hi it's Geoff Chalmers here from discoverdoublebass.com that is the home
online video double bass lessons where myself and a whole range of tutors teach
all different things about the double bass so no matter what the style of
music you play or your experience I'm sure you'll find something that you
enjoy over discoverdoublebass.com now today I'm going to be talking to you
about playing walking bass lines in five four time signature so we typically play
walking bass lines in four four sometimes in three and sometimes in five
so we're going to have a look at some of the different approaches and ways that
you can play in that time signature and a couple of things to make your bass
lines really come alive so let's get into the detail
well the first thing to consider when you're playing walking basslines in 5/4
is at what point does the chord change happen you've got to think about the
harmonic rhythm which is how many chords are happening per bar
we're playing rhythm changes now in the A section most of the time you've got
two chords per bar and we've got five beats so what you'll find is that the
five beats I'm holding four fingers at five beats and what you'll find is most
of the time that you have a three one chord on the first three beats and
then the next chord on the last two beats of the bar so you know one two
three four five so on four five the chord changes now you can of course play
two and then three in a in a grouping of five so you can play one two one two
three one two one two three so they're the chord is going one two and then it
changes on to be three four five okay now we're playing a rhythm changes and
that has two chords per bar in most of the A section and we're going to play
three and then two so let's just have a look at it we'll play in Bb to keep
it nice and easy one two three four five one two three four five so here you can
hear the chord changing on beat four so the first couple of bars at B flat to G
dominant seven C minor seven to F dominant seven so 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1
2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 etc now you could count it 1 2 3 1 2 1 2 3 1 2 or
yeah 1 2 3 4 5 if you prefer it doesn't really matter as long as you definitely
land on beat 1 and while you're practicing this I'd recommend that you
get a metronome that accents beat 1 because if you're not familiar with
playing in five four it's likely that you'll drop a beat at some point is
you're you know focusing on creating these kind of cool lines that were
coming up with well let's have a look at their common kind of walking bass line
patterns that you can play and there were three really common ones that
you'll hear a lot of the time and the most basic is just to play one
note per chord and as I said earlier we're dividing the bar five into three beats
one two three and then four and five so
etc, so you can continue on from there
another really common rhythm is to take the first three notes of the bar and
divide it into 2 so you'll be playing dotted quarter notes or dotted crochets
if you use that term and then just play a half notes or a minim if you use that
term on beats four and five it sounds a bit more complicated than it is so let
me just play it for you five so I'm sure you've heard that rhythm before it's
fairly common now the natural progression for that is to play two
different notes on beats four and five so here you're just playing you play in
the bar you play two dotted quarter notes and then two quarter notes on
beats four and five again let me let me show you it's a bit more straightforward
than it sounds
and it kind of sounds like you're going long long short short long long short
short long long short short and I kind of I like that rhythm it definitely
adds a bit more variety to your bass lines you can also play one note per
beat as well and that's the final rhythm to consider so we've actually got the
keeping it really simple just one note per chord we've got doubling the first
of two notes in the first three beats and then long note on four and five then
the same thing but playing on each beat beats four and five and then lastly
we've got to the point where you're playing five notes in a bar so so your
typical sounding walking bass line away you're just playing on each beat and
really grooving away and just be really careful that you're outlining the chord
changes strongly and you're focusing on landing strongly now just to finish off
I wanted to show you a pattern that I played in the bridge and it's just a
sequence we're still walking in five four we're still playing one note per
bar sorry one note per beat at this stage just a regular driver and walking
bass line but I add in a really strong sequence of notes across two bars that
adds tension and then resolves onto the beginning of the A section for the next
the next bar so in the bridge we have two bars of d7 two bars of g7 two bars
of c7 2 bars of F7 and then it resolves onto B flat which is the top of the next
section the A section now at this stage I think it works really well to do it
over the f7 because you have this tension and then resolution but you have
to learn strongly on ideally the root or chord tone of the B flat for this to
work it doesn't really matter which note you start on I'm playing two note
groupings and I'm playing either a third and a seventh or the root and the fifth
it's probably easier if I play it for you so let me start from the d7 we'll
play through the bridge and you'll hear how it progresses okay d7 first of all
now on G7 going to C7 now right at the top I kind of got a bit distracted and
started playing something else in thumb position which was taking the exercise a
bit too far what we're focusing on here is that tension that you get from the
sequence that last two bars so it's five groupings of - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - and
the notes are the 3rd and 7th and the root and the fifth so it starts on the
seventh third root fifth third seventh fifth root you can just think about moving up
to the next note the arpeggio on each string and essentially it's Eb-A, F-C
A-Eb, C-F, Eb-A and then finally you've got B flat at the top
well I hope you found this useful and it encouraged you to go and practice jazz
standards in five four it's you know 'Take Five' you can use a rhythm changes like
I've done or you know any other kind of just under so you can find in five
because we don't play them very often and it means it were less familiar five
four isn't a harder time signature to playing it's just a less familiar one
and I know that I certainly am less comfortable in five and you know the way
to get past that is to get some time in the practice room so you know look at
these different rhythms explore the different ways that you can break up the
time and have fun and then when you next get to play five four on a gig it'll
really come together now I hope you've enjoyed today's video if you have please
press like and subscribe on YouTube and if you want to learn more from me you
can go and check out my full length course 'Creating Walking Bass Lines' okay
thanks for watching I'll see you next time
you