Riffs and Runs

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okay tonite is one of those nites that makes me so glad basscrawler exists, during an episode of family guy, peter picks up a guitar and begins to play rock lobster. oh yeah i thought, that's a cool riff, i forgot about that song. so i pull up www.basscrawler.org type in rock lobster and then bam theres the tabs, 3 clicks and im looking at the tabs.
so i pick up my bass and start to learn it, right off i notice something, it feels weird trying to play this, it even took a few times to finally get it right. which is surprising since this riff looks real straightforward on paper. then it hit me, in a since i was moving backwards than i was used to, instead of going from say the 5th fret to the 7th, i was going going backwards say 5th to the 3rd.
which to me said i had been real narrow minded lately in my playing, if going one way or the other on the neck during a riff seems harder than another, you are obviously not working on it enough.
so while knowing this riff will do all the normal stuff playing riffs in this column will do, it's added benefit is to open up the rest of the fretboard, which will double the options you will have when playing....

G|---------------2-1-------|
D|----0-1-0----------------|
A|--3---------3------------|
E|-------------------------|


bonus lessons:
1. first learn and play it with a pick until it feels natural and you have it down
2. now play the riff with your index and middle fingers until it feels natural and you have it down.
3. now slap each note of the riff with your thumb, taking care to only hit the string containing the note you are playing and not nicking the open string above or below it,until it feels natural and you can play it cleanly.
4. now we put it all together, but now just slapping some notes and playing the others with your fingers, i wont give any examples as to not influence you, so be creative and try all sorts of combinations.

now take the way you came up to play the riff in #4, and listen to how it sounds when you play. pick up your pick and try to duplicate the sound using the pick. a quick upstroke on a string can make a really passable snap, as can a passable slap be made as well, experiment and see...