by One of my most watched videos is a lesson about walking bass line formulas. Maybe you’ve seen it yourself.
I LOVE giving out these formulas!
They’re unbelievably helpful when you’re learning to walk, so I give them out to every student of mine who needs to learn to play walking lines quickly and confidently.
However, there is actually a limit on how useful formulas are.
They’re great for getting through songs that have a ‘regular’ chord structure, but what if you come across something that’s completely different?
What if you have to play a walking bass line on a song that has long stretches of just one chord?
Like a song that has 16 bars of nothing but D minor 7…
It sounds simple, doesn’t it?
Less chords means it’s less difficult, right?
Not exactly. The challenge of getting through a song with lots of chords is exactly that – making it through and playing all the chord changes.
The challenge with ‘modal’ songs is very different. It becomes how do you play this single chord and make it sound interesting? Melodic? Beautiful?
In this video, I’ll show you exactly how you can take a modal song – one with long stretches on a single chord – and make beautiful, interesting, melodic walking bass lines.
When you do this right, the bass lines that you create can become just as beautiful and melodic as the actual melody of the song and you’re going to learn 2 ways to do it.
- Method #1 is almost like cheating, but it’s guaranteed to sound amazing every single time you do it
- Method #2 is like a game with different ‘levels’ that almost forces you to try new things and come up with fresh new bass line ideas
- Method #3 makes everything you play more catchy and melodic – and you can even combine it with the 1st method
Check out the lesson here:
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Once you understand that you simply can’t use formulas that worked before when you had one-chord-per-bar, a world of possibilities opens up for you. A world where you know how to avoid sounding boring and repetitive during your walking bass lines.
But, you have to change your approach in order to reach this point.
Once you do, you discover that playing modal songs, like the ones we go through in the video, are tons of fun. You don’t need to worry about outlining chord changes nearly as much.
You can simply create.
It’s an amazing feeling when you’re playing a song and these incredible walking lines just flow out of you – almost without you having to think about it.
It’ll take some practice to get there, but with the ideas and methods in this video, I’m sure you can start making your own inspired walking lines in no time at all.
Good luck with the lesson and happy playing!
Cheers,
Spending a lot of time these days in practice mode, as you might imagine.
Great stuff Luke! Thanks …
What kind of bass you have?
It’s a Spector EuroLX!
Thanks Luke. These jazz lessons are helping me to improve my understanding of jazz techniques and some theory to further my enjoyment.
And thanks for answering my question on two chord changes within a bar on Fridays Quarantine Q&A. I like using the chromatic approach method as it sounds smoother to me.
/Ben (in Anaheim, California)
Was searching for clues/tips on how to play along with So What and there you were! And the 5 ways to do walking bass – brilliant. Thank you. I’ve had books and online for years and not come across this concept. You’ve helped make more music in the world. Cheers
Thanks for these lessons. Formulas and shapes are very helpful and I never found them in years of books and online videos. Well done, and fun videos too. I like the dog. Your time and work helps there be more jazz bass in the world!
Oops. Doubled up when I thought the first comment didn’t show. Wanted to make sure to say thanks!
No se descarga el Audio, porfavor subir audio es necesario!!!!
Hey Felipe – check the email you would have got from me. The backing tracks are in there. If you can’t find the email, make sure to check your ‘junk’ or ‘spam’ folders. Sometimes the emails get routed there, even though you requested them.