Greetings, bass players! Let’s talk about walking bass lines. I bet many of you reading this post have at least somewhat of an idea of what a walking bass line is (or have at least heard the term) but may not fully understand how to construct one yourself. I was in the same boat… up until a few months ago. I’ve been wanting to explore walking bass lines for a long time, and I finally got a chance to sit down to learn how to approach them.

This article will be less of a lesson and more of a “here’s what I learned” post. Read the article, then check out the video above (or at the bottom) for a walking bass line analysis. Thanks to Damian Erskine’s video lesson on No Treble for providing the inspiration behind this post!

What is a Walking Bass Line?

A walking bass line is a bass line used to provide harmonic direction to a piece of music, typically with the use of straight quarter notes (or sometimes straight half notes). While there are always exceptions, a walking bass line will step up and down either diatonically or chromatically to lead into the next chord. Think of it as a road map, guiding the ears of the listeners and the other musicians with sonic motion. Walking bass lines can be found in gospel, blues, and jazz music.

How to Play a Walking Bass Line

1. Have a solid grasp on music theory principles.
2. Understand proper right hand placement and note duration.
3. Look ahead!
4. Make your electric bass sound like an upright.

1. Have a solid grasp on music theory principles.

“Why should I learn all this music theory stuff?” This is a question that many beginner bass players ask. Walking bass lines are a perfect example of how music theory can be applied to your playing. 

A few summers ago I played at an outdoor festival in southwest Missouri. As I was setting up, one of the crew members came over to me and struck up a conversation about how he was learning to play the bass and how much easier it was than playing guitar. He went on about only having to play one note at a time, and when he’s reading a chart and sees a chord he just plays the root note, not caring if it’s major, minor, etc.

That approach may work for some styles of music, but we can’t rely on only playing the root notes in walking bass lines since they are used to outline the chords for the rest of the band. This requires us bass players to understand which chord tones are present so we can choose the appropriate notes to guide the ears of those around us.

2. Understand proper right hand placement and note duration.

Play finger style closer to the neck rather than the bridge. For articulation, play with consistency and hold the notes for the entire length of their duration, connecting them and leaving little to no room for empty space between them.

3. Look ahead!

Since walking bass lines are usually made up on the fly in jazz, you have to know where your fingers are going – this is hard enough with a memorized bass line and even harder when improvised! This is where looking ahead comes into play, as this will determine when you need to shift your fretting hand and when you need to lock it in place with the ‘one finger per fret’ rule. This will prevent you from fumbling over the fretboard and help you play with precision.

As soon as you land on beat one of a measure, you should already be looking at the next chord change. Think about how many beats you have left to reach the next chord change, and step up or down either diatonically (using the scale notes of the chord) or chromatically (using a series of semitones, thus deviating from the chord’s scale) to reach your destination.

4. Make your electric bass sound like an upright.

It’s important to remember that jazz bassists were playing walking bass lines on the upright bass, back in the day before the birth of the electric bass. That said, an ideal setup would be one that produces a dark, percussive tone that sounds similar to an upright. A Fender Precision Bass (or any precision style bass with a split coil pickup) with flatwound or tapewound strings is a perfect setup for gigs that require walking bass lines. 

Don’t have a precision bass? No sweat! You can still obtain a jazz-friendly tone with just about any electric bass by:

1. utilizing the neck pickup, as this will remove the brightness that comes from plucking close to the bridge.
2. palm muting to add more percussiveness to your sound.
3. cutting the treble and boosting the bass on your onboard preamp or amplifier.
4. making sure your bass is set up properly to avoid any fret buzz.

Walking Bass Line Example

Okay, let’s take what we’ve learned and apply it using the classic jazz standard “Lady Bird” as an example.

I encourage you to leave a comment below if you enjoyed this post or have any questions. Thanks for reading – until next time!