How to Make it Swing in Five Minutes

by Ari • 2 Dec 2020 — 2 minute read

Make Your Walking Bass Swing

Notes, notes, notes…It’s all about ‘da notes, right? We dutifully study “roots and fifths”, using chord tones and approach notes and enclosures… and then cool rhythmic skips, drops and left hand pull offs… all these get lots of attention during lessons and online discussions. But famously:

It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Ain’t Got That Swing

Whether you have many miles of walking bass under your belt or you are quite new to the swing thing, the key is to make it feel good. No cool note combo, or sophisticated reharmonization, or incredibly virtuoso-like drop can bail out a bass line that just doesn’t swing. On the other hand, a relatively simple line that feels good, will get you the gig every time.

But hey, I’m playing mostly quarter notes, so what could possibly go wrong?

Plenty! But the good news is that there are just two tweaks that can inject the swing into your walking bass lines…Watch!


 

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As a bassist, I have toured/played/recorded with a variety of rock, Jazz, and funk bands, I have worked with some incredible producers (Keith Olsen) and musicians (Paul Hanson, Muriel Anderson) and I toured Brazil with Stu Hamm as a duo.

 

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That’s what, many years later turned into one of my books, co-written with Wolf Wein, called “The Pattern System for the Bass Player”. I created entire systems of learning based on some of these ideas and wrote books and created courses together with Wolf. Our bass books have sold over 30,000 copies and garnered rave reviews.

 

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