Walking bass guitar is an important comping style for any jazz guitarist to study when learning how to play jazz guitar chords.

If you are new to playing walking bass guitar lines and want to learn an easy method for learning them, I highly recommend checking out this guide that I published before working through the material in this lesson.

This article is aimed at the guitarist who already knows how to play walking bass guitar and wants to add more advanced rhythmic and harmonic techniques to the style.

The techniques discussed in the lesson are frequently used by guitarists such as Joe Pass and Martin Taylor.

So I recommend that you listen to both of these musicians as much as possible in conjunction with the material in this walking bass guitar lesson.

Walking Bass Guitar Example 1

This first example shouldn’t be too difficult if you are already quite familiar with walking bass guitar lines.

Each of the examples in this lessons is based on Walking bass guitar example 1 and just add more chords and different rhythms.

Make sure that you can play this cleanly and smoothly before moving on the next walking bass guitar example.

I used a hybrid picking right hand technique for this example but you can use whatever feels comfortable.

Example 1

Walking Bass Guitar Example 2

The next example demonstrates how you can add triplets and 10ths to a bass line.

A 10th is simply just the third of a chord played an octave higher.

Played in conjunction with the root, 10ths can add greater harmonic sophisticated to walking bass guitar lines by suggesting more harmony than what’s actually happening.

10ths are used in the second and third bars of this example.

There are many different chords that these 10ths could suggest but here I have noted them as representing minor 7th chords.

Triplets are also used at the beginning of bars 2 and 3 to provide more rhythmic interest.

I found it very difficult to play the triplets using a plectrum so I would suggest a different right hand technique such as hybrid picking or finger style.

I used fingerstyle (thumb, 1st finger and 2nd finger) for the recording.

Example 2

Walking Bass Guitar Example 3

The last example is a variation of walking bass guitar example 2, and adds more harmonic movement by using shell voicings instead of 10ths.

The reason this example works so well is because there are two seperate lines rising chromitcally in bars 2 and 3.

Starting from measure 2 of bar 2 the bass line moves completely chromatically (A, Bb, B) which is one of the smoothest ways to get to the next chord.

The same motion is used in the last bar of the progression (D, Eb, E).

The use of passing diminished chords might cause some confusion because they contain notes not found within the diatonic chord scale.

But passing diminished chords work well in these walking bass guitar examples because the movement of the comping line is so strong.

Spread triads are used on the final beats of bars 2 and 3.

Spread triads are excellent chords to use in duo situations and I actually favour them most in the time in place of drop 3 chords.

Example 3

Practicing Walking Bass Guitar

“It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that thing” — Duke Ellington

Remember than the most important aspect to playing walking bass guitar is keeping the time steady.

Some of these walking bass guitar examples are quite challenging at first which can sometimes result in rushing the beat, especially with the triplet examples.

Practice each example with a metronome at slow and steady tempo to begin with.

Listen to what you play and make it’s sure it’s clean and grooving.

Once you can play each of the examples in this lesson, have a go at applying them over a tune.

Autumn Leaves is a great piece because it has an abudance of ii-V’s.

I hope that you have enjoyed playing and working through these walking bass guitar lines and they help you emulate the comping of players such as Joe Pass and Matin Taylor.

What do you think of these walking bass guitar lines? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.