In this bass lesson, you’re going to learn
5 instant plug-and-play formulas that you
can use to create your own jazz walking bass
lines from scratch and you’ll be able to
do it right now.
Hi, I’m Luke from becomeabassist.com and
if you want to learn how to start creating
your own walking bass lines by using a few
key patterns rather than having to learn millions
of scales and arpeggios, then stick around.
You’re going to love this video.
[Video Intro]
If someone has ever put a jazz chart in front
of you and asked you to play a walking bass
line over the chords, you’ll know it’s
harder than it seems.
It sounds easy!
All you need to do is play four notes per
bar - one on every beat - but actually doing
it and sounding like you know what you’re
doing - well that’s another thing entirely.
The kind of ‘conventional’ wisdom for
making your own walking bass lines is that
you have to learn tons of scales, and modes,
and confusing arpeggios and all that stuff.
Now if you’re serious about making your
own walking lines, you should absolutely learn
this stuff.
The formulas you’ll learn in this lesson
will get you started, and they’ll get you
by in a pinch, but if you stop there, you’ll
might end up super bored and your bass lines
will start to feel stale and I’m guessing
that’s not what you want.
If you want a jumpstart on all of the scales
and modes that you can use in a ton of walking
lines, check out my Ultimate Guide To The
Major Modes For Bass.
In it, you’ll learn the shapes for all of
the modes on bass as well as exactly which
scales go with which chords so you’ll always
be confident that what you play is going to
work.
That being said though, let’s dive in to
these formulas.
The first one I want to share with you is
very simple.
All you need to do is play the root, the 3rd
and the 5th of the chord and we’ll repeat
the 3rd of the chord on the way back down.
That’s our formula - 1-3-5-3.
If we’re going to put this formula into
action, we need some kind of chord progression
to play it over, right?
Let’s do a classic progression you’ll
see all the time in jazz music.
A 2-5-1 progression in the key of C. So that’ll
be Dm7, G7 and CMaj7.
Perfect!
So to work this formula, we need to find the
1, 3 and 5 of each of these chords.
Now if you know your major modes, you can
figure these out pretty easily, but just in
case you don’t know and to save a bit of
time, I’ll just give you the shapes right
now.
So for the Dm7, obviously the 1 is a D, you
can play that here - the 5th fret of the A-string,
the 3rd will be right here, the 8th fret of
the A-string and the 5th will be here - the
7th fret of the D-string.
That’s D, F and A - our 1, 3 and 5 of the
Dm7 chord.
You could also play it like this as well - F
on the D-string and A on the G-string.
That works great too.
This is the shape you can use though.
Any time you see a minor chord, or a minor
7, minor 9, minor 11, minor 6 - you can use
this shape for all of them.
Just put the root in the right place and you’ll
be off to the races.
Next, for our G7 chord - our 1 will be a G,
and we can play that right here on the E-string.
Our 3rd will be a B and you can find that
here on the the 2nd fret of the A-string and
finally our 5th of the G7 chord will be right
here on the 5th fret of the A-string - it’s
a D. The same note that we started the first
chord on.
Does that make sense?
1-3-5.
G-B-D.
If you want to know where these come from
- it’s the Mixolydian mode.
Here it is.
[plays scale] The first 5 notes 1-2-3-4-5
- that’s where we get our 1, 3 and 5 from.
Finally, we’ve got our CMaj7 chord.
The shape for this is exactly the same as
our G7 chord, but just starting on the A-string.
We’ll have this C - 3rd fret on the A-string,
this E - 2nd fret on the D-string and this
G - 5th fret on the D-string.
We get these notes from our plain old major
scale.
1-2-3-4-5.
So once we have these three shapes, all we
have to do is plug them in to this chord progression.
I’ve got a really simple play along here
with no bass.
All we’re going to do is play these shapes
with the 1-3-5-3 formula.
Over the Dm7 - 1-3-5-3 - the G7 - 1-3-5-3
- and the Cmaj7 - 1-3-5-3.
