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Marcus Miller’s “Power” from the M2 Album by Alex Wilkerson
This transcription is of Marcus Miller’s “Power” from the M2 album. This song uses virtually no finger style bass, but rather all slap. The only portions that aren’t slapped are the chords that must be plucked simultaneously with the pointer and middle fingers, along with the thumb (as in the first notes of the song). Take note that any time you find notes faster than 16th notes, such as 32nd or 16th triplets, use Marcus Miller’s famous double thumb slap technique. In this technique you will slap “through” the string with your thumb, and then “pluck” the string when you bring your thumb back up. Doing this will give you a slap sound on the down stroke of the thumb, and another slap sound when you pluck the string with the nail of your thumb on the way back up. So instead of one slap sound per thumb “attack”, you get two; one with the down motion of the thumb, through the string, and one on the motion back up through the string. This technique is crucial in performing this song because some of the fast lines are virtually impossible if approached any other way. Try this double thumb technique on measures: 1, 3, 5-7, and all over section D (measure 45-60). For triple ghost notes as in measure 17, use thumb-left hand-thumb. Your pointer and middle fingers of your left hand will mute the strings while your right hand thumb hits the A string for the first ghost note. Next, your left hand ring and pinky fingers hit the A string while the left hand simultaneously keeps the A string muted with the pointer and middle fingers to make the second ghost note. Then the right hand hits with the thumb again for the final ghost note. This is a great lick to put in your bag of tricks and comes in handy for most songs that call for slap and you don’t even have to run it through all 12 keys (ha, ha). Check out Marcus Miller’s other albums if you haven’t already for some great ideas and licks. Also investigate his discography; you may be surprised on how many great albums on which he’s performed. He’s got a lot of great work out there that contain bountiful lick and ideas so take advantage of it. Hope you enjoy “Power”!
Click on link below to download the transcription
Power_Transcription_-_Marcus_Miller