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A doghouse is the nickname for an upright bass, a.k.a. URB, stringbass, tenorviolin or bullfiddle. Slappin' doghouse bass is a technique that's mostly used in roots or folkstyles of playing. The player pulls the strings and litterally let them slap back on the fingerboard. This is what we call a single slap. The player could also manually slap the strings once or twice after the pull which will give a double or triple slap effect. It sounds rather violent but it's not. This style of playin' originates from the days that not many bands or music groups had percussion let alone a drummer. The slap technique allowed the bass player to add a rhythmic feature to the overall sound. The technique probably also evolved from "loud pizzicato playing" in situations where a single upright bass had to keep up volume wise with e.g. pretty loud brass sections. Pulling the strings was the only way of getting a loud and pronounced bass tone, the slap came in for free ;-) | ||
| Many examples of slap bass can be heard in popular
tunes of e.g. Bill Haley, Buddy Holly and it were the Straycats that made
the slappin' doghouse bass famous back in the 80's. Recent examples of
slap bass playing can be heard on recordings of The Hillbilly Hellcats
(our VIP member Lance doing some amazing slapwork!), Reverend Horton Heat
(Jimbo is sooooo cool!), Brian Setzer Orchestra (Mr. Mark Winchester) or
Lee Rocker's (ex Straycats) Atomic Boogie Hour band. A slappin' bass
sounds a bit like drum stick hittin' woodblock (many people in the
audience actually that's what it is) but it's waaaay better, faster and
more addicting. Slappin' Doghouse bass really rulez, find out for
yourself! I will be publishing more info about slap techniques on these
pages in future. If you want to see me, the webmaster in action, here's a
few video's from a gig of Bugaboo
Tang in O13 (supporting act of The Paladins) 24 June 2004 where I was
hired as a stand-in upright bass player because their regular slapper
Jacco had a gig with his other band.
Click the titles on the right to see me in action! >>> |
PeeVee
with Bugaboo Tang: Caldonia |
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With my "pals" David Gonzalez & Thomas Yearsly, you're the BEST
guys!!