With the play along track it’ll work like
this.
[plays bass line over track] 1-3-5-3 1-3-5-3.
See how that works?
Super simple!
Hardly anything to it.
Now if you only ever used one formula, you’d
get bored out of your mind super fast, so
let’s go through another one.
This one uses all the same notes from the
last one, but adds one extra note.
The 2nd formula is 1-2-3-5, so we’re still
using 1, 3, and 5, but now we’re adding
a 2 to every chord.
These are super easy to find - they’re just
2 frets up from the starting note.
So if we’ve got our D here on the 5th fret,
that’s our 1 - our 2 will be right here
on the 7th fret.
So if we play 1-2-3-5 of this Dm7, you’ll
get this.
[plays bass line] 1-2-3-5 Just like that.
It’s kind of a bit more scale-based than
the last one and maybe a little more melodic
too.
Over the G7 chord, our 1 was right here on
the 3rd fret of the E-string.
That means our 2 will be 2 frets above it,
right here on the 5th fret.
That means 1-2-3-5 over our G7 chord will
sound like this.
[plays bass line] And over our CMaj7 chord,
we’ll have the same shape, just starting
on the C right here.
[plays bass line] If we put it all together
with the play along, we’ll get this.
[plays bass line with track] Pretty cool,
right?
Another little formula we can chuck in straight
away!
So far these formulas work - they’re very
functional - but they can sound a little dull.
A little bit boring.
So the next formula I want to show you will
start introducing a ton of chromatic notes
- notes that are outside the chords and outside
the key, and the best part?
They sound super authentic because they get
used all the time.
Formula #3 again is going to use the 1, 3,
and 5, as the first 3 notes, but on the 4th
beat, you’re going to play what’s called
a ‘chromatic approach tone’.
This is just a fancy way of saying a note
that’s only 1 fret away from your target
note and we can either be one fret above our
target note or one fret below.
Let’s start with one fret above.
So for the Dm7, our first 3 notes will be
D, F, and A again, the 1, 3 and 5 but for
beat 4 we want to land on the note that is
one fret above our target note.
Our target note in this case is this G here
[plays the G] and one fret above is this note
[plays Ab] It’s an Ab - the 4th fret on
the E-string.
But if we play that we get this.
[plays bass line] It doesn’t sound that
great - we’ve got a massive super un-melodic
jump right here from the high A to the low
Ab.
It’s kinda gross.
We can fix this though by targeting the G
that’s up the octave on the D-string.
This one here [plays high G] and when we do
that, have a listen.
[plays bass line] It’s so much smoother
and prettier than that huge leap we had before,
so let’s do that.
Now though, we’re on this high G instead
of this low G and we still need 1-3-5 of the
chord, right?
That’s totally fine though.
What we can do is can jump down to the 3rd
and use the same formula as before.
Before, we had this [plays line] G-B-D, but
now it’s this [plays line] G-B-D.
It’s the same notes, the first G is just
higher and it still works super well.
The last piece of the puzzle for this chord
is the note 1 fret above our target note.
Our next chord is the C right here, so we
want to target the note one fret above that
- this Db.
So the whole line for the G7 chord is [plays
line] Together with the Dm7 line we get this
[plays line]
For our last chord, we have 2 bars of it,
right?
That means in our first bar of CMaj7, we’ll
be targeting the C again for the 2nd bar.
So our 1-3-5 will be C-E-G [plays line] but
because our next bar also starts on a C, our
chromatic approach tone will be that Db again.
So we’ll get this.
[plays line] Our 2nd bar of CMaj7 though,
the 1-3-5 will be the same, but because we’ll
be looping back to the Dm7 chord, our last
note of that bar will be one fret above that
D. In this case, it’ll be this Eb.
So our 2nd bar of C will sound like this.
[plays line] and we resolve to the D. The
whole thing with the track sounds like this.
[plays line]
Notice how we’re getting notes outside the
key now.
