Walking bass line theory basicspart 1by chris fitzgerald. In other words, instead of playing the chord, we play single notes in succession to outline this chord. The role of walking bass line is to outline harmony through melody. Jazz is an inherently harmonically complex style of music. The bass line melody for the rest of the bar is a bb triad. In this lesson, you will learn how to combine chords with a walking bass line, a concept that is becoming more and more in demand these days. The melody is the part of the song the singer is singing or a solo by an instrument like a guitar or saxophone. One section of our website that seems to generate a lot of email is our song arrangement lessons, where we come up with arrangements of songs where the single guitar handles everything melody line, bass and chords. In jazz, a line played pizzicato on a double bass in regular crotchets in 44 metre, the. A walking bass line walks through the chord progression, one note per beat.
This is the ebook of the printed book and may not include any media. Walking bass for jazz guitar with martin taylor mbe is the antidote to formulaic guitar methods. Generally we have available four quarter notes per bar to make this happen. With your left hand practice walking bass lines through the chord changes and with your right hand practice comping. Therefore being in control and becoming fluent is crucial. If the bass is on the wrong note, the whole sound can derail easily.
In this 5 minute masterclass, were going create a bass line over a blues in f. Lessons on how to make chord melody and solo jazz guitar versions of tunes featured play a complete jazz standard completely on your own like joe pass. Walking up or down into a chord is a really nice way of making a transition from one chord to another. In this lesson ill demonstrate how i approach playing walking bass lines and chords at the same time. Now, lets work through the 5 steps for an awesome chord melody guitar arrangement. Walking bass line take the a train construction for. Walking bass lines are a great tool for piano players and other instrumentalists. Here is the bass lines for autumn leaves that everyone contributed to last week. Playing jazz guitar bass lines and chords terence wright. Jazz bass line construction thelonious monk institute of jazz online jazz handbook welcome to the bass chapter of the thelonious monk institute of jazzs online jazz handbook. Get the pdf here after clicking and logging in to patreon, look for the file attached to the bottom of the post. Walking bass lines always sound cool in any style of music, but are essential to jazz blues and great american songbook jazz standards. A basic approach is that you would be starting each chord on a chord tone easiest to start with the root of the chord, then playing up or down the scale toward the next chord, using primarily quarter notes. Another helpful tip is to practice playing rhythmic comping figures.
This concludes this free excerpt of my walking bass for jazz guitar primer lesson series. Blues in f upper register modern voicings blues chord forms for chordmelody playing. This pdf is a small sample of our ebook the easy guide to chord melody. A melody can start or end anywhere, and often their rhythmic stress is elsewhere and even skip beat 1.
How to play walking bass lines at the piano cocktail piano. Eventually, i was able to come up with a walking bass and rhythm at the same time. With almost 300 pages and hundreds of musical examples, martin taylor. The function of a bass player in the jazz combo is to work with the piano player and drummer to provide both a harmonic and rhythmic stability for the tune. Chord melody with walking bass autumn leaves bass part pdf download. Make sure you have all the elements chords and melody confident before getting all fancy with this version. The main point to consider when constructing walking bass lines is how to create a smooth transition between the last note of the current chord, and the first note of the next. Melodic continuity as applied to modulations up a major 3rd. Jazz standards for jazz guitar pdf sheet music, tabs, chords and soloing with audio examples welcome to our archive of some of the most popular jazz standards for jazz guitar. Ucjys8u5vyuecjtidv9wfya download lesson pdf, notation. A great tip for practicing walking bass lines is to open your real book or fake book and practice reading tunes just the chord changes, not the melody.
Nov 30, 2018 if youve ever heard jazz guitar chord melody, youll no doubt have been impressed by how great players like joe pass and martin taylor seamlessly play rhythm guitar and walking basslines at the same time. In this example, the bass line consists of simple arpeggiations of each chord, giving the overall effect of a simple blues bass line. Walking bass jazz blues fingerstyle rhythm guitar noise. Simple walking bass line for jazz beginners talkingbass. The bass lines are good and one simple addition to know is that just about any chord walking bass line, you can always use a leading tone that is, 12 step below to whatever is the next chord. While giant steps can be daunting to improvise over, you can create a walking bass line with only a few notes. First of all, if you are new to walking bass, look at my previous lesson. Never before has so much jazz guitar insight been gathered together in one volume. As mentioned many times, we get a lot of requests from our readers at guitar noise. One very important and widely used jazz guitar technique is playing bass lines in combination with chords. Take, for example the key of c major, we can use all the notes of the ordinary c major scale. On the one of the bar the root is in the bass and a bb7 voicing is added.
The essential guide to walking bass for bass guitar players introduction 2 1. It works great at any tempo and is shorter in duration than most standards. Looking forward to hearing your walking bass lines over autumn leaves. A guitar in standard tuning will never reach the lower bass notes of a real bass, but.
