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Walking bass for guitar (3)

Here are some variations on what we've seen up to now. You're probably starting to see that there are many possibilities to walk from one chord to the next.

If you can get two or three "stock" walking bass lines under your fingers then you will eventually be able to comp and walk for many standards. I concectrated on learning two or three walk/comp patterns for ii-V-I's (in major and minor) and we all know how common that progression is!

By the way, we'll get to the comping part soon.

Here are the variations to help you get ideas, or use these:

Walking bass for guitar (2)

Let's try a descending walking bass line.



Notice that in both examples seen up to now, the 5th of the Dm7 chord falls on beat 3. If we had tried a scalar approach in this example we would have started on the root "D", descended to its 7th "C" and on beat three would have landed on its 6th "B". Not a good note for the 3rd beat. Bass players strive to play roots on beat 1 and 5ths on the beat 3. It defines more clearly the harmony. Again we finish with a chromatic note to lead us smoothly into the root of the new bar.

Walking bass for guitar (1)

I'm going to take a break from the fingerstyle arrangement of "All the things you are" to talk about walking bass on the guitar. I touched on this just a bit in the arrangement and said that I'd do a lesson on it. This lesson also applies to bass players, after all it's thanks to them that we have this technique.

Voy a hacer un parentisis y hablar de como se hace una línea tipo "walking" en la guitarra. En el arreglo de "All the thing you are" vimos un poco una línea de estas pero no se habló en como se construye. Los bajistas también se beneficiarían de esta lección.

First you have to learn how to construct a walking bass line.

I don't know who started to play walking bass on the guitar but I think that Joe Pass raised it to the modern standard that it enjoys today. For guitarrists it's trickier simply because we now have to do two or three things a t once and that limits us quite alot. But that doesn't stop us. Walking is a technique that gives alot of movement to a tune.

No sé quien inventó el "walking" en la guitarra pero sé que Joe Pass lo elevó al nivel de que goza hoy en la guitarra. Para un guitarrista es más difícil por que además de la línes de "walking", tenemos que acompañar y eso nos limita. Pero si logramos superar esta dificultad añadida, el "walking" da mucho movimient a un tema.

There are many definitions for walking bass. The two recurring words in the definitions I've seen have been "chromaticism" and "swing". In other words you arrive at the next note in the bass line by a half step. OK, but I've used chromatics in my bass lines in Bossas and Bossas don't swing. I have also heard the bass line playing the notes of an arpeggio on every beat of a 4/4 or 3/4 swing tune with no chromaticisms and the tune had swing. So, where does that leave us? I've come up with my own definition that I feel satisfies the definition of what a walking bass line is:

Playing on the beat (1, 2, 3, 4 in 4/4 time), bass notes from the scale OR the arpeggio of the chord that's sounding at that moment, with a heavy usage of chromatic approach tones to connect to the next chord.

Una de las muchas definiciones para la línea se "walking" es:

Tocar en los tiempos fuertes (1, 2, 3, 4 en un tema con compás 4/4), las notas del bajo de la escala O del arpegio del acorde que está sonando en ese momento y el uso de cromatismos para conectar la línea al siguiente acorde.

There's alot in that definition but we'll take it apart slowly and you 'll understand it.

Let's start with some basic rules to follow that I have found to work over and over again taking alot of the mystery out of this technique:

Aquí hay unas reglas básicas para seguir que uso una y otra vez:

1-Beat 1 of a new chord starts with the root of the chord.
2-Beat 3 should (95% of the time) be one of these notes IN THIS ORDER: 5th, 3rd, 7th.
3-Beat 4 should be preferably a chromatic approach tone to a new chord or a note a whole tone away from the new chord. If the chord remains the same then use a note from the chord, the scale or a chromatic.
4-Beat 2 is up to you as long as it maintains the smoothness of the walking line.

1-En el 1er tiempo de un compás donde se toca un acorde nuevo ahy que empezar con la tónica del acorde.
2-El 3er tiempo (el 95% de las veces) debería de ser una de las siguientes notas en este orden de elección:5ª, 3ª, 7ª.
3-El 4º tiempo preferiblemente debería ser un cromatismo para entrar en el acorde nuevo por semitono o si no puede ser entonces por tono. Si el acorde no cambia, usa una nota del acorde, de la escala o un cromatismo.
4-El 2º tiempo depnde de ti siempre que no se pierda la uniformidad o suavidad de la línea del "walking".

Let's take a iim7-V7 (two minor 7-five dominant 7) chord progression and first see how a scalar walking bass is constructed:

Vamos a construir una línea "waling" con las notas de la escala en una progresión iim7-V7:


We immediately see that if we choose a scalar approach for this example then on beat 4 we would have to play a G which is the root of the chord in the next bar. So we would have arrived at the G7 too early. That's why we introduce a chromatic note. This concept adds a very smooth bass line moving by half step into the root of the next chord.

Enseguida vemos que si elegimos usar notas de la escala, que en el 4º tiempo tendríamos que tocar un Sol que es la tónica del siguient acorde. Por lotanto habríamos llegado demasiado pronto al acorde de Sol7. Es por eso que se introduce el cromatismo.

I will critique your work for free!

If anybody who's following this blog would like to apply the lessons we've seen up to now on "All the things you are" and attempt to do the next four bars on their own, you can send me your arrangement and I'll critique it personally and write back to you with the results! Or if you wish to do an arrangement of another tune that's fine also.

Send your arrangement to: rhrz@wanadoo.es, BUT, you MUST write a comment in this blog that you are sending me your arrangement. Tell me your name or a nick that I can identify on the email you send. If I don't get a comment on this blog from you I won't open the email and I'll erase it. You can send an mp3, tab or music notation.

Also if you'd like to see any lessons in particular posted here just suggest them to me.

Guitar arrangements: How to do them (6)

Now that we've seen (and heard) how a walking bass line sounds with only melody and bass, the next logical step is to add some harmony.

Listen carefully to how a piano or guitar accompanies a soloist (sax, trumpet...) in medium to up tempo tunes. Most of the time the chords played are very short in duration. We call this way of accompniment or comping, "hits" or "stabs" and what's most important about this is not the harmony itself because it's so short that at times you barely perceive it, IT'S THE RHYTHM. Notice that these harmonic "hits" rarely are played on strong beats but are played on weaker upbeats. If you play to much harmony on strong beats then the tune gets sluggish like a car trying to get out of deep mud. But if upeats are the focus of where you place your chords then the tune is a Ferrari.

So with that in mind here's walking bass, harmonic "stabs" and melody. (Note: In jazz all upbeat quarter notes are always played short unless noted otherwise)



This is pretty tricky fingerwise. Practice two notes at a time and go slowly. I recommend Tuck Andress' DVD "Fingerstyle Mastery".

Left hand finger stretching exercise

Here's a simple stretching exercise that really helped me. Remember don't push your fingers too much, just enough to feel them stretch, never to the point of pain. If you do feel pain then stop and continue the next day. Better to rest one day than to have to stop all together for several weeks because you've torn ligaments and tendons, right?

A few rules to follow with this exercise:
1) Keep your fingers on the fret board at all times. Don't "pick up and put down" any fingers.
2) Keep your fingers as close to the frets as possible. It'll be hard to do when you go to move finger 2 (middle finger) because it'll want to drag finger 3 (ring) with it.
3) This is a stretching exercise so sound is not that important. Don't get hung up on fret noise or if one string doesn't sound 100%. Get the fingers on the fretboard and just do it.
4) As the exercise progresses down the fretboard the harder it'll get because the fret spacing is wider. Hang in there.
5) Good luck!