Originally published July 22, 2014, lightly edited for clarity.
As I have said in past blogs, the note job of a bass line in any style is to outline the chord sound using one note at a time. The best set of notes to use for this job are the notes of the triad. In getting started with jazz walking bass lines for the 1st time, beginning with triads works very well and will give you immediate results. Basically you put a root note on the first beat of each new chord and then fill the remaining beats of that chord with different combinations of the thirds and fifths. By starting your journey with jazz walking bass lines with triads you will establish a strong harmonic foundation so that when you start to add other walking techniques to your bass lines, they will always sound good. I would like to send a strong thank you to my teacher Kevin Bales for getting me into these triads. Walking bass is one of the styles I teach. For one-on-one help composing walking bass lines, online bass lessons via Zoom are available.
Read the transcript
Yes, okay, so if I'm doing, uh, to go through this chord progression first, A minor 7. So I look at the different possibilities I have for an A minor 7 in the first five frets just using the triad notes, and this includes the inversions: one, flat three, five, flat three, one, five, flat three, five. All right, that's a left side position minor. I could do section one. I do a section two left side position minor: one, flat three, five, flat three, one, five, flat three, five. Um, I could do a right side position, section one, using the open string, because the open string really, if I go one, flat three, five, flat three, that's really like doing this as far as this positional aspect is concerned. Does that make sense? Yeah. One, flat three, five, flat three, one, five, flat three, five. I've got the A up here. I could do a section three right side: one, flat three, five, flat three, one, five, flat three, five. I could do a section two right side position: one, flat three, five, flat three, one, five, flat three, five. So I've got all those different ways to configure the notes of an A minor triad, putting the root on the first beat of the chord and then having beats two, three, and four allocated to the thirds and fifths in different combinations. Okay, yeah, all right, which will allow me to make up a completely functional walking bass line over this jazz chord progression.
Okay, so if I look at all the different possibilities for each individual chord, right, right, and then just kind of get acquainted with them, and then I can work on composing walking bass lines. Now, basically, improvisation is composing fast, right? That's really what it is, right, on the spot kind of composing, right? And then, um, you know, of course, slow composing is writing it out, doing all that stuff, right? So if I compose a walking bass line, just make choices, and it's good to do this without the track at first and just kind of get used to putting these things together. It's like a puzzle.
So I go, one, so I'm going to use a section, uh, section one left side position to start off with for the A minor: one, flat three, five, flat three. So I've used up all four beats of the A minor 7 chord. Now I want to go to the D dominant 7th chord, and, uh, the rule for now is to approach the fourth beat of the chord on to the closest root note available. Okay, all right, still restricting your choices to the first five frets: one, flat three, five, flat three. My closest D is going to be either this fifth fret on the A string or the open D, since they're the same pitch, and depending on which one you use will kind of dictate what position it's in. So getting back to one, flat three, five, flat three, so I'm going to pick a section two left side position: one, three, five, three. And then I pick the closest G note, which would be here, and I'm going to do a center position inversion: one, five, three, five, to a C, uh, section three: one, three, five, three, to an F sharp minor 7 flat five, center position: one, flat five, flat three, flat five, to a B7 major: one, five, three, five, to E minor: one, flat three, five, flat three, and then one, five, flat three, five, and then I'm back at A again. So I have a perfectly functional walking bass line that's going to completely and very clearly outline the chord sound.
So this is an excellent way to start jazz walking bass lines, because, you know, really, someone listening to you play would say, oh, you're playing Autumn Leaves. I mean, it'd be painfully obvious. Now, generally, you know, nobody plays walking bass lines just using triads, but if you start off with that and get really good at that, your harmonic foundation is going to be really huge in this style. So when you start adding devices to it, it's coming from a very strong harmonic place. The mistake a lot of people make with jazz walking bass lines is they get outside too quickly before they've mastered inside, and it loses its foundation. So guys that are really good at implied harmony stuff are good at it because they're doing it from a very strong harmonic foundation.
