THEORY OF THE MONTH
Master a chunk of bass theory at three levels of ability with Joe Hubbard.
Welcome, theory fans! As a bass player, there are only two things that you will be required to play: accompanying bass-lines and, occasionally, a solo. With that in mind, a good starting point is learning how to expand your walking bass-lines. Although walking lines are stylistically associated with jazz, studying them will help you to develop your lines melodically when playing other styles such as pop, rock, Latin, reggae and even metal.
Walking bass-lines are often created by taking a particular melodic motif. This is usually nothing more than a short musical phrase containing notes that outline the chords over which you are playing. Using the same melodic statement over four different chords will help to build a solid cohesion when playing through the chord changes. This concept helps to develop several things at once. Firstly, it will be helping you to gain familiarity with the chords you are playing over, and more importantly, it will also be enabling you to hear the chord progression from the lines you are playing.
Remember, practise slowly and play these ideas in different keys. Once you can play them effectively, start to raise the tempo.
EXERCISE 1
In this exercise, the walking bass-line is being
A7(b9). applied to a D-7 G7 Cmaj7 The melodic motif used in this example is Root-2-3-5 over each chord. Notice how in bar 1 the notes move up in sequence as D, E, F and A. In contrast, notice that in bar 2 after playing the root, I have used octave displacement where it goes down to the 2 and then steps up in sequence to 3 and 5. The same formula follows in bars 3 and 4.
EXERCISE 2
Now, to expand the previous motific idea, I’ve used a melodic permutation which is 3-Root-2-5. Notice in bars 2 and 4 how octave displacement is being used similarly as in exercise 1. The main takeaway from this pattern is that starting on the 3rd and resolving to the root of the chord enhances the melodicism of the line exponentially.
EXERCISE 3
Finally, this exercise demonstrates how we can combine both previous exercises, but with a twist. Bars 1 and 3 are using the motif from Exercise 1, while bars 2 and 4 are using the motif from Exercise 2.
But here’s the twist: whereas in the previous exercise there was a root note, we are now substituting the 7th in its place. The cool thing about this is there are no roots across all four bars. This isn’t something you want to use all of the time – but it is a great way to dynamically expand your walking bass-lines. Until next time – practise smart, work hard and play creatively!
Walking bass-lines are often created by taking a particular melodic motif. This is usually nothing more than a short phrase containing notes that outline the chords over which you’re playing