How to Play Rockabilly on an Upright Bass

Rockabilly is a combination of rock and country music (also known as "hillbilly" music at the time) that developed in the early 1950s, primarily in the southern United States. This musical genre is played with a small number of instruments, typically just a steel guitar, drums and upright bass. The following steps will show how to play rockabilly on an upright bass.

Instructions

Difficulty: Challenging

1. Pluck the strings with a simple sideways motion at first. Upright bass players should practice this technique first as it is the easiest method of playing. This technique produces a clean sound with no more than moderate volume.
2. Start with a boogie line. This is a blues accompaniment with a simple rhythm, usually in 4/4 time. One of the most basic boogie lines would be a series of eighth notes played one at a time as follows: 0, 0, 4, 4, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10 and back down again. In this example, the number given is the number of half-steps above the root note.
3. Use a specific key for the progression given in Step 1. For example, in the key of G you have single eighth notes as follows: G, G, B, B, D, D, E, E, F, F. Infinite variations on this basic line are possible, of course.
4. Play a boogie line by reaching under the strings and pulling them directly away from the fingerboard hard enough to strike (slap) the fingerboard. This is called slapping the bass and produces the loud, percussive sound that is characteristic of rockabilly bass.
5. Add slapping to dance tunes to keep the beat. Slapping was first developed before microphones were used as a way of increasing the volume and providing additional percussion to the music.