Michael - Before this disappears, just to say thank you for it.
Re Pulls, in Winslow's book it's as you describe but he adds a glottal stop straight after so the whole package is more percussive. What do you think?
Re Reverses (sneeze slaps!) is the idea to add a ghost note before the note? When I've heard that I thought it might be adding a quick 't' using the same breath direction. Is that a similar thing. Do you have any examples of records with sneeze slaps in?
To be completely honest, I am not sure what you or Winslow mean by glottal stop, so I cannot speak to that. I am embarrassed to say I am smart about certain things and clueless about others.
When you say a quick T, you mean a normal slap, chord then note in one breath, but starting the chord with a T? That is a new idea to me and I like that, so thanks for that even if it is not what you intended.
Little Walter's Everythings Gonna Be Alright has a reverse slap on 4 blow on the downbeat of the 4 on both bars 7 and 11, at least to my ears. I know that because I teach that song. But I hear reverse slaps all of the time and certainly use them a lot in my own playing.
Being from London, glottal stops are as mother's milk! I wonder if they are used much in US accents?
What I meant was a T-articulation (or thinking about it, not so different from a pull as you now describe it, something percussive anyway, but in the same breath direction) then the a normal slap (chord then single note).
If I've got this right (?), I think your reverse slaps and the initial T thing are both ways of getting that ghost note, with different flavours. I remember in a lesson with Ronnie Shellist noticing that he often added a ghost note like that, and he said it's something he just did. I didn't think I'd seen it described anywhere explicitly - but yes had heard it all the time.
A quick read of Wikipedia indicates it's all more complicated than just glottal stops. Well of course. So the 't' sound is a 'voiceless alveolar stop' apparently. Out of my depth, someone will be an expert I expect. Anyway, a 't' sound.
