Tips for writing walking lines

[JohnSlade07]

Has anyone got any good tips for approaching walking bass lines? I'm aware of the following ideas (although I've only touched on the first few so far):

1. Root.
2. Root and fifth.
3. Root, 3rd, fifth.
4. Arpeggios.
5. Chromatic approach notes.
6. Mixture of the above obviously.

Apart from these I realise the swing and feel is foremost, just looking for a few more ideas to get my teeth into.

I'm odd admittedly, but I find all this stuff fascinating (God I feel ashamed saying that!).

Cheers

John.

[EssentialTension]

[quote name='JohnSlade07' post='475333' date='Apr 29 2009, 06:25 PM']Has anyone got any good tips for approaching walking bass lines? I'm aware of the following ideas (although I've only touched on the first few so far):

1. Root.
2. Root and fifth.
3. Root, 3rd, fifth.
4. Arpeggios.
5. Chromatic approach notes.
6. Mixture of the above obviously.

Apart from these I realise the swing and feel is foremost, just looking for a few more ideas to get my teeth into.

I'm odd admittedly, but I find all this stuff fascinating (God I feel ashamed saying that!).

Cheers

John.[/quote]

Not odd, just a musician.

I try to make my walks a combination of:

1. Chordal movement using the triad of the chord
2. Scalar movement using the notes of a relevant scale
3. Chromatic movement using notes chromatic to the relevant scale that lead to wherever I want to get to.
4. Use open string notes to give you a moment to move left-hand position when necessary.
5. A walking line doesn't have to be four notes on four beats in every single bar; little variations can add to the swing.
6. And don't be afraid to repeat a note for two beats in a row if it sounds good.

My theory is let's say average so I don't know if the the above is the best way to express it but it's how I think of it.

[JohnSlade07]

4,5 and 6 certainly give me some other ideas. I assume that double bass players use a lot of open strings to move around the neck and shift position. That's something I'm very poor at.

Cheers.

[The Funk]

2 was the main one missing from your list, I think.

[JohnSlade07]

You're quite right. Ooops missed that one!!

[Bilbo]

Use of octaves is also effective as it gives you thinking time and is texturally different for repeating the same note. For example, in the line for Wynton Marsalis' 'Hestitation', which I transcribed and posted here, Ron Carter plays a root, fifth, down an octave, back up the octave, root, fifth, down the octave again, up the octave, root, fifth, root then chromatics through to scalar note choices. Its a variation on a conventional pedal tone but can sound great in the right place.

Also rhythmic displacements of all of the above can create wonderful tension (Dave Holland does this a lot) i.e. simple harmonies made to sound complicated simply by moving off the pulse (I would experiment away from the bandstand before you try this stuff in public).

[chris_b]

I see a lot of people playing 4 in the bar stuff is a very jerky way. They hit the 1 too hard or bang their fingers down. You can be exactly on the beat, push the beat or sit back on it, but my advice is to relax and flow. Think floating when you're playing.

[YouMa]

modes are handy.

[JohnSlade07]

Don't worry Bilbo I've got no intention of performing this stuff in public, purely for my own entertainment. I'd be far too scared to try and play with proper jazz musicians, unless they've got a strange desire to play Daydream Believer or Brown Eyed Girl that is!

Once you start scratching even the surface of this the variations seem endless. At the moment I've been listening to players such as Sam Jones and Doug Watkins who seemed/seem to have a lot of feel and bounce in their playing. Great stuff.

Thanks again for all the advice and input.

[Alun]

I have a couple of PDFs on walking bass at [url="http://www.bassbook.co.uk/free.htm"]http://www.bassbook.co.uk/free.htm[/url] which you might like, although it looks like you've already got most of the points pretty much covered

Cheers
Alun

[iamapirate]

teehehee, quote from my bass teacher (Mark Prentice) after a lesson on walking bass lines:

'so really it's just mucking around with the major pentatonic and throwing in a few notes that don't quite sound right to add to the groove'

legend...

[jakenewmanbass]

[quote name='iamapirate' post='493375' date='May 20 2009, 03:52 PM']'so really it's just mucking around with the major pentatonic and throwing in a few notes that don't quite sound right to add to the groove'[/quote]

I'm hoping thats a little joke because it should not be parading as sensible advice

There is a tremendous amount more than that to good walking bass lines and anyone who tells you otherwise is likely not to understand the variety of construction possibilities available. To become very good at it is years of work and an ever evolving lifetime challenge.

