea tempo, which in this clip is about 218 BPM. And if you can go faster than that, you get to replace Flea
in the Chili Peppers. Call me up, Kiedis! Like I said, this isn't just
an arbitrary practice pattern. You can find it in lots
of real Flea bass lines. Some of which I cover in my 7 Reasons Flea is
Awesome video here on YouTube. Like the one he plays here
at the end of this drill. Can you name that tune? This is "Get Up And Jump" from 1984's Red Hot Chili Peppers album. So if you ignore the notes and just look at the thumb pop pattern, it's almost exactly what you just learned minus the little hammer
on at the end of the line. There are also lots of
Flea lines where he uses this pop, thumb, thumb pattern, but starting on the
thumb instead of the pop. So it's thumb, thumb, pop. You can hear that in "Dark Necessities." And also in the Chili Peppers'
cover of "Higher Ground." Here are three stupidly simple recipes to create your own basslines or bass solos using this drill. Recipe one, Static Bass - Leave all your slaps on the open E string. That's your static bass. And then you'll move the pops
around a scale of your choice. Let's use the E minor
pentatonic scale here, which I also talk about in
my Geezer Butler NIB video. So here are the notes you have
to choose from in this scale. E, G, A, B, D, or
EeGuhAhBuhDuh, for short. And one simple shape you
could frame them with. Now just play the drill
same rhythm from before, but randomly pick scale
notes for your pops and leave all the slaps
on the open E string. Here's one way that could sound. Recipe two, Moving Octaves. You can actually move the
octaves around the scale as well. So let's grab a lower register of that E minor pentatonic scale, and these are the notes we can use for the lower octave for the slap. And then use the two strings
up two frets up shape to grab the higher
octaves for those notes. And again, using the same
rhythm, same pattern, you could come up with
something like this. Finally, recipe three - Be the Flea. There's an even bigger takeaway here. You can use similar drills to develop your own style of playing. So you're not just a Flea clone. To do this, come up with
your own combination of slaps and pops that
lasts one or two bars and sounds cool to you. I'll just make up this. Still slapping low notes
and popping octaves just like Flea was. Move it around the bass. And drill up your speed. So rather than copying Flea's exact drill, you're copying the mindset
he used to create it. That gives you the power to
create your own speed drills and slap lines that are unique to you.
