Rockabilly slap bass playing with Lee Rocker
I think that Lee Rocker is a real trip. I’m not sure how much useful information is actually conveyed in this video, and I hope that bass students don’t imitate his wacky left hand technique, but I still get a kick out of this. This video actually reminds me quite a bit of those VHS teacher/performer instructional videos from the 1980′s–it seemed like everybody and their dog had a “how-to” video back then.
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23 May 2007, 11:14 pm
Lee’s left hand technique isn’t quite a wacky as one would assume at first. In the highly-amplified surrounding of a Rockabilly band, you need a decent muting technique, for the E string in particular, and that accounts for this rather un-Simandlish approach. There’s a great series of five short clips on YouTube, explaining most of the basic skills necessary for learning the Rockabilly slap technique. It’s called, for obvious reasons, “How to slap that bass”. The kid who plays there (Scott Hinds is his name, I believe) is quite amazing! Anyway, it’s great to have all those videos out there, a big help for everybody interested in that style – in many respects they are more useful and efficient than sheet music or audio samples.