Walking bass lines

[descendent22]

At band rehearsal we were kinda just scouting, feeling out a new song. I had an ok bass line going, but my guitarist is like " try this" and told me to do a walking bass line. This is more of a jazz technique and idk, I'm not all that familiar with walkin bass lines. Well maybe I am, it's something that I definitely would like to incorporate in my songs a lot more. Can some one explain the whole walking bass thing to me so I can understand. I mean I'm sure I can go to YouTube, but sometimes it's more valuable to listen to an experienced knowledge . Even list on some artist that do so or some songs with walking bass

 

[MalcolmAmos]

Country walks are dirt simple and easy to get your head around so.....0 to 1:31 will get into what you need to be doing.



On Cmaj7 pounding out root notes and the Fmaj7 chord is coming up so I target the F note (find it) and then miss it by three frets then walk to it one fret per beat and be on the F root for the chord change.

On C walk to C# then catch the D note and go up a string for the E note and land on F for the chord change. Yep you'll have to work on the timing and get a feel for leaving early so you can land dead on the F for the change. You are on Fmaj7 and have the G7 coming up. Back up one fret catching the E, then F, then F# and land on the G for the chord change.

Or you can target the next root and miss it by one fret, or two frets or three frets - your choice. I like the 3 note walk, use which ever one you like.

Then you can use scale notes to pull you into the next chord, i.e. a scale note one fret above or below the next root note. What you are looking for is a passing note to flow you into the next chord's root note. It's not rocket science, just takes a little while to work out the timing.

I use chromatic runs. Why? Don't have to do a lot of thinking about it, once you learn which run you like (3 note walk) and have the leaving early down the rest just flows.

IMO Ed Friedland's book Building Walking Bass Lines is the place to start.

Good luck.

 

[Garun]

The whole walking bass is a long learning process, you can get few ideas for standard progression changes if you are not playing it that much
For now, i have only 1 song in my band with walking bass line, and it's A min scale up and down with G# added, over a Am chord and Gmaj chord which is played with chord tones
I play it same time always, since that's how it goes in the song. But I am learning walking bass over chord changes from Ed Friendland's book as Malcolm said. Great book, and I started to read sheet music in this music (i marked all R/5/U Ch etd parts, so I can get myself into thinking what i'm playing relevant to chord.
Btw, Malcolm, do you have any easy jazz songs to transcribe for walking bass
I'm new to jazz and all that stuff, but I like it a lot

 

[MalcolmAmos]

................... Btw, Malcolm, do you have any easy jazz songs to transcribe for walking bass
I'm new to jazz and all that stuff, but I like it a lot

Autumn Leaves and I are old friends, however, I'm still working on getting it to flow. This may help:

Then The Real Book, Sixth Edition - page 39 The Real Book is melody transposed to the bass clef. I purchased it looking for the bass clef bass lines for Jazz standards. Got to go to ......

......... Jamey Aebersold Jazz for that. Go to the bass section lot of good information there. Be sure and get The Little Red Book; Jazz theory. It used to be a free E-book at that site.

I'd love to play jazz, however I know no one that plays it around here. Yes the High School has a jazz band, but, no open mike or jamming circles that I could take advantage of around here. Dallas is 100 miles West and Shreveport is 100 miles East, little too far for night driving. Don't drive after dark if I can help it. Jazz by yourself ....... need someone to play with.

Good luck on your journey. Get with someone and the two of you have fun learning together.

 

[descendent22]

Autumn Leaves and I are old friends, however, I'm still working on getting it to flow. This may help:

Then The Real Book, Sixth Edition - page 39 The Real Book is melody transposed to the bass clef. I purchased it looking for the bass clef bass lines for Jazz standards. Got to go to ......

......... Jamey Aebersold Jazz for that. Go to the bass section lot of good information there. Be sure and get The Little Red Book; Jazz theory. It used to be a free E-book at that site.

I'd love to play jazz, however I know no one that plays it around here. Yes the High School has a jazz band, but, no open mike or jamming circles that I could take advantage of around here. Dallas is 100 miles West and Shreveport is 100 miles East, little too far for night driving. Don't drive after dark if I can help it. Jazz by yourself ....... need someone to play with.

Good luck on your journey. Get with someone and the two of you have fun learning together.

If love to play jazz to but I'm not doing it for jazz. My guitarist gave me a homework lesson this week and I'm Tryin to learn what walkin bass is all about and incorporate it into my style. Judging from what I've seen and read, I do use the technique ,ore then I thought

 

[dreamadream99]

Definition: Walking is moving from the root of one chord to the root of another chord.
There are three basic ways to walk: Like a scale, like a chord (arpeggio), or chromatically. Or a mixture.
Then it's just math. If you're walking from C to F, then play your C on one, and you have 3 beats to get to the F.
You can go up chromatically (C,D,D#,E-F); you can go down like a scale (C,Bb,A,G-F); you can do either like a chord (C,A,G,E-F)

 

[Garun]

Thanks Malcolm
In my band, the girl on sax plays jazz on Academy, she's playing about 10 years now, and she likes when we play jazzy stuff, and so do I.
I get a great feeling when playing jazz.

Definition: Walking is moving from the root of one chord to the root of another chord.

Not every walking bass line is from root to root, but by this you are expressing chord in a strong way, but what about third, fifth, seventh? You surely can play this too on the beginning of the chord.

One more tip, even if I'm beginner for walking bass.
Learning walking bass will take a lot of time, but it will open up your ear, you will learn to read music (mostly notes, couse there's not much rhythm to it), you will know how to create a line in any musical style, just adding the rhythm part. + it sounds awesome. When I heard walking bass line live, I was like "That's for me, I'm gonna learn that!"
So I suggest to everyone to learn walking bass line

 

[descendent22]

When it comes to walking bass I just wanna know he technique to include into my playing style. I'm not a jazz player, but my guitarist gave me some homework and told me to learn some walking bass. With that said, I do use the technique more then I knew

 

[OOD]

Definition: Walking is moving from the root of one chord to the root of another chord.
There are three basic ways to walk: Like a scale, like a chord (arpeggio), or chromatically. Or a mixture.
Then it's just math. If you're walking from C to F, then play your C on one, and you have 3 beats to get to the F.
You can go up chromatically (C,D,D#,E-F); you can go down like a scale (C,Bb,A,G-F); you can do either like a chord (C,A,G,E-F)

I'm guessing this is the type of walking bass your guitarist wants you to do. "Root to root" If you want to give it a try just using your ear, start buy playing only the root and then add one note between the root notes. When you get that try adding another. It's sometimes much easier to do it along with your guitarist. I like to do it by ear to find what sounds good and then go back and use theory to find out why. You might want to study the theory first though.

 

[GastonD]

If you have one chord for the duration of two or more bars, you can start on the root and the fifth, alternatively. I had a series of three lessons on activebass covering some meat and potatoes lines for those situations. I think I called the lessons "the invisible man", but let me check out...

 

[GastonD]

Yeah, here goes...
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[Nyec]

Hi descendent22, maybe this blog post with videos will help you: Invalid Link Removed hope it gives you ideas!

NYEC