Bass players ask these questions on TalkBass and in the comments under Better Bass Lessons videos on YouTube. I’ve answered each one with what I teach in my lessons, mostly in the words I use in those lessons, and each answer links to the post where I go deeper.
If your question isn’t here, I haven’t answered it on the blog yet.
Walking bass lines
What notes should I play in a walking bass line?
Start with the 1-3-5-7 of each chord. Those are the most important notes of each chord, the notes that make the chord the chord, and every time I learn a tune, that’s what I do first. Then change the order of notes, so you’re not playing 1-3-5-7 in every bar. After that, right notes go on one and three to divide the bar in half, and wrong notes go on two and four to provide continuity between the chords. You don’t even need to know what the wrong notes are. You just need to know what the right notes are, and everything else is a wrong note. On a C minor 7 going to an F7, the best wrong note is E, because E voice leads perfectly to F7. More in my guide to walking bass lines.
Do I have to play the root on beat one?
No. We’re always pressured to play the root on beat one of every bar, like we’re not being clear otherwise. On “Bags’ Groove,” Percy Heath starts with the F on the F7, keeps the B-flat 7 bar simple, and then doesn’t play the root on beat one at all in the next two bars. He’s playing with Miles Davis, Milt Jackson and Kenny Clarke, and they know it’s an F blues. Chances are the people you play with know it too. You don’t need to beat them over the head with it. If you’re playing too many roots, get away from the root for a few bars and play the third or the fifth on beat one. I walk through that in how Peter Washington walks Giant Steps.
What do I play over two bars of the same chord?
Don’t just play the same thing twice. You might get vibed for that. You want something that takes you from F7 back to F7. One answer is a Ron Carter lick: 1, 9, 5, 9. It puts the nine on beats two and four, and it leads you right back to where you started. Israel Crosby has another answer. On “You or No One,” he plays something ambiguous. It’s in the chord, it’s just not 100% clear what chord it is, and it sets up a cadence so the second bar has a ton of weight. More in Israel Crosby’s bass lines and his beat four cadence.
How do I walk over eight bars of D minor on “So What”?
Play the mode, and create movement. Most of us, when we play multiple bars of the same chord, get boring really fast. Nobody wants to hear D minor 7 if it’s just a D minor 7. If you look at a chord sheet for So What, it doesn’t actually have a five, but Paul Chambers creates one in the second bar to create movement. He also plays a lot of wrong notes, as passing tones, just like you do in bebop. People love wrong notes way more than you think, and Chambers proved that. The full breakdown is in the So What bass line and how Chambers walks it.
I keep repeating the same patterns. How do I make my lines less predictable?
Sort every bar two ways: chromatic or intervallic, and below the open G or above it. Chromatic is a half or whole step. Intervallic is anything greater. That gives you four units. The first thing I noticed about Ray Brown’s bass lines is that he never does four of the same, so I used to force myself to follow that formula: if I’d just played three bars of chromatic below, the next bar had to be intervallic or go above the G string. Write out a bass line on an F blues following this formula and play it. The whole formula is in the Ray Brown walking bass line formula.
Do major ii-V-I lines work over a minor ii-V-i?
The roots are the same. In C major, a ii-V-I is D minor 7, G7, C major 7. In C minor, it’s D minor 7, G7, C minor 7, and it sounds exactly the same when I just play the roots. To make it more minor sounding, you can add a flat 5 to the D minor 7 and a flat 9 to the G7. I like to talk about my walking drills with numbers, like 1, 3, 6, 5, not specific notes, because they work over every chord: major, minor and dominant. For a minor ii-V-i in a real tune, walk the A minor 7 flat 5, D7 and G minor 7 in the Autumn Leaves walking bass line.
Soloing
Can I just play a walking line as my solo?
Start there, then take notes away. The main reason bass players have difficulty soloing is that they have trouble playing a form in a way that isn’t playing a bass line. When you walk, you keep track of the form with the notes you’re playing. When you solo, you’re responsible for the rests and the notes. So play a simple bass line on a B-flat blues, then play it again with beats taken out, and keep the form going. Try beats two and four, then one and three. That’s the first step in how to solo on upright bass.
Should I solo with chord tones or scales?
If you can play a bass line, you don’t even need scales or modes to be a good soloist. In a solo, your default is the thirds and sevenths, because those are the two most important notes that tell you what the chord is. Then add the fifth and the ninth. Soloing is really just an amalgamation of chromatic language and using the 3-5-7-9 as your base to work off of. For the chromatic language, take the notes of the melody and find how many ways you can connect them. I do it over a whole tune in the All the Things You Are bass line post.
I freeze when it’s my turn to solo. What should I listen to?
Start with what I consider the greatest upright bass solo of all time: Eddie Gomez on “You Must Believe in Spring,” from the Bill Evans Trio album of the same name. He starts with the melody. It’s literally just the melody, and the solo keeps coming back to it. Then listen to Chet Baker’s solo on “But Not for Me.” His phrases are actually the length of the melody’s phrases. If you play your solo with a similar phrase length to the melody, it automatically sounds melodic. More in my jazz improvisation primer for bass players.
Time and feel
Should I practice with a metronome or play along with records?
