Free Walking Bass Line Builder

Pick a tune or type your own chords, and this free walking bass line generator writes you a line, four notes to the bar. You get every note name, a bass clef staff, playback with an optional click, and a clean printout. There’s no signup and nothing to install.

Every line follows the rules Cole Davis teaches in his walking bass lines lessons. They’re listed under the builder, in his words.

How to use the walking bass line builder

1. Pick a tune, or type your own chords in the box, like Dm7 G7 Cmaj7. Put a | between bars when you want two chords in one bar.
2. Set up the line. Choose upright or electric, lean it more chromatic or more intervallic, and decide whether it stays below the open G or uses the upper register too.
3. Press Play. Turn on the click if you want it, and slow the tempo down until every note feels easy.
4. Read the label under each bar. It names the bar’s unit, so you can see how the line keeps changing shape and register.
5. Press New line for another one, or Print to put it on your music stand.

It’s a practice tool, not a transcription. Use it to see how a line is built, then go build your own.

The rules behind every line

These come from Cole’s posts on this blog. In his words:

• Good notes first. “Start with good notes: one, three, five and seven, with some wrong notes and half steps sprinkled in.”
• Chromatic or intervallic. “Chromatic is a half step or a whole step. Intervallic is anything greater.”
• Below or above the open G. “The second category is register, and the G string is the dividing line.” “Register matters because of the way people talk. If someone talks in the same register the whole time, you start to tune out.”
• Never four of the same. Ray Brown “never does four of the same.” When I followed the formula on gigs, “if I’d just played three bars of chromatic below, I had to play an intervallic bar or a bar that went above the G string.” The full breakdown is in the Ray Brown walking bass line formula.
• A beat one that belongs to the new chord. “When you’re playing a blues, play a beat one that belongs to the new chord. If I’m playing over the E-flat 7 in a B-flat blues, I don’t want a B-flat on beat one, because then people will think it’s a B-flat 7.” Paul Chambers does exactly this in his Freddie Freeloader line.
• Lead into the next chord. A cadence can be five to one, a whole step or a half step. “It doesn’t have to land on the root, either. Resolving to the third is still a cadence.”
• Don’t repeat notes, and don’t camp on the root. “I tell my students not to repeat notes in their bass lines.” And “don’t just play root, root, root, or 1, 3, 5, 7, 3, 5, 7, 1.” That one’s from the So What bass line.

Then write your own

Once a few generated lines make sense, put the builder away. “Write a bass line on an F blues where you never play four bars of the same unit. If you just did three bars of chromatic below, the next bar has to be intervallic or above the G string.” Label every bar with its unit before you play it. “I promise you it’ll be, by default, a great bass line.”

And don’t stop at the click. “A metronome will help you get in the ballpark. That’s its function. But the way you work on feel is by playing along to records, way more than playing with a metronome.”

For teachers and librarians

The builder is free to use in lessons, and you’re welcome to link to it from your school, library or studio resources page. Every line has its own link: change a setting or press New line, then copy the address from your browser, and your students will open the exact same line. The Print button gives you a clean sheet with the chords, the staff, the note names and the unit under every bar.

Keep going

• Walking Bass Lines: How to Walk a Bass Line That Doesn’t Get Boring
• The Ray Brown Formula for Walking Bass Lines That Never Sound Boring
• What Paul Chambers Plays on Freddie Freeloader (and What to Steal)
• How to Play the So What Bass Line and Walk Like Paul Chambers