Once again walking bass: playing standards on the spot

[Ed Fuqua]

I would second Bruce's recommendation to check out the DB side, there are a lot of folks who play a lot of jazz there.

Which leads me to my second question: StyleOverShow, you're an old fart like me and I don't know if you used to play upright and just don't anymore or if you've alwasy played electric. But of all the other folks that posted advice here; how many of you play this music and how long have you been playing it? Cause I gotta say all of this "just play roots and fifths" , "don't worry about chord quality" etc. is not gonna get you through any of the gigs I been doing. If you really want to play this music there are a number of skill sets you need to work on:
EAR TRAINING - intervals and chord quality
CONCEPT AND UNDERSTANDING - which is mostly functional theory, how chords work
PHYSICAL APPROACH - which is technique but also includes working on some of the other two concepts, getting to the point that you HEAR what the chord progression is, you UNDERSTAND how it functions, you HEAR some note choices that convey the direction and sound you want to get out into the world, you PLAY what you're hearing on your instrument.

The great thing is, you can really start hearing your voice in this music without having a really deep vocabulary. Take ALONE TOGETHER; first chord's a Dminor7. Can you hear a minor 7th chord, can you sing it in tune? Can you sing it in all inversions, in open and closed positions? If not, can you hear and sing intervals in the first and second octave?

There's an exercise I've outlined in a thread called REALLY LEARNING A TUNE over on the DB side that talks about building a chord line to help you work on hearing the changes to a tune so that you can start hearing other lines (with the vocabulary you currently have) so that you can start improvising over changes. The work that you put in on some specific tunes actually greatly enables you to improvise lines over tunes you haven't done this sort of work with or even heard before.

This gets you to a point where you don't have to choose between

...memorizing tons and tons of standards and probably thousands of licks" OR "simply learning some common chord progressions and the associated chord notes/arpeggios...

because what you are doing is HEARING the harmonic movement the same way you see a STOP sign. You don't have to decide out of all possible geometric shapes that it's hexagonal, that out of all possible colors it's red and out of all possible letter combinations written on it what it says means a certain thing. You just look and you stop. All of the things that make it up have a specific meaning to you that needs no concious analysis.

 

[Jim Carr]

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 !

+1

Gotta know how to spell every chord in every key instantly, BUT:

Transcription = Listening + Testifying!!!

 

[Jim Carr]

I would second Bruce's recommendation to check out the DB side, there are a lot of folks who play a lot of jazz there.

Which leads me to my second question: StyleOverShow, you're an old fart like me and I don't know if you used to play upright and just don't anymore or if you've alwasy played electric. But of all the other folks that posted advice here; how many of you play this music and how long have you been playing it? Cause I gotta say all of this "just play roots and fifths" , "don't worry about chord quality" etc. is not gonna get you through any of the gigs I been doing. If you really want to play this music there are a number of skill sets you need to work on:
EAR TRAINING - intervals and chord quality
CONCEPT AND UNDERSTANDING - which is mostly functional theory, how chords work
PHYSICAL APPROACH - which is technique but also includes working on some of the other two concepts, getting to the point that you HEAR what the chord progression is, you UNDERSTAND how it functions, you HEAR some note choices that convey the direction and sound you want to get out into the world, you PLAY what you're hearing on your instrument.

The great thing is, you can really start hearing your voice in this music without having a really deep vocabulary. Take ALONE TOGETHER; first chord's a Dminor7. Can you hear a minor 7th chord, can you sing it in tune? Can you sing it in all inversions, in open and closed positions? If not, can you hear and sing intervals in the first and second octave?

There's an exercise I've outlined in a thread called REALLY LEARNING A TUNE over on the DB side that talks about building a chord line to help you work on hearing the changes to a tune so that you can start hearing other lines (with the vocabulary you currently have) so that you can start improvising over changes. The work that you put in on some specific tunes actually greatly enables you to improvise lines over tunes you haven't done this sort of work with or even heard before.

This gets you to a point where you don't have to choose between because what you are doing is HEARING the harmonic movement the same way you see a STOP sign. You don't have to decide out of all possible geometric shapes that it's hexagonal, that out of all possible colors it's red and out of all possible letter combinations written on it what it says means a certain thing. You just look and you stop. All of the things that make it up have a specific meaning to you that needs no concious analysis.