This week we are going to work through autumn leaves for our walking bass line. Free bass tabs printable, downloadable pdf bass tabs. When you can cleanly and smoothly play the bass line, add the chords. It is used in country, bluegrass and jazz very often, but you can use it in other genres as well. Pay close attention to the quality of the chords dominant seven or minor. Melodies, while they work with the chords, function differently than basslines. At the most basic level, you can use it to add a bit of extra something to your chord.
Walking bass lines are a style of playing in which the bass player plays quarter notes which clearly outline the chords and chord tones, seamlessly outlining one chord and resolving to the next. At the top of the page, you can see 3 chord diagrams. Without those substitutions the chords would be as follows e7 a7 d7 g7. Jazz standards for jazz guitar pdf sheet music, tabs, chords and soloing with. Create a chord melodysolo guitar arrangement the strugglin. Chord melody for guitar pdf autumn leaves chord melody. Martin taylor walking bass for jazz guitar fundamental. A slightly embellished version of this kind of line would also be typical of a basic boogie woogie type bass line, as in the following example. While walking bass in a band is generally played by the bass guitar or double bass player, being able to play walking bass lines is an essential skill for jazz guitarists when playing without a bass player. Walking bass for jazz guitar teaches you martin taylors own secret method for building a rock solid walking bassline on any jazz. In addition to this you can form a walking bass from the notes of a scale.
When piano players copy this idea of walking bass lines, they generally do so by using their left hand to play the same role as that of the bass player. As jazz musicians, we spend a lot of our practice time trying to learn to think, hear, and play our way through complicated chord progressions as improvisers. For when you have to learn to play the bass right now. This tune is mainly made up of a ii v7 i in major and a ii7b5 v7 i in the relative minor. Its one of those concepts thats both alluring and intimidating in its design.
Its function is to outline the chords of the progression and provide a smooth transition from one chord to another. In the first two chapters we have dealt with using the notes of a chord for the walking bass. Walking bass and chords on a bb blues jazz guitar lesson. Fa pc pc bbd ebbb cmeb bb9d bb7ab 4 fa fmab gmbb f 10. Learning how to play chord melody is one of the most sought after skills by jazz guitarists of all levels and musical tastes. Quite a while ago, i heard joe pass amazing jazz guitarist play a fingerstyle walking bass line while playing a chord melody solo guitar arrangement. This classic jazz song, most notably played by frank sinatra, is great practice for learning walking bass. How to play a walking bass line with chords guitar. As it is a bit easier on the left hand, lets start with a band chord melody.
In general, we make this transition smooth by limiting the interval between these two notes to either a half step semitone, whole step tone or a perfect5th. A bassline is a melody line played in the bass by a lowpitched instrument such as the piano, double bass, electric bass, tuba, etc. This is a a way of playing that i use really a lot in situations where theres no bass player, so mostly duo settings with a guitar player, singer or horn player. Doing a walking bass line like this over chords that last only 2 beats each is easy. Once weve covered that, ill show how to add chords here and there while playing the bass line. The first bar is a prime example of a simple very usable bassline on the bb7. How to create bass lines 6 often youll use an ostinato for the head when the whole group plays the melody at the beginning and the end and use a walking bass for the changes when people take turns improvising over the chord progression of the song. This printable ebook method in pdf format provides 49 jazz solo transcriptions of the greatest jazz musicians of all times with tabs, standard. Playing jazz guitar bass lines with chords the guitar is an extremely versatile instrument, with seemingly endless techniques and tones around every corner. Before starting work on the song, you really should try and listen to a few versions, particularly vocal versions, i think listening to one with a lyric really helps you. In spite of the use of the word stopping, one or both of the strings may be open. Just play the root note of the chord, followed by a leading tone thats pulling toward the next root note. Print and download in pdf or midi all the things you are jerome kern oscar hammerstein ii. Whether it is melody, bass lines, or accompaniment, we have to be ready to.
To get instant access to the rest of the lessons in. Walking bass for jazz guitar distils over 40 years of virtuosity and skill into one beautiful jazz guitar book. Do you want to play walking bass and chords over any jazz standard. Music notation is a great system, but it isnt the most modern, or best system for learn modern bass guitar songs. Chord tones are the foundation that we are going to. Autumn leaves is also often played in the key of g minor, so it is important to learn it in this key also. If youre amazingly extra awesome, youll be able to sing the melody and make a bass line at the same time.
At first, ill focus completely on how a walking bass line is formed. Mar 06, 2019 this lesson features a fingerstyle chord melody arrangement of a timeless standard by george gershwin. Walking basslines the goal of a walking bassline is to outline the chord progression but with an interesting melodic line that provides a countermelody as above. Walking bass for jazz guitar three easy steps fret dojo.
