(blues guitar begins)
- Hey everyone, my name is Zane Carney
and I am so excited to be doing Fender's
technique of the week today.
Today, we're gonna teach you how to play
blues chord changes with a walking bassline,
so, why would we wanna learn how to do a walking bassline
with blues chord changes?
Well, if I'm playing a solo gig,
it'll help me to make it sound like a full band experience,
let's say I'm doing a duet gig with a singer,
well now I can support them in a much more foundational way.
Maybe I wanna play a concert with a trombone player
or a trumpet player and I wanna make it feel
like there's drums and bass and guitar
all happening with just my accompaniment.
So this walking bassline thing is crucial for that.
Another reason why we might wanna learn
these walking bass lines is
because it's gonna increase our dexterity on the guitar.
Sort of like someone like Charlie Hunter or Tal Farlow,
you know, when they have that separation,
there's pretty much nothing they can't do on the guitar
'cause they're able to separate
all these wonderful lines of music
happening simultaneously, right?
So we love that.
A third reason we wanna learn how to do walking basslines
with blues chord changes,
is it'll lean us towards jazz
and the more we learn jazz as a guitar player,
the more genres we can play, the more gigs we can do,
the more people we can collaborate with and have fun with.
Now, a quick little bit about myself
before we dive into the technique.
My name is Zane Carney, I have a jazz quartet album called
"Alter Ego" that just came out last month.
But before that jazz record came out,
I had a rock band called CARNEY with my brother Reeve,
I was touring with John Mayer and Jonny Lang,
playing blues music,
I still have a band with Evan Rachel Wood,
called EVAN + ZANE and we do these live orchestrations
and in all of these bands and collaborations I've done,
my ability to do walking basslines and chords
and kind of be nimble depending on if the drums dropped out,
maybe the bass dropped out
but I can still pick up where people left off
or I can do duet stuff like with EVAN + ZANE
and it feels like a full band experience.
Well, that all came from using this technique,
that I'm gonna reveal to you right now.
So, how are we gonna play blues chord changes
with a walking bassline?
Three things.
One, we're gonna learn our guide tone chord shapes.
(guitar strums)
Guide tones are generally the third and seventh of a chord
and they give most of the information we need,
to know what the quality of the chord is.
So we don't need a bass note,
(guitar strums)
we just have the seven and third.
And we know this is B flat dominant seven, okay?
Let me play the third and seventh here
(guitar strums)
and we notice the four chord.
We don't even need the bass note.
So we know, one, (guitar strums)
four chord is, (guitar strums)
there's a blues four chord. (guitar strums)
There's our one chord. (guitar strums)
Now, to extend things into the jazz realm,
we're gonna learn this two chord as well.
(guitar strums)
This is seven and three of the minor two chord
and the five chord,
(guitar strums)
which we all know and love in blues right? Five chord.
So, one then we're gonna go to the six chord,
(guitar strums)
this is the only really advanced thing we're doing,
we're adding a six chord
(guitar strums) and then two, five, okay?
So, all the chords you need to know today,
are these five versions I just showed you,
second, we're going to learn a bassline.
(guitar plays bassline)
I'll teach you an exact one to play with me, okay?
And then third, we're gonna slow everything down,
using the Fender tune app,
the metronome portion of that app,
slow it all down and combine them.
So let's start with these guide tone chord shapes.
I already showed you how to play them,
you can rewind this video as need be,
(metronome begins clicking)
but let's play them on downbeats.
One, two, three, four, (guitar strums)
four chord, (guitar strums)
two, three, four, one chord,
(guitar strums) one, two, three,
give some space here for the walking bassline.
Here's the four chord,
Four, two, three, (guitar strums)
give some space for the walking bassline,
two, three, four,
one, two, three, four. (guitar strums)
Space for the walking bassline.
Here's the two chord.
(guitar strums)
Here's the five chord.
(guitar strums) two, three,
Here's the one,
(guitar strums) the six chord,
(guitar strums)
the two chord, (guitar strums)
the five chord, (guitar strums)
and the one chord. (guitar strums)
So you're going to repeat that maybe four or five times.
Just get it in your body.
one, two, three, four, (guitar strums)
one. (guitar strums)
And I suggest using these fingers, the middle fingers.
'Cause this is gonna be our bass.
You can use a pick or your thumb, but this is our bass.
This is our chord, okay?
(guitar strums three chords)
So we got those chord shapes.
Well great, that's step one.
That, we do that by itself.
It's important to separate this, do it by itself.
Now we do the walking bassline.
This is step two.
So we're gonna keep this same tempo
and I want you to play exactly the bassline
I'm showing you right now.
You can use way hipper basslines
as you move forward in this technique.
So here's a simple one.
(metronome begins clicking)
two, three, four.
(guitar playing blues)
I'm just arpeggiating,
and then adding a little bit of flair.
Here's the arpeggiation, little flair.
Very simple blues bassline.
Arpeggio, little flair.
Here's the two chord,
chromatic, go back down the scale.
Chromatic to the six.
Chromatic to the two.
Chromatic to the five.
Great. So that's our bassline, that's step two.
All we're gonna do now is combine those two things.
And I would suggest doing a tempo
probably around 65 beats per minute.
So let's go to 65 beats per minute in the Fender Tune app
and let's go and combine them both.
Here we go.
(metronome begins tapping)
two, three, downbeat.
(guitar strums) bassline,
downbeat to four chord, (guitar playing blues)
bassline,
downbeat one chord.
Do a little flair, just walk that bass.
Here we go, here's our four chord.
(guitar strumming blues) Walk that bassline.
Lot of space for that walking bassline
Here comes are one chord.
(guitar strums) Walk that bass,
We got the two chord comin' out,
remember the two chord?
Here it comes.
(guitar strums) Walk it chromatically,
here comes our five chord.
(guitar strums)
Here comes our one chord.
(guitar strums)
Chromatic to the six, (guitar strums)
chromatic to the two, (guitar strums)
chromatic to the five. (guitar strums)
Bam.
And now you have learned the raw material you need
to do a walking bassline over blues chord changes.
Now, there are a few hacks here.
If you want to make it sound more syncopated
and more like a real drummer's playing with you,
don't just play downbeats.
(guitar plays blues lick)
Syncopate. (guitar plays blues music)
I'm hitting the out beat, right?
Another hack would be make the basslines more chromatic.
(guitar playing blues music)
So there's all sorts of basslines you can do.
And then eventually, as you combine this stuff
and slow it down and you start to realize,
"Oh, I can use my thumb for the bass,
(guitar plays blues music)
I can use these fingers for the chords"
you're going to start playing stuff
like I'm gonna play right now.
Thank you so much for listening
to this Fender technique of the week.
I hope you got something out of this.
Continue to learn by going to the Fender Play app
or using the metronome in the Fender Tune app.
I hope you guys enjoy my new jazz record, "Alter Ego",
now streaming everywhere.
And I'll see y'all soon.
(guitar plays blues music)