Understanding walking bass

A bass that walks

In swing jazz and jump blues, the bass "walks": a continuous line of even notes, usually quarter notes, one per beat (this is called the "four feel"). That is the walking bass. To draw the chart, it mixes scale notes, arpeggios, chromatic notes and passing notes, and it often climbs, then comes back down, over several bars.

On the piano, it is the left hand that walks. In this lesson, its step almost always follows the same rule:

• Beat 1: the root of the chord, the foot coming down.
• Beat 2: the third when the bass is climbing, the seventh when it is coming down.
• Beat 3: the fifth.
• Beat 4: an approach note, outside the chord, a half step above or below the next root: it leads to the next chord. When the chord does not change, the bass can also stay within the chord, as in bars 3 and 5.

In the first two bars, that gives F, A, C, B, then B-flat, D, F, E: the bass climbs an octave, guided each time by a half step, then comes back down in bar 3.

A blues in F

Under this bass is the chart of the blues lesson, transposed to F: F7, B♭7 and C7, the I, the IV and the V, take the place of C7, F7 and G7. Except for one bar: here, bar 2 already makes a detour through the IV.

• Bars 1 to 4: F7, B♭7, then F7 for two bars.
• Bars 5 to 8: B♭7 for two bars, then F7 for two bars.
• Bars 9 to 12: C7, B♭7, F7, and C7 again, which starts the chart over.

My map reads the same form as for the blues, A A' B, twice. A and A' end on a plagal cadence (B♭7 going back to F7), B on an imperfect cadence (C7); in the second chorus, B becomes B', because the lesson settles there, in the last bar, on an F major chord without a seventh instead of starting over. Under F7, the map writes V7/IV, as under C7 in the blues: read the classical way, this chord announces B-flat, a fourth higher.

What the lesson plays

The lesson goes round the chart twice, in twenty-four bars, and the left hand walks from start to finish, up to the final F, which it reaches from the E just below, as in bar 7. The right hand holds the chords in the Charleston rhythm: a chord on 1, the same chord on the "and" of 2, held to the end of the bar. Each chord has only three notes, its two guide tones (the third at the bottom, then the seventh) and the root on top: A, E-flat, F for F7; D, A-flat, B-flat for B♭7; E, B-flat, C for C7. The shape of the hand never changes: it slides from one chord to the next.

How to approach it

My plan takes you through it in 9 days, until your left hand walks on its own under the right hand's chords.

1. Learn the chart by heart, without playing: F, B-flat, F, F, B-flat, B-flat, F, F, C, B-flat, F, C. If you know the one from the blues lesson, transpose it, without forgetting the detour in bar 2.
2. The bass alone, in three layers: the root and the fifth, in half notes; then beat 2; finally the approach note. In each bar, ask yourself where it comes from: above or below the next root?
3. The right hand alone: a single hand shape (the third, the seventh, the root a whole step above), which you slide from one chord to the next. Count "1, 2 and, 3, 4" and play on 1 and on "and".
4. Hands together, slowly: beat 1 falls together, the chord on "and" between two steps of the bass, which stays as steady as a clock.
5. The passages I point out (bars 3, 11 and 13) come down to two notes outside the F major scale: the E-flat of F7, its seventh, in the right hand (and in the bass, in bar 3), and the B natural in the bass, an approach note (bars 11 and 13). They are meant to be there. In bar 13, where the second chorus starts, the right hand also drops a fifth: move the hand shape as a block.
6. Then make up your own walk. Keep the root on 1 and an approach on 4, and choose beats 2 and 3 freely from the chord notes.