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Once again walking bass: playing standards on the spot

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dexter3d

Jul 4, 2005
172
76
Lithuania
#1
Hello,

Currently I am in a situation where I come to the rehearsal, the guy gives me a sheet of music with melody and chords (mostly jazz standards like Alone Together) and I need to play a walking bass line instantly, without prior practicing (well I might have like 1 minute to read it). The question is - how do I cope with this? Given that it is the song I hear for the first time? What's the algorithm I should use every time? What do you guys do? I am familiar with all the approaches to walking bass, and I studied Ed Friedlands book.
I was thinking like this:
As I can play 2-5-1 easily, I also need to learn and memorize all the other binary chord progressions (2-7, 1-3, 4-7 etc). Then, when I get the new piece, I quickly write the numbers near the chords (in relation to the key of the tune), and as I have learned all those transitions, I apply them automatically, choosing one of the several options of the transition which I have pre-learned. So I focus on numbers rather than actual chords.
Now I get lost so fast, especially when there are 2 chords in a measure, and when the tempo is fast. If I approach the chords in numbers, then I could read them in pairs (e.g. if there is 6minor7-7minor7-3seventh progression, I read it in blocks 6minor7-7minor7, and 7minor7-3seventh). What do you think of my idea? Or is there a better way to do it? I need to dig this fast, because I need to play new songs on the spot, and it freaks me out when I get lost.

Thank you very much for your thoughts!
 
#2
PS: Maybe I should also learn some of the most common 3 chord blocks, as I learned 2-5-1? Then when I see it in a song, I don't need to concentrate on each chord but I just play the 3 chord progression. Maybe you could recommend the most common 3 chord progressions that I could learn?
 
#3
Well - this is a lifetime's study and what a Jazz Bass Player has to come to terms with - there are no short cuts, no tricks...:eyebrow:

It's just case of listening to what the greats have done, transcribing, writing out lines, playing as much as you can etc. - loads of stuff...?

But don't expect it to be easy or to happen overnight - you just have to work at it and the more you do, the better you get ...

There are alot of threads about this on the DB side you could read, as well...?
 
#4
Keep practicing with Ed Friedland's book for sure. I would also recommend getting Todd Johnson's CD's on walking bass. He's on this forum and even though there is no real shortcut to learning walking bass, Todd has a a very good methodical way teaching it and I think it would fit in with the way you are approaching this.
 
#5
It's all about time and being having tools to handle the situations. So they call a song you've never played and count it off. No time all you can focus on is distance between each chord and having some basic ideas for connecting chords common intervals between each other. That gets you thru the first time thru the tune by second time you should of seen enough to start spotting II-V's and other common chord movments and start pulling some of the things you've worked on in practice. So your line is starting to smooth out. Now solos are starting you've been thru the changes a few time now time start bringing in some new ideas, counter lines, start being yourself. Go to clubs or casuals and listen you will hear musician doing what I describe on new tunes on the bandstand. First time thru lots of basic chord tones and basic connection tones. Each time thru they refine their lines. Old pro's by 2nd or 3rd time thru changes have a good line and by time song is over they will sound like they've been playing it all their life.

Now to get better at this grab a metronome and a Real Book. Don't pick a tune just open to anything. Set the tempo on the slow side and start playing a few chorus'. Remember this is more about developing your eyes and thought process which will help the bass line. Work slow till your eyes can look at a chart and start seeing II-V's and other common chord movements, start seeing key changes, and etc. Working on training your eyes like this will be of great help when moving on to soloing.
 
#6
I agree with all the advice given above. I would also say that it may not be especially helpful to practice walking on every possible arbitrary chord movement, like iii - vii, or IV -vi as you are suggesting. In jazz standards, you will find that most chords move in cycles of 4ths (like ii - V - I), with occasional key changes and "left turns". Those movements in 4ths are what you really need to get good at recognizing and dealing with.
 
#7
All you need to do is know what notes comprise a given chord and how the chords fit together (E to A to D or Em to A to D etc etc). You don't need to memorize 'all these patterns'. You don't have to play much more than chord tones to make a good walking line. Of course, you can throw-in inversions and so on sometimes.

As far as two chords per measure, if they are E to A, for example, you could play the b5th between them. It it's E to Db, you could just play that low fifth. As in most walking, your goal is to approach one chord from another and connect them.

Also transcription isn't going to help you walk.
 
#8
ihassiphilus said:
Also transcription isn't going to help you walk.
Click to expand...

I would dispute this most vehemently - I have had many teachers - all great Jazz pros - all of whom have recommended transcribing walking lines of the greats - like Paul Chambers, Ray Brown, Ron Carter etc. as the best way to get inside their heads and understand what they were doing !
 
#9
ihassiphilus said:
Also transcription isn't going to help you walk.
Click to expand...
:scowl:


Ignore this bit of insanity...

