Walking bass has a reputation for being hard — all those passing notes, all that jazz theory. It does not have to be. In this lesson we talk all things walking bass, with a handful of simple hacks that speed up the learning process enormously.
What you'll learn
- Shortcuts that make walking lines sound convincing straight away
- How to practise walking without getting lost in theory
- Habits that build genuine jazz vocabulary over time
Walking, in plain English
A walking line simply connects the chords — steady quarter notes leading the listener's ear from one chord to the next, stepwise or with the odd leap. It lives up to its name. And it isn't just jazz: pop is full of walking bass too.
Pete starts from the friendliest possible ground: a 12 bar blues, walked with nothing but triads (root, 3rd, 5th) over the 1–4–5 chords. Major triads give you the classic major blues; flatten the 3rd and the same shapes give you a darker minor blues. And because these are movable patterns, the whole thing transposes to any key around the neck.
Three hacks worth stealing
- Simandl fingering — a relaxed double-bass technique: roughly a tone between first and fourth finger, shifting to notes rather than stretching for them.
- Start on the first finger and the 3rd falls on the same string — one hand position covers the whole triad.
- The blue note — play both the minor and major 3rd and the line sits deliciously in between: not really major, not really minor. That ambiguity is the sound of the blues.
Then take it further with Walking Bass Line Formulas: Step By Step and Walking on the Spot | Jazz Blues Bass.
Walking bass is the heart of my own gigging life — book a lesson and I will show you how the pros think through a chart.