VARIATION4 Walking Bass

As Joe Pass simply states, the most important feature in a walking bass arrangement is, you’ve guessed it, the bass! For this variation we’re choosing a rather more involved bebop variant of the jazz blues, resplendent with IIm V I moves in near enough every bar, although the basic framework of key events remains largely intact. From a technical perspective here I’d favour switching to a thumb and fingers technique to produce a warmer tone, so you’ll need to do some swift pick palming in the preceding bar. I personally push the pick between my first and second fingers between the knuckle joint and the hand. From a sonic perspective its good to consider the best approaches to each independent part, so the bass ideally needs to be smooth and legato, like a bass player, whilst the punctuating small chord fragments in the treble need to be much more staccato, or clipped, to pop out clearly.