(plays jazz guitar)
- Hi, everybody, my name is Jens Larsen.
In this video I'm going to go over how you can play
walking bass and chords on a Bb blues.
So, I played and transcribed
a one-chorus example that I'm gonna analyze
and I'm gonna talk about how I made the bass lines,
what kind of chord voicings I'm using,
and talk a little bit
about the techniques involved in playing it.
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The first thing we should do
is probably just to take a look at the example,
and then I can break it down into smaller bits and pieces
and talk about the components that it's constructed of.
(plays guitar)
The way I'm playing this type of comping
is sort of a combination
of having the chords with the root as the lowest note,
so you kinda need to stay in the area
where you can play the chord,
because if you wanna add a chord,
then there has to be one available,
and most of the time you kinda need to have the root
as the first note in the bass line on the bar.
So, you're kinda limited to the places where that happens,
like this.
For the rest,
I'm trying to connect those with the bass line,
and the bass line is then spelling out
the chords that I'm on,
so I'm keeping it kinda simple
and just using fairly basic chord tones, or scale tones of
of the chord that I'm on.
And at the same time I'm thinking about where I'm going,
so I'm trying to make a bass line
that's gonna logically move
to the next note that I need to hit,
which is often the root of the next chord.
The first bar starts with a chord on the one,
so I'm playing this Bb7 with a 13,
a drop 3 voicing that you probably already know.
And the bass line is just the Bb major triad,
so I'm playing the Bb here, and then up to D, F,
and then I have a leading note for the Eb
which is this E,
and then I actually add another leading note,
which is just to sort of create
a little bit of variation in the bass line,
because the walking bass line is, of course,
essentially just quarter notes all the time, so (guitar).
But here I'm adding an extra note,
just because it sort of breaks up the groove a bit,
and that's a nice variation to have in there,
so start with the chord,
up the triad,
and then here I'm adding the third,
because that's also a leading note,
so I now have this sort of chromatic encircling
of the Eb (plays).
And then I'm hammering on to the Eb (plays),
and then adding the chord afterwards
so you get this (plays).
And this just creates a lot of movement,
which is kind of nice, it just breaks it up nicely.
And that's a nice effect to have if you can get it in there.
There are probably a few places
you need to puzzle this out in advance
and see if it's possible,
and then you can have
some variations of your bass lines where it works.
So now I'm on the Eb (plays),
and here the bass line is also just using chord tones, so
first the root, chord, which is just an (plays),
so this Eb7 with a 9,
coming out of just an Eb shell voicing,
down to the 7th, 5th,
and then I wanna go back to Bb in bar three.
And the Bb I wanna play is actually (plays)
this Bb shell voicing.
And I'm using an A,
because that sort of fits the root (plays),
and then I can lead up to the Bb again.
So my A leading note, I'm harmonizing in this example.
So I put an A7 under it,
and then I can sort of just slide that up (plays)
into my Bb7 (plays).
So here I have a Bb7.
Now I'm not playing the 13,
I'm just playing the shell voicing.
And then same bass line, actually, just Bb major triad,
leading note, and now I'm going to F minor,
I'm not going to Eb,
but the E is still a valid leading note.
So this is a good example
of how you can have some bass lines
that will actually take you to several different places.
So instead of going down to the Eb,
I can go up to F minor in bar four.
And the idea here is that
I'm gonna play (plays) F minor for half a bar,
(plays) E7 for half a bar,
to take me to the Eb in bar five (plays).
And the way I do that is (plays).
So first the root, then the chord (plays)
and then the 5th,
and then I move to the E7 (plays),
chord, (plays guitar)
5th, (plays guitar).
(plays guitar)
So really a simple idea,
because I'm just (plays)
playing this ii-V with a tritone substitution
and repeating the bass line, which is just I-V-I-V.
Then I move to Eb (plays)
and here I play the chord on the one,
also because we are sort of in a strong point in the song,
so when you're coming from
from bar four to bar five,
so where you're in a new four-bar period,
then it often makes sense to put the chord on the one,
just to restate, like now,
now we're starting a new segment of the song.
We tend to feel music in groups of four bars,
and that is something to be sort of aware of
when you're comping,
whether it's with bass lines or without them,
that needs sort of an emphasis in a certain way.
You will hear also
that if you listen for when drummers are making fills,
it's usually at the end of some period,
and it'll come out at the beginning of the period.
