If you are a jazz piano player it's very important you know how to play the bass-lines on the
piano, it comes handy when we are playing without a bass player, if we are playing we
a guitar or a trumpet or a saxophone, or if we are playing by ourselves, we have to be
able to comp with the bass-line, and also we need to be able to improvise over it, that's
a fundamental skill we need to develop.
Today, I'm going to show you how to play two super cool walking bass-lines you can use
to play over the C7 blues and sound like a pro.
In jazz we have two types of walking bass-lines, the two times and the four times walking bass-line.
That is the half-note and the quater-note walking bass-line.
Today I'm going to teach one example of each for you to add to your practice.
On the video description below you can find the link to the PDFs with the lead sheets
of today's exercises.
Now, before we begin, to improve our swing, it is crucial that we practice with the metronome
on 2 and 4.
Whatever speed you want to practice, you set the metronome half the speed and have it click
on the second and fourth beat.
Say we want to practice at 144BPM, then, instead of setting the metronome at 144 and counting
four [SHOW] (1,2,3,4) Instead of that, we setup the metronome 72 and count four with
the metronome clicking on 2 and 4
Ok, let's go to the exercises.
First, I'm going to show you the 1/2-note walking bass-line.
Ok, C7 blues, half-note walking bass-line, left-hand only, from the top
Now, let's play the 1/4-note walking bass-line from the top, left hand only
Once you learned them both, practice them comping with the right hand using tritones
only.
I'm going to show you playing a couple turns with the bass on two and then, I'll switch
to four.
You should take your time with each of them, until you have them completely memorized.
Let's go from the top
Now that you know the bass-lines, you can use them to play over your favorite melody
and over your improvisation.
I'm going to show you an example how to use them over Sonny Rolling's 'Tenor Madness,'
I'm going to start with the 1/2-note walking bass-line, over the melody, and then switch
to the 1/4-note walking bass-line for the solo.
OK, let's go from the top with the melody
If you'd like to learn more about how to play bebop blues on the piano, how to create these
walking bass-lines, how to play them in all 12 keys.
Or, if you want to learn how to improvise jazz piano, the use of variable scales, left-hand
formulas, rootless chords.
It's all covered on the 'Series Piano for the Modern Musician' at InsidePiano.com.
You can subscribe using the promo-code YOUTUBE25 and get 25% off your monthly subscription.
Meanwhile enjoy your practice, and I'll see you in the next video.