+1000
Awesome post. Totally right on.

 

[EADG mx]

Transcription works for rock, pop and such tunes and soloing etc. It doesn't work very well for walking.

I disagree, I have read lots of walking transcriptions and I find it very helpful. Maybe you're not a visual learner but a lot of people are.

of course listening and playing are also key, but that doesn't make transcribing totally useless.

 

[ihassiphilus]

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.

Thank you! Finally, people with sense start posting lol.

 

[ihassiphilus]

I disagree, I have read lots of walking transcriptions and I find it very helpful. Maybe you're not a visual learner but a lot of people are.

of course listening and playing are also key, but that doesn't make transcribing totally useless.

Fellow GTA dezien I see. Damn windy today, eh?

Anyway, as I was saying, you play three or four notes per chord and sometimes less. It's not especially complicated. You really don't need to transcribe a million or even a dozen ways of playing root, third, fifth and perhaps something else.

I'm just saying that there's a faster way of learning to walk than transcription. I'm not against transcription (I love figuring out classical peices, The Police is always fun to transcribe etc). But jazz just requires a little theory and a ton of practice.

 

[j.a.e.r.i.p]

In my experiences, just sight-walk as much as possible, i try to for at least forty five minutes a day if possible, and always be looking ahead, if you approach walking as more of a chromatic thing than strictly harmonic thing, it opens the possibilities up for you as a player, and makes reading changes more interesting, and hopefully easier.

 

[ihassiphilus]

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.

You're over-thinking a relatively simple process. That's why so many people think walking and jazz are harder than they actually are. Why spend so much time analyzing and thinking when you could be playing? Charlie Parker never sat and picked apart what he did. He played. Same with Carter, Brown and so on.

Your entire post, for example, could be condensced into a few lines, namely the last one. The rest is secondary. What matters at the end of the day is: 'are my lines effective for the song' as your last sentence basically asked (the right question too).

It's fine to play a lot of roots and fifths at first until you get more familiar with chords and progressions.

 

[jezzamac]

At the very least, know how to spell out the basic chords. Knowing extensions can help add colour. Find some sympathetic souls to practice with who can cope with any initial fumbling and who can offer constructive comment (maybe easier said than done). Then practice practice practice until you can hear what you are doing. It should be fun not a chore.

 

[EADG mx]

Fellow GTA dezien I see. Damn windy today, eh?

Anyway, as I was saying, you play three or four notes per chord and sometimes less. It's not especially complicated. You really don't need to transcribe a million or even a dozen ways of playing root, third, fifth and perhaps something else.

I'm just saying that there's a faster way of learning to walk than transcription. I'm not against transcription (I love figuring out classical peices, The Police is always fun to transcribe etc). But jazz just requires a little theory and a ton of practice.

It doesn't have to be complicated but it can be. You could stick to the triad 100% of the time but your lines aren't going to be very interesting. Triads, although indisputably valuable, are just one way to do things.

 

[ihassiphilus]

It doesn't have to be complicated but it can be. You could stick to the triad 100% of the time but your lines aren't going to be very interesting. Triads, although indisputably valuable, are just one way to do things.

I didn't say to stick to them 100% of the time. I just said that they should form the basis of walking lines and should be studied closely.

 

[EADG mx]

I didn't say to stick to them 100% of the time. I just said that they should form the basis of walking lines and should be studied closely.

It just seems like you're oversimplifying an art that takes people a lifetime to master. Ex.

you play three or four notes per chord and sometimes less

Sure you do, and sometimes at 250 bpm and up. Suddenly it's not so easy.

You really don't need to transcribe a million or even a dozen ways of playing root, third, fifth and perhaps something else.

Although triads are key, there's TONS of other stuff you can incorporate into your lines that I can get into if need be.

jazz just requires a little theory and a ton of practice.

Well no, it's a lot of theory. IME the average jazzer knows a lot more theory than the average joe, and that's not my jazz musician pretension speaking or anything, but it's because they have to out of necessity. Jazz is harmonically complex and if you want to make coherent music, you need to know what you're doing.


Not trying to discourage anyone from learning this music because I don't like to complicate things more than they have to be, but I'm just saying that there's a reason that cats practice 6+ hours a day.