On the Eb7 (plays),
the next chord is an E diminished (plays),
so the bass line actually just kind of has to stay.
We can use the root of the chord as a leading note
up to the next chord, and that's kind of what I'm doing, so
(plays) Eb, down to the 7th, 5th.
Again, just a bass line is easy to play.
(plays)
And then sustain the chord the same time.
This has to be sort of practical solutions (plays),
because otherwise it gets way to difficult to play,
and I'm using the Eb to lead up to the
E diminished (plays),
and here's like first the E, and then the chord,
and then we get the bass line for that, that's just down
to Eb,
Db,
and then, again, an A as a leading note up to Bb.
So we go back to Bb.
And now it's Bb 13 again,
but I'm playing it differently,
because I'm starting on the Bb,
and then the chord on the one end (plays),
again using the triad.
And now I need to go to D half-diminished,
so instead of going to E,
I go to Eb as a leading note down to D half-diminished.
And here I have this (plays)
D half-diminished drop 2 voicing,
one of the few places where I'm using a drop 2 voicing,
but it just fits really well to go from this (plays).
So root,
chord,
flat 5, which is a chord tone,
down to the G7 (plays),
and then here again, adding the chord.
And the voice leading of this (plays)
works really well (plays).
And then a leading note to the C minor, which is a Db.
And here we get C minor with a 9 (plays),
and that's, again, a four-bar period,
so I'm really stating it on the one (plays),
and then I start to move up (plays)
to the F, and that's just moving, really, from
so up the scale C, D, Eb, and then a leading note,
which is an E in this case (plays),
and then we're on the F (plays),
and then after the F we're at the chord (plays),
so (plays).
And the leading note to go back down to the Bb in bar
let's see, that's bar 11,
is a B, and here again I'm harmonizing this,
so now I'm harmonizing it so that it's gotta resolve.
It actually works as a tritone substitution as well,
'cause it's a B7 (plays).
And then I could just slide that whole thing down (plays),
and then I'm in the last turnaround.
So on the Bb,
again just using the shell voicing,
and then up to the 5th,
which I can use as a sort of diatonic leading note
up to the G7 in the turnaround.
So up to G, chord,
and then I'm using a Db as a leading note,
down to C, here I'm using this drop 3 C minor voicing.
And then another leading note, which is a G-flat, down to F,
and then an F7#9, like this, so (plays).
And then the 5th, and then I'm back in one.
I think you should notice,
and maybe also try to incorporate
into your walking bass and chord ideas,
is that you can use the chords in different ways.
So I already talked about how it's important sometimes
to really just state like (plays)
on the one of a four-bar period
we have the chord and the bass note at the same time.
And actually you wanna sustain it.
It's not really a short note,
but if I play the first two bars,
then they sound like this.
(plays)
So here, of course, the first one is just there
to really state now we're in
it's a Bb7 blues, this is a Bb7.
The Eb (plays),
we kind of expect the Bb to come along,
and already just having the bass note there
is giving us most of the information that we need.
So we can just use the chord there
to just really state the groove,
and it's just really sort of a short stab, like a (plays)
like hitting the snare in a drum kit.
And then we have the A7 here, which,
the point of that one is just to really emphasize
that now we're going back to the I,
and it's just gonna create some movement,
and that's why it's played sustained like (plays).
And then of course it makes more sense
to also really resolve it (plays)
because otherwise it sounds like
we're in a completely different key.
(plays)
And then, in bar four,
so here we have (plays) first the F minor 7,
which is maybe a little bit different
from the Bb7 that you might expect there.
And after, we get the E7, which is a tritone substitution.
And both of those chords are sort of
important colors to introduce
because they're a little bit different,
and if you just play them really short,
you don't really get the benefit
of having them there in the first place.
So those are played sustained (plays).
And then the same with the E7 (plays).
And then, because they're both played after the beat,
but they're sustained,
(plays)
and we have a lot of tension building
from both the fact that this is not on the beat,
and that it's a tritone substitution,
it makes sense to really take it down
and play the Eb7 on the one (plays).
So this way of thinking
is also something you can experiment with when,
and think about when you maybe record yourself
playing stuff like this.
Does it sound like I could use long chords some places?
Am I only playing one thing,
or am I also sort of changing that up?
Because I think that's an interesting thing
to work with as well, and you wanna have,
even with something that is as limited
as walking bass and chords is,
some amounts of variation and dynamics available,
and I think this is a good thing to sort of look into.
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