Connor: How to Walk Bass Lines: Part II (#33)

https://youtu.be/uYQRzAsFC8I Transcript: R.Glover 01-Sep-2017

120

Hi. Welcome back to, 'Learning about bass lines." So, if you haven't watched the first
video about what you should practice first when you're first trying to walk bass lines, you
should definitely watch that. And then once you've mastered those steps of being able to
just play whole notes, or just the roots of each chord....

[0:27] And again, I'm using the form of "F" blues to serve as our vehicle for learning how
to walk bass lines here.

So, once you're able to walk, or just play, rather, whole notes through the whole form...
And then once you start to get more comfortable with half notes--- and again, just to
reiterate from the last video-- working with, primarily 1's and 5's first, and then dealing
with 3's.

[1:03] Then, you can move on to what I'm going to talk about now in this video.

So one particular, I'll refer to it as a sonority, in bass playing is the approaching or

targeting of chord tones by either a half step below or above.

[1:25] So what do I mean by that? In the blues or in 'F' blues, if I'm going from F7 as the
first chord change... to Bb7... this concept of approaching our target note from either a
half step or a whole step below creates a very powerful chromatic inflection, if you will.

So, what I mean by that is... if I'm just going to keep practicing with half notes, I can do
one of two things. I could approach my target note of the second chord change, being
Bb7, from a note below, and that could sound like this...

1...2...4... [2:10]

[the "A" functions as an approach to the B Just like that...

2
F7 that is a note below it] B 7
 Or I could approach it (The "Bb7" chord) from a half step above.... so that would look, 2
sound like this .... a 1, 2, 3, 4 ... [2:23]

Right? That kind of thing

4 7
B

[2:29] Or I could even, instead of going up, going up towards it, meaning, just in general,
roots ascending like this....

6
F7 B 7

I could also do it like this... [2:43]

That's still approaching from a note below, but

where I started with my first note, my "F" was
"up here" instead of "down here".
8
F7 B 7
 [2:57] and if I approach from a half step above, starting at this "F" as opposed to "this" 3
one, it would look and sound like this.....

1, 2, 3, 4.... [3:05]

Right?
10
F7 B 7

[3:11] So, with this concept it, in my opinion, leads into another concept in bass playing.
Which is, "how often or how not often do we play the roots?"

Well, if we start to utilize this concept more of approaching from a half step below and
above, and that kind of thing, it lends itself well to resolving on chord tones that aren't
necessarily the root all the time.

And, in a nutshell what I mean by that is.... let's say I take that bass line.... [3:45]

And I go "here"
instead .... [3:53]
12
F7 B 7 F7
 [3:54] So that would be outlining the first three chord changes of the blues. Thats: F7 4
[plays "F" note] into Bb7 [plays "A" note, then "Bb note] back into F7 [plays "B natural
note, then "C" note]. [4:03]

Now, why is that possible that I can, as the bass player whose-- it's primarily their job to
play mostly roots, right? I can still successfully outline F7 by ending "here" ["C" note].

[4:18] Well, that's what naturally happened because I approached this chord tone ["C"
note] --- and when I say a chord tone I mean, the 1 [plays "F" note], 3 [plays "A" note], 5
[plays "C" note], and 7 [plays "Eb" note"] of a chord [in this case, an F7 chord].

So in this case, the "C" would be the 5th factor of F7.

But, I utilize this approaching a chord tone from a half step below... [4:43]

Right? [4:49]
15
F7 B 7 F7

18 7 and I'm trying to get here...

B There my Bb7, ..... F7

20 7 .... so I use the half step below...

B F7
 [4:57] So really, this concept of a half step above and below doesn't just apply to targeting 5
the roots of chords. It also applies to targeting all of the chord tones.

So I'll say that one more time.

This concept of approaching from a half step above or below doesn't just apply to targeting
the roots of chords. It applies to targeting all of the chord tones.

So, that's something very important, and it helps really free you up when you're trying to
walk bass lines here.

[5:32] So, the next step would be still just walking half notes but take at least a couple
choruses to just walk half notes, where you target everything, whether it's the root of the
chord in the form at a point in the blues--- or a chord tone that's built within the chord
that you're walking over.

[5:56] So, if I were to do a chorus, strictly just approaching from a half step, either above
and [or] below, that would look and sound something like this.... a 1, 2, 3, 4 .... [6:07]

1
I IV I

5
IV I VI

9
II V I V
13 [the "I" of the second chorus, or the ending of the first chorus] [6:35] 6
F7

6:35] So as you can see, even though we're still just walking half notes and not doing full 4
quarter notes.... our outlining of the harmony is really starting to take shape here-- even
by just talking about a few simple concepts.

So now, after you're feeling pretty comfortable with that step, what you can do, is you can
take that concept of approaching a note above or below, whether it's the root of the chord
or one of the chord tones, a 1, 3, 5, or 7 --- at least to start out with. And combining it
with the other tools that I talked about in the last video. Namely, using 1's and 5's and 3rd's.

So, let's see what happens there when I try to combine all these elements together. And
I'll just still do half notes.

a 1, 2, ... a 1,2,3,4... [7:28]

1
I IV I

5
IV I VI
9 7
II V I V

[first chorus, above, finished at [7:54]; Connor started second chorus, below, at [7:55]]

13
I IV I

!!! In the first chorus

Connor played "IV"
17 on this measure
IV I VI
V

21
II V I V
 [this 13th measure represents end of the second chorus or start of a third chorus] 8
25
I

[8:21] So on that particular example I made use of approaching not just, again, the roots of
the chords from a half step above or below, but a couple of times in there I approached
notes from a half step above and below that weren't just the roots of chords. If you're
listening carefully you would have noticed that.

[8:44] And, again, from the last video I utilized some fifths in there, and I utilized some
thirds.

So, we're just adding more and more and more levels.

So, we broke everything down to its most basic elements. And after we master them, we're
just trying to combine them.

So, I think we are going to end it there.

Keep working on that, and just.... the main goal is to get comfortable with just walking
half notes. And whether through trial and error, or whatever way you want to look at it,
just being very very comfortable with just doing half note bass lines.

So, stay tuned for the next video, and we'll talk about this more.

Thanks. [9:23]