foreign Jazz walking bass lines in just four simple steps now the reason why I use the word compose and not improvise or create is because composition comes before improvisation they are essentially the same thing improvisation and composition but one is in the moment with improvisation you're essentially composing on the spot so with that being said the most effective way I've found to improve my ability to improvise walking bass lines whether it's jazz or Blues was the first transcribe the greats Ray Brown Ron Carter Paul Chambers the list goes on of course but then practicing composing walking bass Lines by writing them out on a piece of paper you can write these out in standard musical notation or tab or you can do what one of my students does and writes them out like this just as the note names now there are a few guidelines to follow if you want to create strong sounding Jazz walking bass lines these are not rules just guidelines to help you going if you're just getting into creating Jazz walking bass lines and I will say that all of this will depend on the context that you're playing in but here are the four steps you can use to create simple but very effective walking lines let's take the Jazz standard Autumn Leaves now take note that you can use this method on any Jazz standard or a blues form even just about any piece of music that you want to create a jazz walking bass line on let's start with step one so Step One is first you need to write the root on beat one of each bar like this walking bass lines are defined by their quarter note pulse so we're just going to play quarter notes on the first beat of each bar of the the chord changes so let's go through the chord changes quickly so we have C minor two player C we have F7 playing F B flat major seven player B flat E flat major seven E flat for one beat on beat one and then we have an a half diminished so we can play the open a string if you like or fifth fret of the E string then we have a D7 flat 13. don't worry about the flat 13 and the sevens for now we'll play a d there right so on beat one and then a G minor two minus six you could say and then you can do another G minor six here or some people imply or even actually play and put it into the actual standard a G7 now step two is before we look at beats two and three let's start with beat four now this is a bit unusual but this has really helped my students it sounds kind of backwards right but beat four is how we connect one chord to another so on the fourth beat you have three options you can either write a half step above or below the root like here we have an e on beat four which goes chromatically up like a half step up to the f another example is when we're on the a half diminished on the fourth beat we go from the E flat [Music] down a half step to the D [Music] right it's down one half step so we're targeting the root of the next bar on the fourth beat of the previous bar either a half step above or a half step below the second option you have to play on the fourth beat of the bar is to play or write down if you're writing out your walking bass line now a note from the scale above or below the root of the next chord so if that doesn't make sense here's an example so on the G minor six here you can see I'm playing an F which is the seventh of G minor six and it's going up to the G which is the root of the next bar and that is a scale note below the route of the next bar another example is in beat two on the F7 the fourth beat I'm going from a c which is the fifth note in the F7 scale and I'm going down to the root of the next bar the B flat so that's a scale note from the F7 chord going down to the root of the next chord which is B flat and the third option you have on the fourth beat of the bar is to write the root of the chord that you're on unless the root is the same so let me show you another example of this so in the third bound the B flat major seven on the fourth beat we have a B flat going to an E flat so we're going root to root so root to root another example is in the last bar when it repeats and goes back to the top of the the form we're going from a G7 so on the G7 we're playing the root G on the fourth beat and then we're playing we go back up to the top of the form and we play a the root C on the C minor so we go root to root so that's the third option you can play on the fourth beat of the bar and here's an example using a mixture of all three of these options now for step three we're going to select a chord tone so root third fifth or seventh on beat three as beats one and beats three are the strong harmonic beats of the bar so to get a strong sounding walking bass line you ideally want to play a chord tone on Beats three and then the root on beat one so in the first bar I chose the third of C minor which is an E flat and that nicely leads to the e which chromatically goes up by half steps to the f on the F7 I chose the third which is an A on the B flat major seven I chose the fifth which is an F but I could choose the third it doesn't matter which chord tone you you decide to use I could even use the root and go root root to the E flat there and then on the E flat on the third beat I play the third the G on the a half diminished I play the third the C on the D7 I play the a which is the fifth and on the G minor six I play the fifth which is a d and then on the G7 or G minor six depending on how you would like to play this chord progression I also play the fifth on the third beat of the bar it's cool to note that on major chords you can use the sixth instead of the seventh as the sixth on major chords generally sound quite nice as well before I move on to step four comment below with which Jazz standard you'd like me to create a walking bass line on next if you'd like more help on creating these walking bass lines and improvising great sounding Jazz walking bass lines so make sure to apply for the base Mastermind down below inside the base Mastermind you'll be able to get one-to-one personalized feedback on your bass lines that you're creating now step four is to find a note that connects beats one and beats three together a chord tone will always work so you could just select the root third fifth and seventh but try to avoid repeating notes repeating notes are not bad and it just depends on the context you're already playing in if you don't want to play a chord tone then just take one of the notes from the scale and put that onto the second B so in the first bar I have on beat one a c and on beat three I have an E flat so a nice note that connects those two notes is actually just walking up so C and then the second note the C minor scale is a d so just walking up to the E flat so the D will sound really nice on beat two so the whole first bar would sound like this C D E flat f and then on the F7 I'm actually going to drop down to the f the lower F this is and that's a nice way of kind of just connecting and just outlining the F7 there just playing the F7 Triad and then on the third bar the B flat major seven I just chose a d which is the third so [Music] fifth root to the E flat and then I chose another chord tone chord tones will always work by the way on B on beat two B flat G B flat that's the fourth bar and then for the a half diminished on beat one I'm playing an A and on beat three I'm playing a C so a nice note that will connect those two notes together that I can play on beat two would just be the second note of the a half diminished scale so B flat which is the second note and then to the C and then we go to the D seven now a note that I could use here is just the chord tone which is the seventh so seventh on beat two which is a c here and then a f sharp and then we have beat one the second beat I'm playing a third of the the G minor which is a chord tone so chord tone third D fifth seventh and then we have a G7 I'm on the G here and I need to go to the D now there's a few things I can do but I decided to choose the seventh just another chord tone and then D and back to the top so that's the whole bass line that I composed using the four-step formula that I taught you in this lesson here's how the bass line sounds in time with the backing track [Music] [Music] [Music] now you know which notes to play next you need to know how to get a great jazz walking bass tone as you saw I was playing my P bass for the sponge so if you're an electric player and you want to play jazz and get that double bass sound click this video next and in this video I actually break down how to get an awesome double bass sound on electric bass click the video and I'll see you there