LeftyBassist.com

In all my hurry to learn melodies and techniques i have skimmed over the important things, last night i was at an open jazz jam playing autumn leaves at quiet a brisk tempo and after tearing through the melody i fumbled my way through the changes until it got to my solo where i did a fairly decent job but point of the story... i learned i cant walk while i was on stage infront of people. as of now i declare it will never happen again, if anyone has any wisdom to pass on to me when it comes to walking bass lines (instructions, transcriptions ect.) please help me out

not quite swingingly yours,
Gur

I've got a book/cd at home that's pretty decent at walking basslines. Can't remember the name right now, but I'll check on it when I get home tonight.

I was in the same boat... I was asked to fill in for a swing band for about 6 gigs spread over a year.

I was filling in for an upright player... the guy I was filling in for was called to go to Iraq. He was a classically trained upright player... and I am a "street schooled" electric player. Definitely different styles.

They played a lot of Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, Elvis... lots of "classics"... and even some Cherry Poppin Daddys, Brian Setzer, and Michael Bublé.

Fortunately, a lot of their stuff was charted. Be that as it may, I still had to go home and transcribe all of the bass lines and memorize as much as possible to help me while I followed along with the chords on the charts since I cannot site read. I can read music... barely... and I can look at music and understand what it all means... but I cannot speak the language well enough to look at a sheet of music for the first time and just start playing along. Sight-reading comes with LOTS of practice, and I have simply never been in any musical situations that ever required it.

Anyway... this is what I learned on the fly... and the people that really know what they're doing will probably scoff at what I say, and that's ok... I'm not claiming any of my ramblings to be gospel. But a couple of things seemed to work for me, and I dunno... it might help you too.

1.) My instinct was to play the root once as a quarter note, and then immediately walk away from it. Not always a good idea. What I learned is that it's ok to stay close to the root of each chord... especially if it's a fast tune with lots of changes. If you're playing a 1/4 note style walking bass line and you have to hit the root 3 times before walking up to the next chord with only one passing tone in between, it might not be that interesting, but it might sound best and it will at least keep you "safe."

2.) 5ths and octaves are your friend... they will almost always work without much thought, since augmented and diminished chords don't really seem to be that popular.

3.) The 3rd is your next best friend. Walking to or from the 3rd of any chord is also easy to do, but if you get your majors and minors mixed up, it could sound ugly... so just make sure you review the chord structure and are aware of the changes ahead of time.

4.) Walking chromatically up or down to any chord almost always sounds cool, because there's no rules involved... play the root of a chord, look to where your next chord is, and walk to it chromatically. But, like I said... ALMOST always. Sometimes it won't work.

5.) A guitarist taught me a trick once, and it's actually pretty cool... if you want your bass line to sound "jazzy" (for lack of a better term), lead into every chord change from a half-step above or a half-step below the next chord. Completely ignore they key and all of your majors and minors... it actually works. It works best when you have a string of changes that are close together.

6.) Ultimately, if you want to get better at it, you have to practice doing it, so I suggest finding some "jazz standards" and have a guitar player record the chord changes on tape along with click track of some kind. Start by pumping 1/4 notes on the root of each chord until you're familiar with the song structure. Once you're familiar with the song structure, begin adding one passing tone into each chord change. Experiment what sounds good leading into each chord change, and memorize it. Then you can add a second passing tone to each chord change... and then a third. And then, pretty soon, you're playing a full-on walking bass line that you wrote yourself.

Like I said... I'm no expert in this world... but for the gigs that I've subbed where I've had to step outside of my comfort zone, these are some of the things that seemed to work for me, and they're all things I continue to try to work on.

Re point #5: Right on! My guitar teacher just pointed that out to me a couple of weeks ago.

About this time last year I was talking to some real swing veteran musicians who used to play the stuff in the 40's and 50's. What I took away from that amazing encounter was this quote:
"In swing music ( and all music from our era ) it's the bass that holds the groove together and lays down the beat and feel. Drummers are supposed to work off of the bass. Not like rock 'n roll where it's the other way around. Buncha <expletive deleted> idiots!"

A little bit of time spent with some basic theory might be a good idea - specifically, a half decent knowledge of the basic arpeggios (up to the 7th) will work wonders - you don't need to know why they work (although if you do that would be good too), just learn where to find them.

To get you started:

Maj 7th arpeggio - Root 3rd 5th 7th

Dom7th arpeggio - Root 3rd 5th b7th

Min 7th arpeggio - Root b3rd 5th b7th

There are others you'll need if you want to do it properly, but these will get you started. While you're learning you can just use the chord names off the charts and play whatever arpeggio best fits each chord:

Here's an example (taken from Autumn Leaves as it happens):-

Dm7 G7 Cmaj7 Fmaj7

You play D F A C (Dm7) G B D F (G7) C E G B (Cmaj7) F A C E (Fmaj7)


Start off playing them slowly as shown - as you gain skill you can start exploring more subtle sequences,

e.g. D F A C B G F D C E G B E C F A

There's lots of variations, and not nearly enough space here to go into it properly. Walking bass is actually quite a big topic, but the basics are really straightforward (and lots of fun if you're prepared to put some time into it).

Enjoy.

thanks guys, all advice has been much appreciated, hopefully next time i go to the jazz jam i wont make such an ass out of myself, as of typing this im looking at transcriptions of some upright players i love (chambers,mingus,clarke,carter) and ive noticed that chambers and carter use the root or 5th for every down beat (except when playing modally which is something im defintely not ready to tackle) where as mingus and clarke have a more random note choice with mingus being really really really harmonically complex somtimes starting on the 9th or 11th or sometimes the 13th!! but they all employ the chromatic walkups to the next chord and correct me if im wrong but it seems like the only notes that really matter are the ones played on the down beat and the upbeat note can be unrelated to the chord completely (james jamersons style makes alot more sense now) as long as its a half or whole step away from the chord tone. on another note a buddy of mine just gave me some advice that seems pretty useful that ill pass on "walking is just the bass soloing under everything using only quarter notes, with some 8th notes and triplets thrown in to be flashy other then that its just a quarter note solo"

Thanks, this information has been very helpful

AzWhoFan, did you find that book title?

Jim

I am such as slug!! It's buried in a drawer, I'll try to dig it out this weekend.

just for an update for you guys, all your help has been greatly appreciated and am i pleased to inform you i am well on my way to being able to walk the changes to that classic charlie parker song we all know and love "donna lee" its rough but i hope in the next couple of weeks to be able to get it down pat.


funktastically yours,
Gur

Walking Bassics (yes, 2 s's!)
The fundamentals of Jazz Bass Playing
by Ed Fuqua
Sher Music Co
ISBN 1-883217-50-4

Thanks!