Walking Bass Lines - Sort of like an improvisation

[fep]

Walking bass lines, pretty much scales, arps, and chromatics. Strong beats mostly a chord tone, on the "1" most of the time the root.

Kind of improvising but staying in a narrow lane. And since I do this on a bass guitar, it's bass guitar practice at the same time. I find it useful as I'm first starting to learn a tune.

Does anyone else do this as improv practice?

[MarkRhodes]

When I took a lesson from Frank Vignola he had me play through ATTYA sounding only a bass line and a melody line.
(Guitarist Jerry Reed said his own playing worked this way: bass line, counter melody and a note in betweenthe two to make the whole thing a chord, if need be. According to Thom Bresh---son of Merle Travis---this is why people who played out of shapes could never figure out what Jerry was doing, as he didn't play that way at all.

I think Barney Kessel, in one of the video lessons posted hereabouts, suggested learning the bass line and melody of a song first. That gives you the structure and the tune. That's a strong foundation.

[Patlotch]

sounding only a bass line and a melody line.

it is paradoxically perhaps more difficult than playing whole chords with the melodie (chords melodys)

to build a solo on Bessie's blues, I undertook three first steps:
1) learn the melody by heart with several fingerings
2) learn a bass line with variations (build a line as a bassist)
3) play together only bass and melody
etc.

Charlie Hunter does this with great ease, that's what impresses in his playing, even if he is more often RnB/Soul than jazz

[fep]

it is paradoxically perhaps more difficult than playing whole chords with the melodie (chords melodys)

Charlie Hunter does this with great ease, that's what impresses in his playing, even if he is more often RnB/Soul than jazz

Improved bass line with melody definately more difficult for me, it takes all my focus just to play the walking bass line by itself. Bass line and chord stabs not so hard, I've got a couple of tricks (mostly half step approach on the bass part) that enables me to get by.

Charlie Hunter... amazing

[Dennis D]

.........Here's a couple.....no affiliation etc.....

SUPER AX

[MarkRhodes]

.........Here's a couple.....no affiliation etc.....

SUPER AX

I have the Grassel book. It's very good. Starts from scratch and moves right along. He did two books on this, the first one being "Big Axe." The second one is about the subject of this thread---improvising in two voices, really---but the first one is the place to start to make sure you have the bass-line basics down. ;o)

[rintincop]

The "half step rules" enable one to land on the root or the 5th of the chord of the moment on beat one, generally a very good thing to go by.

[neatomic]

ted greene style

cheers

[arielcee]

Charlie Hunter is really strong for that, does anyone know other jazz guitarists who do it solo?

A few names that come to mind are, Lenny Breau and Jimmy Wyble.

[Patlotch]

A few names that come to mind are, Lenny Breau and Jimmy Wyble.

yes, these are the ones I always refer to in this matter

it is true that Tuck Andress does extraordinary things, probably underestimated in jazz, because of the musical genre

[mhch]

The "half step rules" enable one to land on the root or the 5th of the chord of the moment on beat one, generally a very good thing to go by.

played on a bass , and harder on a guitar when playing other things

in 4/4 a dissonance (not necessarily an half step) on beat 2 or 4 before landing on a chord tone, as a way to emphasize the 2 & 4 on the hi-hat

a skip can also be used this way up/down to a higher/lower register, octave, 6th, 7th

in 3/4 on beat 2 or 3 for varying the feel.

Not to be abused of course.

[mhch]

+1 on Mike Richmond's book

To avoid sounding too repetitive (specially if playing 1 & 5)

- 3rd and 7th can be useful on beat 1 of a 2nd bar using the same chord as the one before it.

- play one of these 1 or 5 in another octave

Listen to BIAB generated bass lines, or even look at their notation, in order to learn a bit about all of this and practice it on tunes

[Patlotch]

...

Thank you for this information. I have a hard time understanding oral English. I did not know Gilad Hekselman, I saw some interesting videos, including on the drop 2 and drop3 system inversions, which seem to me unavoidable in all these stories of Chords melodies and bass chord comping. But it is true that it is a crazy job to acquire all this and swim with it like a fish in water

On "Boss OC3 which is a polyphonic octave pedal that allows you to double notes", I do not doubt its usefulness with a 6 strings, a problem that I no longer pose

the difference of an "normal" 8 strings like mine, with the guitars 7 and 8 strings of Charlie Hunter is a single pickup, so only a single sound for bass and medium-up, because the effect of bass lines does not depend only on the register, but on the sound, attacks, effects specific of double-bass players. Some are pretty good solo 6 strings guitar with that, give the illusion of a bass despite the difference in register. Joe Pass is better for giving that impression than for varying the bass line

[mhch]

Use Transcribe! to slow down the video a bit and help you understand fast English speakers ... Yi can slow things under YouTube but the sound quality or the speed adjustement percentage aren't always convenient for that.

[whiskey02]

Here’s a great resource which I think I originally came across on this forum, bookmarked it right away. It is of course all written in bass clef, really won’t sound all that in treble clef.
Walking bass "licks" - some help for those new to walking bass lines | TalkBass.com