hi, i've recently made it into my high school's advanced jazz ensemble, which is going to force me to do quite a bit of walking. any advice about this? i know this has probably been asked a million times. thanks
The best thing to do is listen, listen, listen. Listen to great walking lines from classic recordings. Listen to the band and choose notes that fit with what they're doing. Listen to your director when he gives you ideas. And listen to yourself. Walking bass lines aren't hard to do. It just takes practice and a good ear.
walking basslines can be quite catchy if you know where to throw the right notes. when i was taught my instructor taught be the basic structure for a 12 bar blues walking line , goes 1-3-5-6 up and down would be 8-6-5-3 or flat 7-6-5-3 . keep in mine this is just a standard pattern, you can throw 4's or 2's in there, make it your own man. experiment and have fun, thats what its all about.
congratulations... now for the hard part... "Building Walking Basslines" by Ed Friedland... ISBN 0-7935-4204-9 get it and work on it... he does not expect you to follow the examples note for note, he expects you to produce your own lines for the exercises so it's a real workout on the theory he introduces.
Duff's suggestions are the traditional starting point for walking bass lines. However, you're going to want to branch out from that ASAP or you will be considered a country bassist in a jazz context. However, even after 30 years, I can't tell you how many times I have played 1-3-5-6 to this day, so it's definitely a great place to start.
i was trying to figure out walking basslines aswell. i went to the store today and looked at that book unfortuneately i can't read any of it. i can't read music... tried taking lessons but it sucked so bad.
Hey guys - any of you having trouble with walking can check out a series that I'm posting on youtube - there are 5 lessons up at present and more going up each week. http://www.youtube.com/davemarks
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