How to vary walking I-IV-V???

[FuturePrimitive]

I guess this is the best place for this thread.....

I've just joined a band playing some tunes/styles I've never done before, lots of classic/blues based rock. Specifically I'm talking about the standard 12 bar blues progression, I-IV-V. So I'm new to walking (I have the Building Walking Basslines book) but I have a question for you guys that play a lot of this style. How do you not play the same/similar line to every song. I know my inexperience is a a big part of the problem but what are some
easy ways to vary the bassline so it doesn't sound the same every time?

I've been using 3rds/5ths/oct and to a lesser extent the other notes in the major scale but I end up playing almost exactly the same line every time. It sounds pretty good within any particular song, but it also makes every song sound just like that last one.

[Pacman]

Transcribe - find out what the greats did.

[adammazza]

I'm in the same boat. After doing the 1,5,8 (up and down) do arpeggios with the 7th, major for the I/IV, dominant for the V. I'd suggest also practiicing II,V,I. Practice these ascending and descending over 2 octaves. Next practice the inversions of these. Then you can start playing with approach notes.

I find that practicing this stuff in context is the most important. I generally try and play over real books songs via Band In A Box. Good luck

Adam

[kerryg]

remember that the bass player's perspective is unique to the bass player; it's not always shared by the artist nor by the audience.

When I toured with 50-year blues veteran Sonny Rhodes, it was communicated to me by the musical director in no uncertain terms at the first rehearsal that repeating the exact same quarter note 1-3-5-6 pattern all night long (and most importantly *all the way through each song*) was pretty much the entire gig; on some songs there was room for some daring innovation such as 1-3-5-6-8-6-5-3 but you played that *all the way through the song* without variation. I have a six-string Roscoe, but you better believe I played that gig on a P-bass.

I'm not necessarily saying that's the shape of your own gig, you'll have to use your own judgement - but it's essential to understand that one ceases to be a mere bassist and becomes an actual musician when one grasps the "big picture" - how the part reinforces the song, how it relates to the vision the artist wants to present, and how it works out in front of the speakers.

Mark Egan is a great bassist and I don't think this was intended to be a "slam", but when Pat Metheny left his old rhythm section of Dan Gottlieb and Mark Egan for Paul Wertico and Steve Rodby, he said something that stuck with me for the rest of my life - "Steve's into the bass in a very egoless way". Especially in the blues, only bassists will ever care about how inventive the bass is - everyone else is busy actually listening to the music.

And by the way, Sonny's gig sounded *good*.

[FuturePrimitive]

Originally Posted by kerryg

...in no uncertain terms at the first rehearsal that repeating the exact same quarter note 1-3-5-6 pattern all night long (and most importantly *all the way through each song*) was pretty much the entire gig...

The band I'm in is not at all restrictive, it's just a modern/classic rock cover band. It just so happens that a lot of the songs are blues based 1-4-5. The band has left the bass parts entirely up to me and haven't given me much of any direction in how they want things played. Everybody in the band is extremely nice and we all get along very well considering we've only been together for 2 weeks but they're a little lacking in the feedback department.

Originally Posted by kerryg

....only bassists will ever care about how inventive the bass is - everyone else is busy actually listening to the music.

That's a great quote, and I guess that's probably the best answer I could have gotten too. I've probably been over thinking this too much and I should just play to the song and not worry so much about it.

[Ron Plichta]

Get Ed Friedland's book on developing walking bass lines. I forget the exact title, but it has walking in the title. It will show you how to develop variations.

Some tricks I like to do are chromatic climbs/descents between chord changes or having the root as a higher note than the IV or V and walk down. Ed has a lot more techniques out there.

[gottawalk]

Instead of walking up, try walking after dropping down to the V.

eg; I - (drop down to the)V - flat VII - Maj VII - I. sort of a chromatic return line.

Or do the I - VI - V - VI repetition in each key.

I also give a +1 to

Transcribe - find out what the greats did.

that Pacman suggests. Get a bunch of tunes and practice along with them.

[JKT]

You're getting terrific advice here of all kinds.

