3 Killer Tips For Better Walking Bass Skills

This week we're looking at Walking Bass Lines and some aspects of practice that often go neglected.

Walking bass is mostly and improvised art and we can get stuck in the process of creating and developing vocabulary through improvising around musical nuts and bolts like chord tones, scales and chromatics. This is fine and the basis for most walking bass teaching methods.

However, it's worth looking at a few other aspects of walking bass study such as reading pre composed lines, analysing transcriptions and composing your own complete lines.

#walkingbass #talkingbass #basslesson
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Bass Gear:
► Enfield Lionheart Bass Guitar
► SIMS Super Quad Pickups
► DR bass strings
► Levy Leathers Bass Strap
► Aguilar Tone Hammer Amp Head
► Schroeder Bass Cabinets
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[TheRomanomacon]

Hey Mark, thank you for your lesson. I play in a couple of punk bands and your lessons have given me so much more scope to come up with interesting bass lines learning this stuff. I am currently doing your chord essentials course which is awesome. Learning Jazz and reading music and the harmony behind it are explained so well on this channel, cheers mate.

[Murdo]

That was a right rollercoaster of a lesson.
From "yeah, yeah, with you so far..." to "what? shit, now I'm lost" to "oh, actually that does make sense... nice one!"
Great teaching Mr Smith.

[rodoherty]

I loved the harmonic analysis section. I understood just enough to follow along but I learned a few things along the way. More lessons like this please!

[dougp]

Outstanding information about analyzing harmonies outside of the diatonic scale.

[jazzbrew]

Excellent lesson Mark. I brought your walking course and it is honestly one of the best that I've ever taken. I am still working through it. The three tips you're sharing here are ones that are not frequently encouraged. Thank you!

[bassforkids]

I agree with writing your own lines.Much fun and good practice to use your ear to come up with unusual and interesting bass lines, even breaking some theory rules along the way.I don't read but I put it down on staff paper bar by bar and memorize it along the way.

[ZodiacEntertainment]

Another amazing lesson Mark! Thanks for everything you do, these walking basslines are one of the best ways to learn more about applied harmony. I've had a lot of fun with creating my own chord progressions and trying to improvise to them.

[adamdavies]

Thanks again, Mark. I find this stuff so useful. I just wish my playing was as good as my understanding!

[robertschaeffer]

Great material, reminds me how much I don't know or was it use to know...after awhile I started to see the notes as a jungle gym and was swinging note to note..

[davidreichert]

Another great lesson Mark, but I'm only posting to say that I love that bass that you have in this one.

[KaliadderExperiments]

Thank you. This is just so wonderful.

I've been a subber for a long time now, but for years haven't hardly practiced at all. Mostly due to time and priorities. 🤪😥😏😳

Recently I've been picking up my bass and started practicing again. I'm practically still a noob, though 😂. Going through my subs, I noticed your channel and promptly turned notifications on (yes, it's been so long since I've practiced regularly that when I subbed to you, the notification bell didn't exist yet!)

I hope you don't mind, but I've paused halfway to pick up my bass and focus on the first few things you discussed. I love the explanations and the theory, and this video is just packed with a whole lot of great information.

Looking forward to more as I restart my journey. God bless and stay awesome!

[drawebajo]

Mark Thank You 4 the lesson. There is a mistake in bar #10 on 4th beat must be "D natural" instead of "D#" as written, because in the next bar on beat 1 we have "Eb" which ="D#"

[kerrywilliams]

Is there a link to a PDF of the sheet music for this lesson?

[nofrets]

So much information....but way way too much to take in for my pea brain; a lot I understand but while the info likely wasn't coming at most too fast, it got that way for me. Are their ways to learn and implement small bits of all this at a time, so one could build the understanding of a concept or two, lock it in, then learn a couple more, and so on? Great info, but it's the locking pieces of it in....It was hard enough for me to follow in this particular key.

[jdmarino]

I never understood all the hate for tabs. I, for one, use them, but not slavishly. I often rewrite them to suit my own fingerings. And I produce them in software, so they use standard rhythmic notation. Learning to read standard notation would be a lot of effort, with little benefit for me.

[pampurrs]

I agree, don't use tab! Never ever!