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Classic walking bass lines?


Dread Bass
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Hi all. I’ve recently picked up the double bass and am starting to jam with a jazz band. I’m trying to get up to speed on walking bass which is proving harder than I expected! I have started transcribing lines from recordings of the band I’m playing with as well as working from Ed Friedlands book and I have booked a lesson for a few weeks time. I also have Irealb and am intending to work through some jazz standards. I’m mainly transcribing on electric at the minute while I try to build my facility on the double bass.

Can anyone recommend any classic walking bass lines that I can transcribe to build my vocabulary or any other resources to look at. I need to try and get up to speed as quickly as possible so I can keep up with the band. 

Thanks in advance. (I did a search but nothing came up but I searched walking bass and only got 6 results so I may be using the search function wrong! So apologies if this has been done to death! 

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Anything Leroy Vinnegar has ever recorded. There were/are much flashier players out there but Leroy will pin you to the ground. And then of course my favourite Milt Hinton and the unbelievable master Ray Brown. That alone is about 200 years of practice....takes time and patience. But it’s great fun. All the very very best.

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Here's a quick reference sheet from Bert Ligon that summarises some of the most important aspects of walking bass lines in one page - it's obviously no substitute for everything discussed above, but it's handy all the same.

Bert_Ligon_Fundamental_Bass_Lines.pdf

I got it from here - there are a few more bass-specific downloads as well:

http://nationaljazzworkshop.org/freestuff.php

Edited by tinyd
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Jazz -purists look away now: Whenever I can, I like to write the bass lines myself for a given arrangement, and not being schooled in Jazz I find apeggios a good way to work as an alternative to concentrating on scales. Once I know the chord, I can look up the apeggio, and go from there. 

I use this book as a guide A Visual Guide to Chords and Arpeggios for Double Bass: A Reference Text for Classical, Blues and Jazz Chords/Arpeggios: Volume 11 (Fingerboard Chord

 

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@petebassist - arpeggios are pretty fundamental to walking lines so your approach isn't wrong. However, apart from outlining the chords, one of the other 'jobs' of a walking bassline is to provide a sense of forward motion, so using diatonic / chromatic tones to lead smoothly to the next chord can transforms it into something more musical. I'm not saying that I can do this consistently of course, but it's one of my goals :) 

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@tinyd - Yes agreed mate, I use the appeggio as the starting point and then try to link smoothly and satisfyingly from one to the other. I work by ear during this process, as I don't know the underlying jazz theory about why a particular dominant third is best to link to a V chord when in a II-VII-V progression and that type of thing, but I'm slowly learning more about this. So if it sounds right, it is right, at least to me ;-)

Recently I have done more site reading of bass scores, which feels a bit like reading a book, and I enjoy concentrating on the reading rather than trying to remember what comes up next. But I also enjoy playing my own lines from memory, and it also means that I don't have to use a music stand and use my reading glasses LOL.

Of course you can always do away with theory go free-improv, like the double bass solo at 2.15 here, that was in the Grauniad recently - gives me a headache I'm afraid so I'll stick with my amateur jazz method... 

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On 11/16/2017 at 09:04, tinyd said:

Bert_Ligon_Fundamental_Bass_Lines.pdf

@tinyd Thanks for this link and the link to the wider library. This Fundamental Patterns one's a great little summary - I'm gonna be working through these approaches this weekend.

I've also got Walking Jazz Lines for Bass by Jay Hungerford, which has some great walking patterns for popular standards such as So What.

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On 16/11/2017 at 13:28, petebassist said:

Of course you can always do away with theory go free-improv, like the double bass solo at 2.15 here, that was in the Grauniad recently - gives me a headache I'm afraid so I'll stick with my amateur jazz method... 

Ahh.. the very great Barry Guy.  Went to see / hear him once with the equally great Evan Parker.  Briliant players but every time they (accidently?) played anything tuneful they backed off as if stung.  Determinedly discordant and unstructured.  I also have a recording of him playing John Dowland (in darkness let me dwell) with John Surman and various early music people (Barry does keep going wierdly off piste, even in this); a man for all seasons ... but not all of them nice to listen to!  I think this is maybe something to approach AFTER you understand all the theory and can play a walking bass blindfold and with your ears plugged.

Meanwhile I've ordered a copy of the magnusson book!

Edited by NickA
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It seems to go under the radar but the absolute best book on bass line construction I’ve encountered is ‘The Jazz Bass Line Book’ by Mike Downes. I use it with all my pupils. I’d also recommend transcribing lines but it takes a lot of work beyond just getting the notes down to make the most of transcribing, I’ve transcribed a lot of Ron Carter but that hadn’t automatically translated to me playing like him. As always a good teacher will help! 

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