Having spent countless hours analysing walking bass ive created the 3m system for walking bass which distills walking bass into 3 core methods. Chord tones root, 3rd, 5th, 7th are the most powerful choice you can make when creating your walking lines. Its a very popular jazz standard for beginners as its harmonically pretty simple but its a great one to develop and learn things like chord melody and walking bass. Please sign in to youtube and private message me here for more info. Learn to play the bass line and the thirds and sevenths all at one time. And walking basslines are a continuous sequence of quarter notes, generally played on the beat 4 notes per bar in 44 time walking basslines. Bassists can learn to read music notation, chord lyrics charts, or bass tablature. A layered guitar system helps you understand every simple step and lets you quickly combine rock solid walking basslines on guitar with rich, interesting jazz chords. Walking bass lines are the foundation of the jazz bass but do appear elsewhere and are a great learning tool. Do you struggle to combine jazz guitar chords with walking basslines. After youve gone free walking bass study with guitar tabs. For the beginning, it is advisable to play the notes of the scale in an up or. While walking bass in a band is generally played by the bass guitar or double bass player, being able to play walking bass lines is an essential skill for. Pdf printfriendly chord sheet available for patreon supporters.
Instead, melodies often stress the higher chord tones 3 rd, 5 th, 7 th or scale tones inbetween them. Any of the leading tones i mentioned above will work, i just happened to use a flat 2nd for each chord in this example. These 3 core methods will give you a simple place to start and youll soon discover that playing walking bass isnt as hard as it often looks. Jazz bass line construction thelonious monk institute of jazz. A melody can outline chord tones if it wants to, but a melodys main purpose is not to define. Using drop 2 voicings on guitar, you can play a sophisticated chord melody. Then open the pdf for this lesson, and look at all that information. When the harmonic rhythm of a progression of a song is two chords per bar, the bass player will often play a target note on beats 1 and 3, and an approach note on beats 2 and 4. Now all i have to do is toss everything into a bag, shake it up and pour out a chord melody solo guitar arrangement. Jazz walking bass line etudes for guitar jamie holroyd. Blues progressions keys of bb and g, 1976 blues progressions keys of bb and e, 1977 blues progressions key of g.
Unlock one of the great secrets of jazz chord melody guitar playing. How to play a walking bass line with chords guitar lessons. Walking bass lines are a fascinating and important part of jazz as they create the foundation for the harmony underneath the chords and melody. The pdf and a guitarpro file is available for registered users. The bass lines are good and one simple addition to know is that just about any chordwalking bass line, you can always use a leading tone that is, 12 step below to whatever is the next chord. The guitarpro file will be particularly useful as you can change the speed and play along and even edit it and experiment with using different links between different chords. Walking bass lines helps us learn and reinforce the fundamentals of jazz harmony. These walking bass lines will give you a good basis for what to play and how to outline the chords to provide a good solid walking bass line for soloists to improvise over. Our job is to choose the right one and this course will teach you how to do it step by step. Use the same method that is illustrated with the ii v is.
Therefore being in control of them and becoming fluent is crucial. This concept highly prized by solo guitar players consists in mixing chords and bass lines. The final step is to put in some fill chords, a bass line, or short single note runs to fill in the empty spaces in the melody. And walking basslines are a continuous sequence of quarter notes, generally played on the beat 4 notes per bar in 44 time. This lesson features a fingerstyle chord melody arrangement of a timeless standard by george gershwin. The goal of a walking bassline is to outline the chord progression but with an interesting. A typical jazz walking bass line is played almost entirely with quarter notes notes that last 1 beat. While my guitar gently weeps finger style chord melody. The first jazz walking bass line etude we are going to learn is over the first eight bars of giant steps.
The melody is usually the main focal point of the song. In measures 1920 the eb7, and db7 are tritone chord substitutions. As club and restaurant owners are cutting budgets, one way to keep our gig as a guitar player is to slim down the ensemble to a duo or walking bass lines read more. Chord tones are the foundation that we are going to build our walking bass constructions on. Its a system that takes weeks or even months to learn the basics, while guitar tab can be learned in a matter.
Chords and walking bass part 1 in this lesson ill demonstrate how i approach playing walking bass lines and chords at the same time. Key of c major although there are a few nondiatonic notes and chords as well. Walking bass lines are a fascinating part of jazz, as they support and mark the harmony underneath the chords and melody. Martin taylors complete jazz guitar method compilation. A walking bass thats reduced mostly to a iv alternation will sound a lot like countryfolk. In string playing, bowing two strings simultaneously to produce intervals or chords. All the things you are guitar chord melody sheet music for. Here, we will provide you with lead sheets, basic chord melodies, chords and single note solos that you can begin applying over some of the most popular standards right away. Can you create the basslines that are the foundation of chord melody jazz guitar.
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