+1 to "the big picture"

The chromatic trick is handy also. I do often it by virtue of a I-V interval. ex- shuffle in "G": coming off the V which would be a D I would play a D note and an A note above and repeat that pattern chromatically all the way down until the I comes around. As an alternativeto moving chromatically, I sometimes outline the chord (s) with the I-V pattern. It can make it interesting.

[kerryg]

here's a trick that I discovered late in life, and that has proved to be a guaranteed work-getter and a killer exercise in accuracy and consistency and song structure too - learn the actual bass parts of each song off the record and concentrate on playing them note-for-note (and on nuance of phrasing and tone as well).

Sometimes that's involved me listening to music that I actually really didn't like enough to really listen closely to; usually after doing so enough I've had a bit of an epiphany. My most recent epiphany was really sitting down and listening to the Bob Marley tunes I'd been "in the ballpark"-faking for years (I liked them, I just didn't listen to them *critically* or *analytically* all that much).

Particularly "I Shot The Sherriff", "Stand Up For Your Rights" (wow, that little quasi-quarter-note-triplet-y thing he plays in the verse at the top of every two bar pattern is hard to phrase *exactly right*), "Waiting In Vain", "One Love" and "Exodus". OMG, were my ears red when I realized how beautiful - how perfect, how jewel-like and honed - those bass parts really were, and how lame my "improvements" actually had been all these years.

I used to consider this rather beneath my dignity - I now realize this is an absolutely essential exercise; it's a way of profoundly developing and deepening your musical insight - not a chore, not an unwelcome obligation, but a *golden opportunity* - getting paid to do critical archival listening and transcription.

In thirty years I've never seen a guy fired for playing the parts the original guy laid down on the record. I have on a couple of occasions been *replaced* by that guy...

[bigthemat]

You can also throw in some small variations on the rhythm.

If you don't have Miles' Kind of Blue, get it, and listen listen listen. Pretty much the standard get this album for jazz. Paul Chambers does some beautiful work. Definitely a great place to start.

[fearceol]

Originally Posted by kerryg

remember that the bass player's perspective is unique to the bass player; it's not always shared by the artist nor by the audience.

When I toured with 50-year blues veteran Sonny Rhodes, it was communicated to me by the musical director in no uncertain terms at the first rehearsal that repeating the exact same quarter note 1-3-5-6 pattern all night long (and most importantly *all the way through each song*) was pretty much the entire gig; on some songs there was room for some daring innovation such as 1-3-5-6-8-6-5-3 but you played that *all the way through the song* without variation. I have a six-string Roscoe, but you better believe I played that gig on a P-bass.

I'm not necessarily saying that's the shape of your own gig, you'll have to use your own judgement - but it's essential to understand that one ceases to be a mere bassist and becomes an actual musician when one grasps the "big picture" - how the part reinforces the song, how it relates to the vision the artist wants to present, and how it works out in front of the speakers.

Mark Egan is a great bassist and I don't think this was intended to be a "slam", but when Pat Metheny left his old rhythm section of Dan Gottlieb and Mark Egan for Paul Wertico and Steve Rodby, he said something that stuck with me for the rest of my life - "Steve's into the bass in a very egoless way". Especially in the blues, only bassists will ever care about how inventive the bass is - everyone else is busy actually listening to the music.

And by the way, Sonny's gig sounded *good*.

A very interesting and enlightening post. I am in a blues band and had been thinking the same as the OP i.e.- how do I vary these lines ? My teacher told me "a little is a lot, especially in blues". I was also told that another way to vary things (as mentioned elsewhere here) is to alter the rthym slightly by playing a little more on the upbeat, but still keeping the groove by emphasising the root on the downbeat.

[dlloyd]

Originally Posted by FuturePrimitive

I've just joined a band playing some tunes/styles I've never done before, lots of classic/blues based rock. Specifically I'm talking about the standard 12 bar blues progression, I-IV-V.

What songs are you playing? Are they standards or originals?

