The Joy of Slap
Steely Dan didn’t want slapping on “Peg.” In 1976 and ‘77, when the jazz-rock group was making Aja, its classic sixth album, disco’s dominance of the pop charts was at its peak, and slap bass was everywhere. You know the sound, even if you don’t know how it’s made: metallic, percussive, throaty, maybe a little seductive if you have a taste for mutton chops and velour, like the croak of a robotic toad sitting at a cocktail lounge in mating season. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, Steely Dan’s exacting masterminds, didn’t want to follow the fad. Chuck Rainey had other ideas.
Rainey, a session musician whose work on records by the Dan, Aretha Franklin, and a laundry list of jazz greats earns him a spot in the bass pantheon, felt strongly that the disco-tinged “Peg” would benefit from slapping. After a few takes, he set up a partition in front of him, turned the neck of his instrument away from the view of his famously particular studio-rat employers, and slapped his heart out on the song’s chorus. The line he played is technically dazzling, but sly enough to go unnoticed at first: emphasizing the edges of the band’s existing groove, popping out to assert itself only occasionally. At the end of the chorus, Rainey allows himself a single moment of more indulgent showmanship, sliding up the fretboard away from the root of the chord and quickly back down, then getting back to business. Fagen and Becker were sold.
I kept this story in mind as a sort of parable when I began learning to slap a few months ago. I’ve played bass guitar for nearly 20 years, toured extensively, and contributed to some records I’m very proud of, but until recently I viewed slapping as a mysterious dark art. It doesn’t often lend itself to the indie and psychedelic rock contexts in which I usually find myself, and I lacked the interest or motivation to learn to slap for slapping’s sake. Truthfully, I’m sure I believed on some level that I wouldn’t be able to. I’d seen enough footage of slap virtuosos like Victor Wooten and Marcus Miller to know that their techniques, at least, were far beyond the reach of my own, which I might describe as “functional” if I were inclined to self-flattery. That all changed when some friends and I decided to perform a couple of Steely Dan tribute shows around Halloween. “Peg” was on the set list.
I won’t bore you with the technical details of slapping, except to say that it requires a fundamental shift in the way you approach the instrument with your right hand (or your left, for lefties). I’m used to using my first two fingers as the drivers of my playing; with slapping, your thumb is in charge. This reorientation may have been another reason for my avoidance: It’s no fun to feel like a beginner at something you previously thought you could do pretty well. Years ago, at the same venue where I ended up playing one of these Steely Dan shows, I was in a bowling league. At first, I rolled gutter ball after gutter ball, but over time, I got to the point where I could mostly avoid embarrassing myself, and sometimes bowl a pretty good 10 frames. Eventually, to continue improving, I would have needed to learn to put spin on the ball, which seemed like starting from scratch. I have a terror of embarrassment, which can keep me from trying new things. I didn’t want to face it down again, so my game plateaued.
I was determined that slapping would be different. I got deep into the music of Larry Graham, the Sly and the Family stone bassist who’s generally credited with inventing the technique, hoping a bit of his outsized mojo would rub off on me. I watched YouTube tutorials, trying not to cringe at the nerdy enthusiasm of their hosts. And I practiced, and practiced, and practiced, stealing hours away from pressing practical endeavors in favor of this esoteric new pursuit. My roommates, those filthy liars, didn’t complain when my clumsy woodshedding gave our apartment the vibe of a Seinfeld set from hell for weeks on end, and even offered a “sounds great in there!” or two. I knew better. In this case, fear of embarrassment was a motivator: I was desperate not to get onstage, or even into rehearsal with my friends, and sound like I didn’t know what I was doing. With time, I re-learned a lesson I’ve encountered before in my life but never seem to absorb in a lasting way: If you can swallow your pride, admit your inexperience, and work hard at something, at some point, you’ll get better. It should be obvious, but it hits me like a revelation every time.
Bass is traditionally a support rather than a lead instrument: Your job is to hold the chords together from the bottom and help the drummer move the rhythm forward, not to steal the show. For plenty of listeners, if you removed the bass track from their favorite song, they might only have the vague sense that something is missing, without being able to put their finger on what. It’s sort of a stereotype among musicians that we bassists are temperamentally mellow and averse to the center of attention, with smaller and sturdier egos than guitarists or lead singers, which I think is only half true. If we’re good at playing the strong silent type, it’s only because we’ve learned how to quell the cries of our frustrated inner divas. I think that’s part of why some bassists are so slap-happy, and why it can strike listeners as off-putting or unintentionally funny. For the bassist, a slap part is a rare chance to strut your stuff with a sound that jumps out of the instrument’s usual deep pocket, its bright resonances reaching right up next to the guitar or piano or rather than sitting beneath them. For the listener, unrestrained slapping is a classic case of bathos: you think you’re in your glory, and all we hear is a bunch of croaking.
Which brings me back to Chuck Rainey. Part of what’s so great about his playing on “Peg” is that he doesn’t sound eager to show you what he can do, though the lines are quite challenging. His bravado and personality never get in the way of his support for the song; in fact, they make the song better. When I learned to play “Peg,” I found that the most difficult part wasn’t getting the notes in the right places, but easing into the relaxed feel, making it sound like a nonchalant stroll across the dancefloor rather than a desperate high-wire act. It occurred to me that Rainey offered an ideal to which anyone could aspire, bassist or not. Pitch in for endeavors greater than yourself, without making yourself smaller in the process. Remember that making it look easy is cooler than making it look hard. Remain open to the world’s currents; don’t get so jaded that you can’t recognize when a trend has something legitimate to offer you. Approach your work with as much panache as you can muster, even when it seems like no one’s paying attention. And when the time comes: slap, damnit, whether the guys standing over your shoulder want you to or not.
Originally Appeared on GQ