Edited May 25, 2009 by jakesbass

[jakenewmanbass]

So... now to add some serious advice.
The single most effective way of conveying strong musical ideas that flow and sound musical is: learn to play crotchets with a solid driving feel, get a good grasp of the following four concepts, and become fluent with any tune or set of chord changes you may come across...

1. have a solid arpeggiated knowledge of each of the chords in the piece over the full range of your instrument.
2. have a scalar knowledge of each of the chords in the piece over the full range of your instrument.
3. Develop an awareness of the notes that are in common between the chords in the piece.
4. become familiar with the non scalar and arpeggio based devices that are commonly used to move musically and easily from chord to chord.

[u]NB[/u]

the enormity of those ideas speak for themselves so it's worth adding that it can be done a bit at a time, those ideas are the 'large' principles behind becoming expert at it. In the mean time any efforts in the directon of those principles will produce some good results.
I would strongly recommend Rufus Reids' book 'The Evolving Bassist' it's a DB book but has line after line of ideas of groups of notes that work well on a chord and flow well into the next chord.

PM if anything needs expanding.

Jake

Edited May 25, 2009 by jakesbass

[Eight]

Ok, just looked at that on Amazon. Should we get the book or DVD?

[Born 2B Mild]

I'd love to have lessons on this stuff. I don't work well on voluntary learning, so deadlines and embarrassment help my motivation. Anyone in Harrogate hot on this stuff? (Sorry for a slight hijack of this thread)

[Doddy]

[quote name='iamapirate' post='493375' date='May 20 2009, 03:52 PM']teehehee, quote from my bass teacher (Mark Prentice) after a lesson on walking bass lines:

'so really it's just mucking around with the major pentatonic and throwing in a few notes that don't quite sound right to add to the groove'

legend...[/quote]

If your teacher is not joking,run and find someone else to teach you.......quickly.

I think to start understanding walking lines you need to have a good solid knowledge of arpeggios first(major,minor,7,dim,aug etc).
After that you should start to add notes from the relative scales,which will begin to allow you to walk more smoothly from one
chord to another. A solid knowledge of the fingerboard is also essential.
Obviously this barely scratches the surface on walking bass-but I find it's a good place to begin.

Also,its worth checking out the books Building/Expanding walking bass lines by Ed Friedland,and listen to some of the great players
such as Paul Chambers,Ray Brown,Oscar Pettiford and Ron Carter.

[rslaing]

[quote name='Doddy' post='497990' date='May 26 2009, 02:00 PM']If your teacher is not joking,run and find someone else to teach you.......quickly.

I think to start understanding walking lines you need to have a good solid knowledge of arpeggios first(major,minor,7,dim,aug etc).
After that you should start to add notes from the relative scales,which will begin to allow you to walk more smoothly from one
chord to another. A solid knowledge of the fingerboard is also essential.
Obviously this barely scratches the surface on walking bass-but I find it's a good place to begin.

Also,its worth checking out the books Building/Expanding walking bass lines by Ed Friedland,and listen to some of the great players
such as Paul Chambers,Ray Brown,Oscar Pettiford and Ron Carter.[/quote]

Great advice, and if you pm me I will email a couple of books mentioned above (too big to send via Basschat)

[dlloyd]

I've struggled with walking for years... the theory is pretty easy to understand, but applying it can be a different matter, and the tendency (for me at least) is to play repetitive and fairly unimaginative R, 3, 5, approach lines that get tired very quickly.

I've been actively working on it for the last few months and have started to see some real progress, mainly through studying other peoples' lines. While the likes of Ron Carter and Ray Brown do exactly what's described in books like Ed Friedland's (for the most part), they frequently do it in ways that I would never think of doing... even though what they're doing is simple [i]in theory[/i].

Some of the older recordings are difficult to transcribe as the bass can be buried in the mix. The Aebersold recordings are fairly easy to manage though.

This link was posted on Talk Bass a while back and I can't recommend it enough...

[url="http://www.bluewailers.com/temp/bass_lines_on_jazz_standards.zip"]http://www.bluewailers.com/temp/bass_lines...z_standards.zip[/url]

What it is is a zipped collection of bass lines in Finale format (so you'll need to download Finale Notepad if you don't have a version of Finale installed).

There are hundreds (if not thousands) of transcriptions of lines from the likes of Ron Carter, Ray Brown, Niels Pedersen, Paul Chambers, etc.

[dlloyd]

To give an idea of how many transcriptions there are in this file, there are 11 categories of standards:

1. Blues
2. Standard Form AABA
3. Short Form A1A2
4. Short Dated Form
5. Latin
6. Unusual Form
7. Modal
8. Double Form
9. Standard Form with Expention*
10. Waltz
11. Ballads

(*Is that supposed to be 'expansion'?)

