Double Bass Walking on backdoor progression ?

[Papageno]

I would be interested to know how you play a walking bass line on the "backdoor" progression: ivm7 bVII7 resolving to IMaj7 (for example in C: Fm7 Bb7 resolving to CMaj7).

With 1 chord per bar, this progression is found in Lady Bird (bars 3 & 4); for 2 chord per bar, it is found in Misty (bar 4). And many other tunes...

For 1 chord per bar, I would play:
| F G Ab A | Bb Ab Bb B | C...
or | F Eb C B | Bb Ab F D | C...
or | F Ab C B | Bb Bb D Db | C...
or | F G Ab C | Bb F D Db | C...

For 2 chords per bar, I would play:
| F Ab Bb B | C...
or | F Eb D Db | C...
or | F Ab Bb D | C...

The resolution of the bVII7 to the IMaj7 always sound a bit "weak" to my ears. Not really surprising, because this is a kind of "plagal" cadence borrowed from the parallel minor key, but still...

I have tried landing on some other chord tone than the root of IMaj7, but it does not sound really good to me.

Any thoughts on this? Thanks in advance.

 

[fu22ba55]

I have tried landing on some other chord tone than the root of IMaj7, but it does not sound really good to me.

Yeah, my first instinct was to instead resolve to the Maj 3rd (E) on beat one, then C (root) on beat two.

|F C Ab A | Bb D F D | E C G F | E G C * |
(first two notes descending, and whole 3rd bar descending)

Or to the 5th
|F C Ab A | Bb D F F# | G E C G | E G C * |
(first two notes descending, and whole 3rd bar descending)

But yes... my lines above are a bit harmoncially fussy and not very supportive to the rest of the ensemble. I'm sure the pros here will chime in with much better (more harmonically supportive) suggestions.

 

[sean_on_bass]

I seem to approach the Imaj7 from a half step below. Sounds good to my ears. So i pretty much play the chords literally then with that one passing tone to get back to the I chord. Creates the feel of chromatic harmony from the bVII to the I. I also am seeing myself simply land on the root of the bVII on beat 4 and then right to the root of the I. Sounds nice too.

But essentially i dont think this is even supposed to feel like a strong resolution back to the I. That will come later in the tune(Lady Bird).

 

[ProbablyTooLoud]

I would be interested to know how you play a walking bass line on the "backdoor" progression: ivm7 bVII7 resolving to IMaj7 (for example in C: Fm7 Bb7 resolving to CMaj7).

With 1 chord per bar, this progression is found in Lady Bird (bars 3 & 4); for 2 chord per bar, it is found in Misty (bar 4). And many other tunes...

For 1 chord per bar, I would play:
| F G Ab A | Bb Ab Bb B | C...
or | F Eb C B | Bb Ab F D | C...
or | F Ab C B | Bb Bb D Db | C...
or | F G Ab C | Bb F D Db | C...

For 2 chords per bar, I would play:
| F Ab Bb B | C...
or | F Eb D Db | C...
or | F Ab Bb D | C...

The resolution of the bVII7 to the IMaj7 always sound a bit "weak" to my ears. Not really surprising, because this is a kind of "plagal" cadence borrowed from the parallel minor key, but still...

I have tried landing on some other chord tone than the root of IMaj7, but it does not sound really good to me.

Any thoughts on this? Thanks in advance.

Similar, but not identic

al, backdoor progression to Imaj in this song. See the first two measures of the B Section and C sections. Attached is how my teacher approached those changes.

 

[Wasnex]

Mostly chord tones. You can tastefully use chromatic approach to get from ivm7 to bVII7 or bVII7 back to I.

Make sure and consider the notes in the melody. Normally I would probably consider the tonality of the implied ii V...but I might avoid D natural over the G7 in this example because of the C# in the melody. Other G7 chord tones work fine. You can probably sneak E, C#, G# in the second half of the bar.

The melody does not seem to place any constraints on the implied ii V here. I believe most of the time I walked this song in double time feel...so it's still essentially 4 beats per chord change.

 

[Papageno]

Thanks to all for your input and suggestions.

Those led me to consider a few more lines that I tried and that sound quite good to me (here for Fm7 Bb7 -> CMaj7).

For 1 chord per bar:
- | F G Ab C | Bb C D F | E D C...
- | F Eb D C | Bb Ab G F | E D C...
- | Ab G F Eb | D C Bb Ab | G B C...
- | F Eb F Ab | Bb D F Ab | G B C...

For 2 chords per bar:
- | F Eb D Bb | C...
- | F G Ab Bb | C... (this one sounds more like playing Fm7 for the entire bar, which is a possible substitution)
- | F Eb D F | E D C...

That's more than I need...

 

[peteswanson91]

It’s more of a sound… to my ears the sound is IV to iv- to iii to vi etc
iii is a plural substitute for I (the I maj7 chord being built from the two triads Cmaj and E min)

 

[atlbassist1987]

In the key of C major I play F minor 6 major 7 (F melodic minor ascending F, G, Ab, Bb, C, D natural, E natural) and then Bb7 (#11) which has the exact same minor iv melodic minor scale but with a Bb in the bass. This is just a blueprint if I am playing a standard with the iv bVii7 I progression. I don't think of these in terms of scales but I typed out the scale to illustrate that as a starting point I play iv 6 (maj7) b VII 7 (#11,13) to I.

 

[Papageno]

In the key of C major I play F minor 6 major 7 (F melodic minor ascending F, G, Ab, Bb, C, D natural, E natural) and then Bb7 (#11) which has the exact same minor iv melodic minor scale but with a Bb in the bass.

That's interesting. However, in Lady Bird, the melody has the m7 on the ivm7 (Fm7). So playing Fm6(Maj7) might sound rough...

 

[atlbassist1987]

My apologies, my response was in the context of your original question. In the context of the Lady Bird melody perhaps the major seventh of the minor four chord would clash briefly.