Dirk Lance with Willie's Nerve Clinic - New Tune!

Yo! I've just found out that Dirk Lance (Incubus founding member and all round bass legend) has formed a new group call Willie's Nerve Clinic. This self described "jazz/funk/prog" band have made a couple of songs from their upcoming album, Vampire Kiss, available for free download!

Here's my video I've just uploaded of me jamming over this awesome slap bass line, transcription of the main riffs from the tune are available to download from my transcriptions page.

Double Thumbing Dojo

A student of mine recently asked for some help with double thumbing and as this is a pretty major point of interest across bassists I thought I'd post my lesson up here! This isn't an area I've spent a lot of time working on but I've gotten the foundations down pretty well.

If you're new to double thumbing then I'd say start here with these basic exercises which are designed to make sure you've got the basic technique down. Practice these as slowly as you can bare and if you're not getting a good clean tone on the down AND the up stroke then stick with it before you move onto anything quicker.

Double Thumb Exercise 1

Double Thumb Exercise 2

The two grooves I've written are based around constant 16th note patterns which need you to keep your thumb going while using your left hand to mute the beats being played as dead notes.

Tab and notation for the bass grooves.