Both, but they do different jobs. A metronome will help you get in the ballpark. That’s the function of a metronome. If you want to learn how to play something like five over four, a good way to do that is with the metronome. But your bread and butter as a bass player is making everything feel good, and the way you work on that is by playing along to records, way more than a metronome. I go through it in Ray Brown on Have You Met Miss Jones: time vs feel.
Classic records seem to rush or drag. Is that a mistake?
Not necessarily. Most of our favorite jazz recordings speed up and slow down, even the most swinging ones, the ones known for their time. In one of my lessons, I put Ray Brown’s “Have You Met Miss Jones” into a tempo tracker, and it changed every beat, 76 to 81 to 74, and yet it’s the most swinging. In the same lesson, I sped up and slowed down a lot in a bass line, and those peaks and valleys actually made it swing. I’m not saying you should drastically speed up or slow down. What I’m saying is don’t worry about it. We measured tempo drift on 32 famous recordings in our study of tempo drift on classic jazz records.
When I play along with a record, who do I follow?
Follow the bass player. One thing I have all my students do is play along with Charlie Parker’s “Cheryl,” and it throws them off almost every single time. It’s Bird’s record, so it would make sense to follow him, right? No. Bird played way behind the beat, so the bass player is way in front of him. Then Miles comes in, more on top, and the bass player comes way back to meet him. When you play along, think about where the bass player is, and put yourself in their shoes. More on feel in Ray Brown on Have You Met Miss Jones: time vs feel.
What should I listen to for a great two-feel?
Start with Percy Heath on Miles Davis’s “Bags’ Groove.” To me, it’s the greatest two-feel of all time. Then Paul Chambers on “Bye Bye Blackbird” from the Live at the Blackhawk recording. Listen for the big four, which is beat four at the end of a two-bar or four-bar phrase. Chambers is really accenting it. And notice what he doesn’t do. When we play a two-feel, we almost always hit the bass or use our fingers to keep the time. Paul Chambers never does that. He lets the notes breathe and speak for themselves. More in the Bye Bye Blackbird bass line post.
Technique
How do I build up speed in my right hand?
Speed comes from the right hand. We always assume it comes from the left hand because the left hand is playing the notes, but speed actually comes from the right hand, and especially for eighth notes, it comes from alternating. Take the C major scale, which I know is very boring, and alternate one, two, one, two. Then start your lines on your second finger. If I start a fast line on my first finger, I can’t even do it, because I have to bring that second finger all the way around. If I start on the second finger, it’s so easy. My drills are in three right hand drills for upright bass speed.
How do I hang on when the tempo is really fast?
Relax first. The tension you feel at a fast tempo is mostly mental, so relax your face and breathe, and don’t play if you’re not relaxed. Play further up the fingerboard. It’s like choking up on a bat: you’re cutting off the string, so there’s less tension. Then use licks that work. Nobody expects variation in bass lines at 300 beats per minute. Walk downs and walk ups work, and so does Ron Carter’s 1, 9, 5, 9. Alternate, and start every bar on your second finger. More on that right-hand rule in Billie’s Bounce on bass.
I’m coming from electric. Should I use open strings on upright?
Yes. Coming from electric bass, you’re probably not used to playing open strings a lot, because open strings stick out on electric. On upright, open strings simplify everything. They’re more consistent, too. As long as your bass is in tune, you can always rely on them for intonation, and you can use them to move across the fingerboard instead of jumping and shifting. And don’t assume first or second position is easier. It’s the same distance, so use the skills you have from electric to make shifts and pivots all across the bass. More in how I finger Spain on upright, where the open G saves you every time.
Practicing
What’s a good first jazz tune to learn on bass?
An F blues, then “Autumn Leaves.” If you can play Autumn Leaves and you can play an F blues, then you’re ready to play jazz. It’s literally that simple. The F blues teaches you the roots, dominant chords and chord movement. Autumn Leaves has the essential harmony that’s common across the Great American Songbook. And you can start with the first eight bars, because those chords recycle throughout the tune. My step-by-step is in the Autumn Leaves walking bass line post.
How do I learn standards so I can walk them when someone calls one?
Play the 1-3-5-7 of every chord through the whole form. You don’t even have to do it in time. The time will figure itself out. You’re accomplishing two things with one exercise: you’re internalizing the harmony, and because you’re playing it within the form, you also know the form. Then change the order of notes. I use this method whenever I have to learn a new tune, rather than trying to keep all these tunes in a memory bank. When I have students play chord tones through a whole form, I tell them: do the whole thing, as slowly as you want, out of time, but don’t stop. More in the All the Things You Are bass line post.
How do I start transcribing bass lines?
Get it in your ear first, to the point that you can sing it. That’s my process. I’m not a singer, so I’m just approximating it with my voice. Then I translate it to the instrument a phrase at a time, checking myself: is that actually what it is? Once I’ve got it, I take something from the solo and improvise on it myself. That’s how we integrate these solos into our own language. You can follow the whole process on Jaco’s “Havona” in how to transcribe bass by ear.
If the notes of a walking line still feel shaky, start with Walking Basslines on Upright Bass: From the Beginning. It starts from the 1-3-5-7.
Go deeper
Walking Basslines on Upright Bass: From the Beginning
A 5-lesson upright method built on the 1-3-5-7, from the F blues to Autumn Leaves.
