►► FREE: Get the tabs, notation and practice tracks for all the bass lines in this lesson → https://becomeabassist.com/how-to-make-bass-lines-more-interesting
One of my most watched videos is a lesson about walking bass line formulas. You might have seen it yourself. You may have even found me through that video!
I LOVE giving out those formulas! They’re unbelievably helpful when you’re just learning to walk, so I give them out to every student of mine who needs to learn to play walking lines quickly and confidently.
However, there is actually a limit on how useful the formulas are.
They’re great for getting through songs that have a ‘regular’ chord structure, but what if you come across something that’s completely different?
What if you have to play a walking bass line on a song that has long stretches of just one chord?
Like a song that has 16 bars of nothing but D minor 7…
It sounds simple, doesn’t it?
Less chords means it’s less difficult, right?
Not exactly. The challenge of getting through a song with lots of chords is exactly that - making it through and playing all the chord changes.
The challenge with ‘modal’ songs is very different. It becomes how do you play this single chord and make it sound interesting? Melodic? Beautiful?
You can’t use the formulas that worked before when you had one-chord-per-bar. They end up sounding boring and repetitive - you just can’t play the same walking bass line formula for 16 straight bars.
You have to change your approach. The question then becomes:
“How?!?”
In this week’s video, I want to show you exactly how you can take a modal song - one with long stretches on a single chord - and make beautiful, interesting melodic walking bass lines.
When you do this right, the bass lines you create can become just as beautiful and melodic as the actual melody of the song and you’re going to learn 2 ways to do it.
➤ Method #1 is almost like cheating, but it’s guaranteed to sound amazing every single time you do it
➤ Method #2 is like a game with different ‘levels’ that almost forces you to try new things and come up with fresh new bass line ideas
➤ Method #3 makes everything you play more catchy and melodic - and you can even combine it with the 1st method
Playing modal songs like the ones we go through in the video (links below) are tons of fun. You don’t need to worry about outlining chord changes nearly as much.
You can simply create.
It’s an amazing feeling when you’re playing a song and these incredible walking lines just flow out of you - almost without you having to think about it.
It’ll take some practice to get there, but with the ideas and methods in this video, I’m sure you can start making your own inspired walking lines in no time at all.
Good luck with the lesson and happy playing!
Cheers,
Luke
P.S. You can download the tabs, notation and practice tracks from this lesson for FREE here → https://becomeabassist.com/how-to-make-bass-lines-more-interesting
P.P.S. Here are the links to all the songs I talk about in the video:
Miles David - So What: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylXk1LBvIqU
Ron Carter - So What: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC_23jp_HGo
Christian McBride - So What: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaCY0itweX8