Could someone please explain for me Prince's funk/slap technique. He implies notes and rhythm, I think by sort of hitting dead notes. Listen to Lady Cab Driver, Let's Work, I Feel for U and others to get my meaning. It's a rhythmic slap style that's almost percussive more than note-driven. That's not new for slapping, I know, but something's different about Prince's early bass style that I haven't quite figured out.

thanks...

What i found so far is this following description on bassplayer.com, although it's not specific about bass-slapping :

Prince’s Irreverent Riffing

By Jude Gold...

"By virtue of his name alone, it’s clear that Prince does pretty much whatever he wants whenever he wants to do it. (Would you have the audacity to sport a one-word term of royalty and entitlement—and later an unpronounceable symbol—as your moniker?) Luckily, this modus operandi makes for great guitar playing, as Prince proves every time he picks up a 6-string. “Computer Blue,” from 1982’s Purple Rain, features a perfect example of such fretboard irreverence when it finds Prince suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, bursting into a screaming repeated line similar to the C minor phrase presented in the first bar here. With thick distortion and a few chromatic passing notes thrown in for extra gravy, the looped riff rolls into your airspace like a tsunami. Then, inexplicably, Prince transposes the riff to an entirely unrelated key—just as this riff does by shifting up a tritone in the second system—for no other reason than because it just sounds cool."

www.guitarplayer.com/arti...p-07/31078
[Edited 3/17/09 22:48pm]

Funk music bass lines as most people know it came from Larry Graham.

He is credited with the invention of the slapping technique, which radically expanded the tonal palette of the bass, although he himself refers to the technique as "Thumpin' and Pluckin'."

On bass guitar, "slap bass" usually refers to a percussive playing technique most commonly used in funk, Latin, and pop. The style sounds much more percussive than regular fingering of notes with the plucking (right) hand, and is also usually louder and more distinct than the sound of a bass guitar played with the usual plucking techniques. The slap sound comes from the combination of two elements: striking the string with the side of the bony joint in the middle of the thumb, a harder surface than the pads of the fingers (used in plucked fingering); and intentionally allowing the vibrating string to come into contact with the metal frets, producing a "tony" or buzzing sound that is normally avoided in plucked/fingered bass.

In the slap technique, the bassist replaces the usual plucking motion of the index and middle fingers with "slaps" and "pops". In the slap, the bassist uses the bone of the thumb joint to strike the lower strings (usually the E and A, and occasionally D, strings) near the base of the guitar's neck. In the pop, the bassist will use the index and middle fingers of the plucking hand to snap the higher-pitched strings away from the body of the bass, causing them to bounce off the fretboard; this produces a prominent buzzing tone with a sharp attack and more high-frequency vibrations than present in plucked bass.

The bassist can play many notes quickly by rotating the forearm, alternately slapping and popping: during the pop, the hand moves away from the fretboard, "winding up" or getting in position for the next slap. The slap and pop techniques are commonly used with pull-offs and hammer-ons with the fretting (left) hand, to further increase the rate at which notes may be played. Ghost notes, or notes played with the string damped, are also commonly played in slap bass to increase the percussive feel of the technique.

Here's Larry beating that thing like it owes him money...

If you liked that here's the man playing the whole thing...

Yup, familiar with slapping. was slapping my bass a few moments ago. But Prince's style is different from Larry's in some respects -- especially his affinity for ghost notes.

best slap song ever

http://www.youtube.com/wa...1IuD6F3R5I

Just go straight to 2.56

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[Edited 3/31/09 1:54am]