In a lot of blues standards, the bassline is as much part of its identity as the lyrics. 'The Thrill Is Gone', for example, wouldn't sound right without the Jerry Jemmot bassline.

[SmittyG]

Originally Posted by kerryg

remember that the bass player's perspective is unique to the bass player; it's not always shared by the artist nor by the audience.

When I toured with 50-year blues veteran Sonny Rhodes, it was communicated to me by the musical director in no uncertain terms at the first rehearsal that repeating the exact same quarter note 1-3-5-6 pattern all night long (and most importantly *all the way through each song*) was pretty much the entire gig; on some songs there was room for some daring innovation such as 1-3-5-6-8-6-5-3 but you played that *all the way through the song* without variation. I have a six-string Roscoe, but you better believe I played that gig on a P-bass.

And by the way, Sonny's gig sounded *good*.

I have the hardest time communicating this with people. I played in a blues bands and hosted jams for years and, being a blues fan for almost all my adult life, I took a very traditional approach to the role of bassist. At the end of a show, several of my musician friends, who claimed to be real blues fans, would ask, "How do you play the same thing over and over for the whole song like that?" And the answer is simple: Because THAT is the job.

I've yet to hear a bass player, trying to play blues, go to "make it more interesting" without dropping the groove. Not a one. It's the blues version of the "jump the shark" concept--the exact moment the bass player ain't feeling he is getting enough attention and does his best "look at me" lick.

[kerryg]

I used to think of different gigs as requiring different levels of attention or "smarts". Somewhere in there the lightning bolt struck me and I "got it" - they all require the same precise amounts of your "attention" and "smarts" whether it's a burning uptempo bebop trio with tons of bass blowing or a country gig. And that amount is always "all of it".

I started out doing jazz many years ago so I'm pretty comfortable jumping into an improvised section or a solo. It doesn't require a lot of thought or planning - if I was on a stage playing country and someone yelled "one bar bass solo!" I'd pull something out without thinking too hard. That's merely because the skillset is about thirty years old, and old oft-repeated skillsets get pretty habitual and seamless; when's the last time you really had to concentrate on driving your car while having a conversation?

But, say, the conscious awareness of deep blues pocket came to me later (this doesn't mean I never found that pocket before, it's just that bringing it into my consciousness and treating it as something I could and should train came later), I have to concentrate harder on the interlocking issues of -

- "feeling" the millimetric consistency of groove

- paying attention to razor-fine nuance in tone that lets you keep your tone consistent throughout a song - at high PA volumes out front you have to work *harder* on consistent tone, not playing seven bars firmly on your front pickup so it's warm and full on the dance floor, and two bars a little harder on your back pickup so the bottom suddenly thins out under the mix, and then the last three in between pickups so the bottom comes back in the PA but now it's "fluffier" and "woofier"

- adding those two together and locking with the kick so the two of you together make a "compound sound"; a "basskik" sound, a sound that starts with a "kick-beater on drumskin" sound mixed with finger and swells within milliseconds into a Bb with a pillowy kickdrum "oomph" and decays in fifty to a hundred milliseconds into a dark warm pitched sustaining bass tone. That's when you start really thinking about why your tone is working differently than the original guy's did on the record, and what you might do to tweak it - touch, settings, strings, action...

There's enough meat there to keep a studious bassist fully occupied for every note for the next couple of years of gigs - and that's *before* we pay the least attention to note choice.

You don't throw notes into that environment willy-nilly, you lay bass notes in like bricks - relying on the uniformity for which each has been chosen, and critically eyeing the alignment of each one lest you inadvertently build a sloppy bulging wall that falls down when the first person leans on it.

So it's not really been about "boring blues lines" for me since my awareness of what I was doing got awakened - the attention is still there, every bit as much as it would be on any hard jazz gig - if anything it's even *more* focused for me because it came later and thus less naturally.

It's just that the magnifier has been turned way up and shifted away from the note content onto the character of the individual note and how it is working with the environment around me, the PA, the kick... It's the best way to avoid boredom too - forget about what notes they are, think of making precise, beautifully formed "bricks" with uniform character and precision.