Three Finger Technique Video with Steve Lawson

Here's a impromptu video the amazing bassist and all around great guy Steve Lawson made with me backstage at the London Forum after Cannibal's recent gig there. It discusses my three finger picking technique, which is something a lot of people have asked me about. This is only a quick description, but if any of you are interested in learning this technique it might help get you headed in the right direction:

The Discipline of Revenge bass tapping

Over the years, I've done a few tapping parts on the Cannibal Corpse albums. On our most recent release "Kill" there is a bass tapping section at the beginning of the song "The Discipline of Revenge". The tempo is slow (around 95 bpm) but the bass tapping is flying by pretty quickly since the entire part is 32nd notes. It's actually a fairly easy part to play though.

The whole part simply alternates between two notes tapped with the left hand, and two tapped with the right. I think it would be easiest to learn this part four notes at a time. Wait until you're able to play each four note section smoothly before you try playing the whole thing. The left hand notes begin each four note group, followed by the right (if you play bass right-handed; lefties can just reverse this). As usual, practice this slowly, and increase your practice tempos gradually until you can play the part up to speed.

Notice that this is another bass part featuring lots of diminished 5th intervals. If you try figuring out any of our songs, you'll see that that interval is probably in about 90% of our songs. When you're looking for a dark, ominous sound, the diminished 5th (the tritone) is hard to beat.

Live photos from St. Petersburg Russia

Photos from our St. Petersburg gig from our recent trip to Russia have been posted here: http://www.darkside.ru/report/2136/

Also, if you'd like to read a full review of our recent European trip that the Russian gigs were a part of, go to: www.cannibalcorpse.net

Hammer Smashed Face bass intro

If there's one part that people have asked me about the most, it's the bass break in Cannibal's song "Hammer Smashed Face". I'm sure many of you have been able to figure it out on your own, as it's not a particularly difficult part, but I'm posting it here for the benefit of everyone who may have had a little trouble transcribing it.

The part itself is actually just 8 notes repeated 4 times (above it's shown repeating twice). The tempo is around 200 bpm. Like a lot of music, it's easier to play than it might sound at first. Start off slowly, and you'll be "hammering" your bass in no time.

OK, that's it for now. I'm going to try and post some other bass parts people have asked me about in the weeks to come, so stay tuned....

Blotted Science MySpace page up now

Just wanted to get the word out that Blotted Science has a MySpace page up and running:
www.myspace.com/blottedscience

You can hear samples of our upcoming album "The Machinations of Dementia" there, as well as at Ron Jarzombek's website: http://www.ronjarzombek.com/BlottedScienceOnline.html

The whole album will likely be released sometime in September.