Walking Bass Lines along with Chords

[JNGuitar]

How to go about it. What to avoid? Stick to the chordal tones? Help me out here good people. Like to go on another route besides relying on chromatics.

[paynow]

Originally Posted by JNGuitar

How to go about it. What to avoid? Stick to the chordal tones? Help me out here good people. Like to go on another route besides relying on chromatics.

YouTube Video

[JohnW400]

Heres examples some I wrote out for students. One is Scrapple Form The Apple the other is Ornithology and 'steps.

They say comp but they're really bass/chord excercises. I look around and see if I have any more

[matt.guitarteacher]

If you're looking for a Ted Greene type sound, Jody Fisher has a chapter on "Simultaneous Chords and Walking Bass Lines" in his Mastering Chord/Melody in which you'll find the following acknowledgement:

"Many thanks to Ted Greene for my first exposure to this style of playing. His influence has been profound."

I don't remember him taking that much space to give a nod to anyone else. Someone who's more familiar with both players' music and this part of Fisher's book could tell you how true it is to Greene's style.

It uses inversions of simple three-note chord forms, scalewise movement and chromatic approaches.

[whatswisdom]

Originally Posted by JohnW400

Heres examples some I wrote out for students. One is Scrapple Form The Apple the other is Ornithology and 'steps.
They say comp but they're really bass/chord excercises. I look around and see if I have any more

Thanks so much for these. By the way, I just picked up Randy Vincent's "3 Note Voicings and Beyond." There's a big chapter entitled "Walking Guitar." Way cool! All 3-note voicings with great bass lines...

[mr. beaumont]

One of the best things you can do when starting out with this is to actually write some basslines. It'll give you an idea as to what is possible as far as chord punctuation.

[23skidoo]

Here's a great lesson on building a walking line over a set of changes from Matt Warnock with a downloadable pdf.....

here's the link

check out the whole site... lots of great lessons, chord melody arrangements, etc.... a great resource.

[23skidoo]

John W - thanks for the nice arrangements....

[Kman]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

One of the best things you can do when starting out with this is to actually write some basslines. It'll give you an idea as to what is possible as far as chord punctuation.

I agree with this. I think Joe Pass even said the most important thing is the bass line, or at least knowing how to construct them, something to that effect.

[mr. beaumont]

Jim Hall shows in his Hal Leonard vid that if you have a good enough bassline, the content of the chordal punctuations almost don't matter.

Almost.

[Kman]

Originally Posted by JNGuitar

How to go about it. What to avoid? Stick to the chordal tones? Help me out here good people. Like to go on another route besides relying on chromatics.

Bass lines are similar to regular jazz lines. The rules apply to both (beats 1 & 3 being strong beats). Mix chromatics with arpeggios and you're walking. Transcribe some bass lines if you get frustrated. Nothing like learning from the masters.

[gingerjazz]

Hi skidoo thanks for he great link man i loved it,just what im working on at the moment,i have a looping pedal and i am allways punching in chord sequences to practice improvising over and this kind of thing will make it sound way more musical,cheers.

[23skidoo]

ginger- no problem....like I said, check out the rest of his site, great stuff. He's got some nice simple chord melody arrangements. I'm just getting into playing jazz, but I play through them, picking up chords, voicings, working on sight reading grouped notes.... other good lessons like the walking baseline thing under the lessons tab....

[bako]

Study bass players to learn how to create bass lines.
From that vantage point you can simplify as needed to incorporate the chordal aspect.

The Jamey Abersold play along series allow you to pan the speakers to the left, leaving just drums and bass which makes it easy to transcribe.

[Billnc]

I play both guitar and bass. A basic guide for a beginner constructing a line in 4/4 would be Beat one Root. Beat 2 and 3 improv and beat 4, step or 1/2 step from next root. To get started beats 2 and 3 can be the 3rd and 5th, repeating the root on beat 2 can also be effective. Walking root 2nd 3rd and 5th is also effective.

If you are going to 'bump' like the video says 3 beats are taken care of and you just worry about leading to the next chord. When you've got leading on beat 4 down you can then lead to the next root by 5th.

[SteveCarter]

Originally Posted by JNGuitar

How to go about it. What to avoid? Stick to the chordal tones? Help me out here good people. Like to go on another route besides relying on chromatics.

I have a couple of examples on the Guitar Lessons page of my web site.

http://frogstoryrecords.com/

Steve