Ed Friedland's "Building Walking Bass Lines"

[Matt in TN]

I've played metal, rock, and funk for many years now, but always felt weak on the jazz end of things. I've purchased several books on the subject to try to learn, but at best they gave several scales to learn and said "play over these chord changes." I never could get straight in my head how on earth you could know which notes to play when, and more importantly, WHY. I could listen to a good walking bass line and know it sounded good, and could listen to MY walking bass line and know it was not good - but that was about it.

Thanks to the reccomendations of this forum I puchased Ed Friedland's "Building Walking Bass Lines," and am not quite halfway through the book. This is the first time this has ever made sense to me - starting with roots, adding 5ths, and so on. The building block method of this book makes it easy to understand WHY you're playing what you're playing, and the mix of fully written bass lines for you to play verbatim, empty chord charts for you to improvise over, and audio bass tracks to transcribe seem like the perfect tools to help me better understand this. The audio CD is invaluable as well, so you can actually HEAR what you are doing (and what a "good" bassline would sound like over the same changes) with or without the bass, instead of just trying to imagine it.

I feel like I've already made good progress in the few short lessons I've completed, and am really looking forward to working through the rest of this book. I'd never heard of Ed Friedland before coming to this forum, and just wanted to say "thanks." I wish I would have found this years ago...

 

[bassfuser]

Yeah, Ed Friedland has some great instruction material. I agree 100% that starting with the roots then add the 5ths etc. is a great approach.

I also have his "Blues Bass", "Bass Licks" and the "R&B Masters". All are great books.

I like to work exclusively with one book for about a month and then move onto another. Cycling through them.

Good Stuff!

 

[Blair_thejrs]

I also bought this book and it gave me motivation to join a small Jazz/Instrumental band. Love it although at parts such as scale apreaoch your therory is very important and when i started i didnt have it to a great standard and thats the one downfall id say

 

[HaVIC5]

In my opinion, Ed Friedland's approach with the whole root/fifth method is by far the simplest and most logical method of tackling walking lines. It takes a paradigm familiar to pretty much all forms of music (the root/fifth thing that you can never get away from), and applies it directly to walking lines in a way that's impossible not to understand. From this, it's very easy to apply chromatic and scalar approach notes to and from roots and fifths on weak beats, and walking becomes a very straight-forward "formula" that's easy to get under the fingers. I've had more luck getting my students walking convincing lines than starting with triadic and seventh-chord arpeggiation.

Ed's book isn't the be all end all - there are some topics that get a cursory glance at best - but it really is the best beginning resource out there.

 

[fearceol]

Another great walking bass instruction DVD is Todd Johnson's "Walking Bass Modules" (Vol. 1&2)

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[camiloochoa]

Ed´s Books are great, but if you really what to understang why you play the notes you´re playing (and why they sound good or bad) my advise would be to study harmony.

 

[edfriedland]

Thanks for all the nice comments about BWBL. True, it is not the final word on the subject, but it was designed to help get people over that first series of obstacles. Once you're up and running, learning more about the music becomes a little easier.

 

[Matt in TN]

Great book, Ed! Thanks for putting this together. I don't know if it came out in my original post, but the CD with the split drums/piano and bass into different channels is at least as valuable to me as the clear progression in learning and "building block" way you work through the roots, fifths, etc.

On the exercises in which you don't list a bassline but just have chord changes, I follow your instructions to the "T" and enjoy playing over the chord changes without your bassline in the mix several times on my own, THEN listening to what you played on the CD, learning it, and transcribing it. This really helps me to find my own ways of playing through the changes without a pre-conceived notion of what it "should" be - but it's also very nice to have your bassline to fall back on to give me more/better ideas of what I could be doing. The transcription really helps me visualize and see how the chord/harmony theory works and where the same notes may be used in different chords.

Thanks again - I can't say enough good things about this book!

 

[eggfan]

I have a Berklee degree and in a former life was a pretty good jazz pianist who emplyed left hand walking bass lines on occasion, and I really like the book. Instead of just using the exercises, I'm applying the concepts (starting with roots, adding fifths, then chromatic approach, etc.) to jazz blues progressions in all keys, then rhythm changes, then working through Real Book standards, etc. It's another way to approach the tunes besides simply playing chord tones (as someone already pointed out), since there's no real challenge to me in finding the chord tones.

 

[Dbassmon]

Ed is a great player and a great communicator, no doubt.

Some additional materials you may want to consider; Rufus Reid "The Evolving Bassist". Rufus has a very methodical approach to line construction.

Also Mike Richmond's "Modern Walking Bass" is an advanced library of examples of beautifully constructed lines inspired by Ray Brown, Jimmy Garrison, Paul Chambers and of course, Mike Richmond. This is not so much theory on how to construct them but just great examples of lines which you can incorporate into your own understanding of a tune and your bass lines. Mike also does a great job of explaining the ornaments, pulloffs, ghost notes that make walking bass lines really groove.

 

[eggfan]

Ed is a great player and a great communicator, no doubt.

Some additional materials you may want to consider; Rufus Reid "The Evolving Bassist". Rufus has a very methodical approach to line construction.

Also Mike Richmond's "Modern Walking Bass" is an advanced library of examples of beautifully constructed lines inspired by Ray Brown, Jimmy Garrison, Paul Chambers and of course, Mike Richmond. This is not so much theory on how to construct them but just great examples of lines which you can incorporate into your own understanding of a tune and your bass lines. Mike also does a great job of explaining the ornaments, pulloffs, ghost notes that make walking bass lines really groove.

Great tip - thanks. I was familiar with the Rufus Reid but not the Mike Richmond.

 

[rokkitt]

I need to learn how to walk the bass

this seems like a good place to start

al

 

[edfriedland]

Ed is a great player and a great communicator, no doubt.

Some additional materials you may want to consider; Rufus Reid "The Evolving Bassist". Rufus has a very methodical approach to line construction.

Also Mike Richmond's "Modern Walking Bass" is an advanced library of examples of beautifully constructed lines inspired by Ray Brown, Jimmy Garrison, Paul Chambers and of course, Mike Richmond. This is not so much theory on how to construct them but just great examples of lines which you can incorporate into your own understanding of a tune and your bass lines. Mike also does a great job of explaining the ornaments, pulloffs, ghost notes that make walking bass lines really groove.

Thanks again. Yeah, the Richmond book is great, I used that myself when I was a student at Berklee in the 70s. The lines are very cool, and can be a good reading challenge too.

 

[nicksorenson]

Thanks for all the nice comments about BWBL. True, it is not the final word on the subject, but it was designed to help get people over that first series of obstacles. Once you're up and running, learning more about the music becomes a little easier.

This was my first book (or lesson, or DVD, etc) on bass when I first started playing in 1995. I didn't even know what a walking bass line was but thought the bass on the cover looked cool and I was glad it had a CD (I already knew from playing cello that I was an ear player).

It was a great first book bought by accident (I wanted to learn rock bass (and maybe slap) at that point). I still use the melodic approaches from the book in all styles of music I've played since. And it gave me an appreciation for jazz. Great book!

 

[EddiePlaysBass]

Rather than start a new thread, I'll revive this one. Having finished the 3rd Hal Leonard Bass Method book, I have now begun working from Ed's BWBL book. Have not got far yet, and I intend to take things slow. Hopefully others are embarking on the same journey and wish to chime in!

 

[consectaneus]

I would love to follow along and talk about it.