Walking Bass Lines

New Lesson Updates
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Just in case anyone is wondering why I haven’t posted in a week or so…

I am just finishing an in-depth study of walking bass lines and will be recording the lessons tomorrow.

These lessons will answer all of your questions and get you walking over the tune Autumn Leaves and any other tune you want to learn.I don’t just show you a walking bass, I explain how they work so you can make your own.

It’s a 3 part lesson and has taken me a long time to make the graphics… but it will be worth it :slight_smile:

This thread will then be dedicated to Walking Bass so we can share and learn from the masters such as:

  • Paul Chambers
  • Ron Carter
  • Ray Brown
  • Charlie Haydn
  • Eddie Gomez

there’s also and many more… maybe have a search around YouTube and see what you can find on these guys.

Cheers,
Hayden

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Almost telepathic in places between Bill and Eddie here:

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I’m looking forward to new lesson. I really liked the last 2 songs you covered. I have been working on All the things you are. I was wondering if you could make a lead sheet at some time in future. Thx. I would also like to request Sweet Lorraine as a future standard lesson. Thx​:grinning::grinning::grinning:

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Great stuff Micheal… it’s actually 4 new lessons which will create a new ‘mini course’ on walking bass, taking the student from knowing nothing, to being able to construct a walking bass over common jazz standards. The lesson are:

Lesson 1. Walking bass lines built from triads & passing tones

Lesson 2. Introducing step wise motion (scales) to the bass line & also other stylistic and rhythmic intricacies

Lesson 3. Apply all of these patterns to the tune Autumn Leaves with right hand comping

Lesson 4. Strip the bass line down to root and 5th and ornament the melody and improvise over Autumn Leaves


Wonderful to hear you have enjoyed the previous lessons.... it seems that students like the bluesy/gospel vibe so we're pushing a little more in that direction.

Yes sure I’ve just the score together for you here:

All_The_Things_You_Are_Score.pdf (869.0 KB)

I’ll add it to the main website shortly

“All The Things You Are” would be a fantastic tune to cover with walking bass.

Yes sure thing we can definitely cover Sweet Lorraine, please post the tune suggestion in the jazz standard thread… it helps me keep things organised.

Cheers :slight_smile:

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I’ve just published another walking bass tutorial on Autumn Leaves: https://www.pianogroove.com/jazz-piano-lessons/autumn-leaves-bass-line-2/

This time we take a simple approach just playing the bass line on beats 1 & 3 but we develop the melody and add in some improvised sections.

I also show the features of the iRealPro App and how I use this to practice with the metronome on beats 2 & 4.

I hope anyone interested in walking bass finds it useful.