Transcribing what Ray Brown, Ron Carter, Jimmy Blanton, Milt Hinton, et. al. did over specific chord progressions WILL help you tremendously. Now if all you do is figure out the line, and memorize it, it's better than nothing.

But if you take what the great walking bassists have done, study how it relates to the chord changes they're supporting, and think it through, then you'll have a huge vocabulary and a wonderful education on walking bass.

jte
 
#11
It's hard, and it takes time. No algorithm. And you must really like Jazz or you can forget it. Transcription helps, but listening helps more IMO. Both is best. Listen to the greats, carefully. You will find that they don't always simply connect the chords with technically correct 'straight lines', instead, they will create little melodies which sometimes veer quite far from what you'd expect to hear over a certain chord, before returning, when necessary, to earth(but just momentarily!). My favorite player in this regard would be Ron Carter, especially on Miles Davis Albums. Check out 'Nefertiti.'
 
#12
So memorizing tons and tons of standards and probably thousands of licks is more sensical than simply learning some common chord progressions and the associated chord notes/arpeggios?

All Carter, Blanton, Brown etc are doing is generally playing the notes of the chords (C9, Adim, Dm7 etc etc) with some chromatic stuff thrown-in. They just happen to do it really, really well.

Let's say you are playing Cm7 in a Ballad; you won't be able to walk the same way Ron Carter did in a Bossa tune with the same Cm7. Same thing with a Bebop tune compared to a medium jazz tune. Besides the fact that you're not Ron Carter and you shouldn't bother playing exactly what he plays...individuality and all that.
 
#13
I'd like to add: If you look at Ron Carter's book on walking and listen to his tunes he plays, he isn't playing much besides R,3,5 and some chromatics, inversions etc. Why do you need to transcribe that?

Also, if you memorize Autumn Leaves, you're not learning how to walk through a ii-V7-I...you're just memorizing the tune....Am to D etc etc. If he has an unfamiliar tune thrown in front of him he's going to freeze because 'Uh, this isn't Autumn Leaves or Nefertiti'.

Transcription works for rock, pop and such tunes and soloing etc. It doesn't work very well for walking.
 
#16
All good advice, except the guy from England who wants to mind meld with the greats.

Simple effective 1st time through jazz line approach: play roots and 5ths only; play quarter notes; use the 4th quarter note as a passing tone to the next chord, half steps are effective; glance ahead at the next few bars when you have the chance; relate the changes to other tunes you know.

I practice reading from fake books and work out the bass lines if written or chord changes, and then practice sight reading the melody. You get better at it.
 
#17
First of all hello everybody, i'm new here!
I agree with all you guys wrote above.
Two things I find helpful for "two chords in a bar" when sight reading up-tempo:
on about the 2 first chorus' don't be bothered about the quality of these chords-
just look on the roots.
play the roots, two quarters for each chord.

another thing i find even easier (yet the focus is on the roots), is to play:
root - chromatic approach to the next - root - chromatic approach to the next - and so on...

After 2 or so chorus' i'm sure you'll feel more comfortable to add some 3's and 5's, or whatever you'll find interesting for the changes!
that's my way of doing it anyway (:
 
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#20
ihassiphilus said:
Transcription works for rock, pop and such tunes and soloing etc. It doesn't work very well for walking.
Click to expand...
Why not?
The idea with transcribing what another musician is playing is not to "memorize" what to do so that you can play the same thing in a given situation. The idea is kind of threefold:
1. familiarize yourself with the language - just like learning to speak a language, it helps to hear how it sounds when people who speak it a lot do so. It's why they play tapes of people talking in French class; it's not just letters and words, it's inflection and nuance.
2. see how things are put together - just like they have you diagram sentences in English class, you can control the language better if you understand how everything works. It's not just that Butch Warren is playing notes from this scale over this chord, here's the arc of his line form start to finish over a chorus, here's how he's interacting with the soloist here in this phrase, here's how he's balancing what the piano player is doing by going in this other direction, here's how he's keeping the harmonic motion going forward etc.
3. hearing into being - if you do it right (and I've typed about the methodology I recommend here a lot, do a SEARCH), transcribing (and playing/singing what yo've transcribed) is pretty much practicing the skill sets you need to improvise. That is, hearing the notes you want to play and then playing them on your instrument. If you listen (to what you want to transcribe) in such a way that you internalise what you've heard and then picj up your instrument and play those notes you are hearing, that's EXACTLY what you do whne you improvise a line. the only difference is that in one case you're hearing your line and in the other, you're hearing Gene Ramey's.

Playing a walking line is about 3 things - harmonic propulsion, harmonic defintion and melody. The best bassists' walking line is a quarter note melody that moves the chord changes forward.
 

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