WALKING BASS for Guitar Players

Walking bass are a key element in jazz guitar comping, they allow you not only to produce the harmony, but also this regular bass notes flow on every beat, around which all other instruments may find their places.

Those bass lines must be as melodic as possible, and also must describe in the best way the harmony of the tune, we must then take care to play an essential note of the chord (root, third or fifth) on each first beat of each bar.

The following exercices allows you to work on choosing the right bass notes to play, and also the forms of the chords and the different rhythmic ways to play them.

We're gonna focus on three main elements : modes, fifths and octaves, and chromatic approaches. Numerous exercices will help you to get familiar with those elements.

Finally, a concrete application over a Blues in C, a jazz standard (Autumn Leaves) and a modal comping over a static chord.