 

[ProffesB]

I new here and I just want to say this is the first actual music thread I've seen. Coincidentally I'm starting to learn to walk off of sheets on my own. Thanks to all of you for giving some ideas on how to improve.
I have played with rock bands, reggae bands, and blues bands. I have always been told I have a walking feel to my lines, I just see what chords there are and the best way to connect them smoothly. I've got nothing on a jazz bassist so I'm starting to tackle that theory beast.

 

[dlloyd]

You're over-thinking a relatively simple process. That's why so many people think walking and jazz are harder than they actually are. Why spend so much time analyzing and thinking when you could be playing? Charlie Parker never sat and picked apart what he did. He played. Same with Carter, Brown and so on.

You probably ought not be giving advice to Mr Fuqua given your admission in another thread...

I'm new to jazz myself, but scales don't help a ton. It's more important to understand how chords work and fall together. Learn standard tunes and look for common patterns. It's more important to be able to walk properly than solo.

Ed's not so new to jazz.

http://www.amazon.com/Walking-Bassics-Ed-Fuqua/dp/1883217504

Transcribing is a fantastic way to learn to to walk. It is all about outlining the changes by using chord tones and approach notes, but thinking in those terms without really investigating how to do it well is a one-way ticket to playing lame, repetitive lines.

 

[Bruce Lindfield]

Well I have nothing more to say it's all been said - but I think anybody reading this thread can see pretty easily who's wrong and who's right - who's done it and who's just a 'wannabe'...

PS - Just to say "gottheclap" is a true classic - brings back the good old days!! I never thought how appropriate....

 

[Ed Fuqua]

You're over-thinking a relatively simple process. That's why so many people think walking and jazz are harder than they actually are. Why spend so much time analyzing and thinking when you could be playing? Charlie Parker never sat and picked apart what he did. He played. Same with Carter, Brown and so on. Your entire post, for example, could be condensced into a few lines, namely the last one. The rest is secondary. What matters at the end of the day is: 'are my lines effective for the song' as your last sentence basically asked (the right question too). It's fine to play a lot of roots and fifths at first until you get more familiar with chords and progressions.

I'm trying to get to a point where I'm NOT THINKING AT ALL. I'm creating an aural response to my aural environment. I do notice that you avoid the question of experience, it's nice that somebody pointed that out. That way the original poster can decide which advice they want to give more weight to.

Charlie Parker did pull a LOT of Prez (primarily, there were a few other folks he transcribed) off of records when he was coming up, the formal studies of both Ron and Ray are very well documented, you're kinda talking out yer a** on that point.

As far as "over thinking", feel free to continue to do what you're doing, I'll do the same.

 

[JTE]

Charlie Parker once said something to the effect of "You gotta learn all your chords, arpeggios, and scales. Practice them all the time. Then get on stage, forget all that $#!& and play music."

The point being that you don't think about this stuff while you're playing, but you gotta practice it until it's ingrained in your hands and your brain.

jte

 

[ihassiphilus]

I'm trying to get to a point where I'm NOT THINKING AT ALL. I'm creating an aural response to my aural environment. I do notice that you avoid the question of experience, it's nice that somebody pointed that out. That way the original poster can decide which advice they want to give more weight to.

Charlie Parker did pull a LOT of Prez (primarily, there were a few other folks he transcribed) off of records when he was coming up, the formal studies of both Ron and Ray are very well documented, you're kinda talking out yer a** on that point.

As far as "over thinking", feel free to continue to do what you're doing, I'll do the same.

Good thing I didn't say anything about transcribing solos and that Parker et al didn't transcribe them, eh? I'm saying, don't bother with walking lines.

I also didn't say don't practice, I said stop thinking about it so much. Parker's oft-quoted saying still holds true.

 

[Ed Fuqua]

Good thing I didn't say anything about transcribing solos and that Parker et al didn't transcribe them, eh?

No what you DID say was "Charlie Parker never sat and picked apart what he did." Which it is pretty well documented that he DID do. Most famously in his "chili house" quote.

I'm saying, don't bother with walking lines.

Feel free to, gimme a call when you get to NYC.

 

[ihassiphilus]

No what you DID say was "Charlie Parker never sat and picked apart what he did." Which it is pretty well documented that he DID do. Most famously in his "chili house" quote.


Feel free to, gimme a call when you get to NYC.

Idiot.

Incredibly childish, aren't we.