If you, for example, go into the Standard Form AABA category, there are a number of songs to choose from:

Ain't Misbehaving
Close Your Eyes
Confirmation
Crazy Rhythm
Dream a Little Dream
The Duke
Easy Living
Exactly Like You
Have You Met Miss Jones
Hi Fly
Honeysuckle Rose
I Can't Get Started
I Got it Bad
I Hear a Rhapsody
In Your Own Sweet Way
It Don't Mean a Thing
Lady Be Good
Lover Man
Lullaby of Birdland
Mean to Me
Moanin'
Mood Indigo
A Night In Tunisia
Oleo
On the Sunny Side of the Street
Perdido
Robbins Nest
Satin Doll
Scrapple From the Apple
Softly
Sophisticated Lady
Squeeze Me
Stars Fell on Alabama
Stompin' At the Savoy
Sunday
Sweet Lorraine
Take the A Train
Taking a Chance
Teach Me Tonight
There is no greater Love
These Foolish Things
Undecided
What Is this Thing Called Love
Willow Weep For Me
Woody 'n' You
Yardbird Suite
You And the Night.

Many of these have transcriptions from more than one bassist. If you go into 'Oleo', you find it's subdivided into a number of other tunes that have the same chords (Rhythm Changes):

[b]I got rhythm[/b]
Slam Stewart
George Mraz

[b]Oleo[/b]
Percy Heath
Paul Chambers
Niels Pedersen

[b]Who's got rhythm?[/b]
Leroy Vinnegar

[b]The Theme[/b]
Niels Pedersen

[b]The Jeep is Jumpin[/b]
S Heatley

[b]Red Cross[/b]
Niels Pedersen

[b]Moose the Mooche[/b]
Niels Pedersen
Ray Brown

[b]Thriving From a Riff[/b]
Ron Carter
Niels Pedersen

[b]Anthropology[/b]
Ron Carter

[b]Cotton Tail[/b]
Mike Moore
Ray Brown

[b]With Respect[/b]
Niels Pedersen

It's kind of biased towards Niels Pedersen transcriptions, but I can live with that!

[Mikey D]

I completely forgot that I downloaded that a while ago...that's tonights practice sorted! I found it while looking for NHOP (who is my favourite upright player) transcriptions.

[lowdown]

It might be worth putting some up as PDF files, for those without Finale.
I have Finale 2009, so i can convert.
Any requests ?

[b]
Edit,[/b]
it converts ok.
Here is a Ray Brown line for Au Privave [ Just a Jazz blues ]

[attachment=27173:Au_Privave.pdf]


Sam Jones version
[attachment=27208:Au_Priva...am_Jones.pdf]



Garry

Edited June 16, 2009 by lowdown

[dlloyd]

[quote name='lowdown' post='515531' date='Jun 16 2009, 05:53 PM']It might be worth putting some up as PDF files, for those without Finale.
I have Finale 2009, so i can convert.
Any requests ?

[b]
Edit,[/b]
it converts ok.
Here is a Ray Brown line for Au Privave [ Just a Jazz blues ]

[attachment=27173:Au_Privave.pdf]



Garry[/quote]

Nice one!

Ray Brown's line from Blue Monk is also good (Blues, Bb)

[lowdown]

[quote name='dlloyd' post='515610' date='Jun 16 2009, 07:00 PM']Nice one!
Ray Brown's line from Blue Monk is also good (Blues, Bb)[/quote]

[attachment=27201:Blue_Mon...ay_Brown.pdf]

If i get time towards the end of the week i might start a new thread
with some of the stuff from the link you provided.
That will keep it all neat and tidy.


Garry

Edited June 16, 2009 by lowdown

[jakenewmanbass]

They're cracking Garry.
I just read through both of them and had a whale of a time... now let me see... if I couldn't read.?.?.?.?

naughty me

Seriously though, Brown was an undoubted bass genius in my mind, there is not a spare or un-meaning note in either of them, not much repitition and they just sing the blues to you all alone, then add Ed Thigpen and Oscar and OMG!! He is far and away my biggest inlfuence on double

Edited June 16, 2009 by jakesbass

[dlloyd]

[quote name='lowdown' post='515629' date='Jun 16 2009, 07:17 PM'][attachment=27201:Blue_Mon...ay_Brown.pdf]

If i get time towards the end of the week i might start a new thread
with some of the stuff from the link you provided.
That will keep it all neat and tidy.


Garry[/quote]

Good idea... I'll expand on what I did with the AABA bit and create a complete index for the transcriptions. As they are, they're not the easiest to navigate.