They’re way more colorful and add an entirely
new sound that we haven’t heard yet!
You can also do the same exact thing but approaching
your target notes from a fret below.
That’ll sound like this.
[plays line] It’s the same  kind of idea,
but executed slightly differently.
So for our final formula, we’re going to
get a little bit fancy.
We’ll start on the 1 again for each chord
just like we’ve been doing.
However, for the next 3 notes in the bar,
we’re going to approach the next root note
chromatically from a minor 3rd below.
Now don’t worry - it’s not nearly as complicated
as it sounds.
We’ll start on this D like we’ve been
doing this whole time.
The note we want to land on in the next bar
is this G, right?
So what we’ll do is go 3 frets below that
G and play all of the notes until we land
on that G - our target note.
Why 3 frets?
It’s because we’ve already played the
first beat of the bar - our D, so we have
3 more beats to fill.
3 frets below this G here is this note - the
open E. If we go up playing every note from
there we’ll get this.
[plays bass line] We can do this same thing
with all the chords.
When we land on this G, we know the target
note in the next bar is this C here.
If we go 3 frets below that note we’ll get
this open A so over the G7, we can play the
G then up chromatically from the open A and
you’d get this.
[plays bass line] So far we’ve got this
[plays bass line] But remember we’ve got
2 bars of this CMaj7 chord, so what do we
do here?
The exact same thing we did in the last bar.
We start on the C because that’s our root,
and then go back down 3 frets and approach
the C chromatically.
Even though that chord lasts 2 bars, we can
still plug in that same formula.
So from the G7 [plays bass line]
However in that 2nd bar of CMaj7, we’ll
have to change things up, right?
Why?
Because we’re not going back to the CMaj7
after that last bar - we’ll be looping back
to the Dm7.
So if this D is now our target notes, we’ll
have to start 1-2-3 frets down on this B and
then chromatically back up.
So if we start on this C - because that’s
the root of the chord we’re on - then down
to the B and then chromatically up and land
on the D. Then we can repeat the whole thing.
Check this out - this is the whole line with
this formula.
[plays bass line] Can you hear how we’re
getting a ton of notes that are outside the
key, but the line sounds super smooth and
authentic!
In fact, if you listen to tons of classic
jazz recordings, you’ll hear bass players
do these sorts of lines all the time.
They work so freakin’ well!
Finally, remember that you don’t have to
just stick to one formula the whole time - you
can mix and match even between different bars.
You might try 1-3-5-3 [plays line] going to
1-2-3-5, chromatic approach tone, and 
then approaching 
from 
a minor 3rd below.
This gives you a really nice variety and keeps
the line interesting and fresh which is exactly
what you want!
Like I said before, these formulas are great
for getting you started, but chances are you’ll
get bored with them eventually and ask yourself
‘What’s next?’
so if you want to find out, go and check out
my Ultimate Guide To The Major Modes For Bass.
You’ll learn entire scales you can use in
your walking lines, plus exactly how and where
you can use them so you can finally stop struggling
with your walking bass lines.
To get it, just click the link below and sign
up on that page and I’ll send it straight
to your inbox.
Did I mention it’s 100% free?
It’s 100% awesome and 100% free.
As an extra little bonus, I’ve also chucked
in the shapes, tabs and notation for all the
formulas from this lesson in a handy little
PDF for you.
To recap really quickly though, you learned
5 formulas you can use to instantly start
playing walking bass lines.
You learned the first one was a simple 1-3-5-3
formula, then you learned the 1-2-3-5 formula,
followed by 1-3-5 with a chromatic approach
tone above the target note.
You also learned about the 1-3-5 with an approach
tone coming from below and finally you learned
about playing the root and then approaching
the next chord chromatically by a minor 3rd.
Thanks so much for watching - I really appreciate
it.
Hopefully I’ll see you in the Ultimate Guide
To The Major Modes For Bass.
I’m Luke from becomebassist.com and I’ll
catch you soon!
