Walking; variations.

[Oratorio]

Hello amigos!

I've got a question for you all. Recently I've been playing alot of trad. jazz, which I've been enjoying because I get to play walk bass, which I really haven't been doing all that much before. Since I'm new, I tend to stay all the way down on the neck most of the time, and I use alot of open strings (grace notes), even if the chord doesn't call for it. Now, the thing is, after playing through a song I sort of have to play the same thing each time for it to sound okay. If I try to experiment, I mess up and I don't want that. I'm doing alot of these at the same time, so I don't have the time to craft the perfect line, so to speak -- but I would like some variation, and I would love to hear how you all do your variations, so to speak; the second time through the chart, etc.

I really notice that I fall into habits when it comes to the ii-V such as Gm7 and C7 to Fmaj7 -- I usually play:

G - A - Bb - B - C - E - G - F# . . etc.

Do you guys get where I'm going at? I don't want to sound like a broken record, because I don't think it's musical at all. And I think that bass-players especially will notice, but is it common for musicians to "call out" a repetitive walking bass-line?

[DudeistMonk]

I'm real new at walking bass myself but one thing that helped me understand better is that the change in direction doesn't always have to happen on the root note. So you could go

G - A - B - D - C - E - G - F#

I'm sure some of the walking bass gurus will chime in with some sweet advice...btw do a search there are TONS of threads on this topic.

[AlphaMale]

Try playing around with the G minor scale for the Gm7 the C Mixolydian to C7 and F major for Fmaj7. Mix in some passing tones and you got some sick modal jazz bass lines.

Practice All Blues by Miles Davis.


Play on the Mixolydian (Ionian/Major Scale with a Flat seventh) for each chord since they're all major Dominant Seven chords. Just try to avoid the perfect fourths and major seconds.

Try it.



| G7-G7-G7-G7|
| C7-C7-G7-G7|
|D7-Eb7 then D7-C7-G7|

Eb7 and D7 are in the same bar.
Thats

Play G mixolydian four bars then go to C Mixolydian 2 bars G again for two bars, etc.

[Ed Fuqua]

1.Go to the DB side of the board.
2. Go to the MUSIC THEORY forum
3. Look at the locked sticky at the top of the forum called THEORY FORUM FAQ & LINKS
4. Before you start looking through the thread links listed, look at the article BASIC BASS LINE CONSTRUCTION:TARGET APPROACHES
5. look at some of the discussions in the linked threads.
6. Buy my book.

[JTE]

Originally Posted by AlphaMale

Try playing around with the G minor scale for the Gm7 the C Mixolydian to C7 and F major for Fmaj7.

Hmmm... lessee now. G minor (which G minor? Safe to assume G natural minor?)- That's G A Bb C D Eb F- or do you mean G Dorian ( G A Bb C D E F)?

C Mixolydian is C D E F G A Bb

F Major is F G A Bb C D E

And G Dorian being the exact same notes, why bother with modal playing over a ii V I? It's all in the key of F, those chords define the F major key center. So instead of changing scale for each chord, take a gloabl view and use the F major scale as your framework while targeting chord tones. Same notes as your framework but a lot less crap to keep straight in your head.

jte

[jefkritz]

a good way to add variety is to double up on notes sometimes
for instance:
G - A - Bb - B - C - E - G - F# - F
and then
G - Bb - B - B - C - E - G - F# - F
or
G - G - C# - C# - C - E - G - F# - F
etc etc

and don't be afraid of interval jumps
ie
G - F (octave up) - D - Db - C - C - C - E - F

just a few examples... but yeah, listen to ed

[Phil Smith]

Originally Posted by Oratorio

Hello amigos!

I've got a question for you all. Recently I've been playing alot of trad. jazz, which I've been enjoying because I get to play walk bass, which I really haven't been doing all that much before. Since I'm new, I tend to stay all the way down on the neck most of the time, and I use alot of open strings (grace notes), even if the chord doesn't call for it. Now, the thing is, after playing through a song I sort of have to play the same thing each time for it to sound okay. If I try to experiment, I mess up and I don't want that. I'm doing alot of these at the same time, so I don't have the time to craft the perfect line, so to speak -- but I would like some variation, and I would love to hear how you all do your variations, so to speak; the second time through the chart, etc.

I really notice that I fall into habits when it comes to the ii-V such as Gm7 and C7 to Fmaj7 -- I usually play:

G - A - Bb - B - C - E - G - F# . . etc.

Do you guys get where I'm going at? I don't want to sound like a broken record, because I don't think it's musical at all. And I think that bass-players especially will notice, but is it common for musicians to "call out" a repetitive walking bass-line?

If you don't want to sound like a broken record and if what you are playing doesn't sound musical, play something else that is musical and that doesn't make you sound like a broken record or a sample.

Here's 16 different ways that you can play it but there are also more.

G A Bb B - C D Eb E
G A Bb B - C Bb G F#
G G' D Db - C C' G F#
G Bb D Db - C E G F#