Basics - Rhythm - Swing 3

John Coltrane. With as usual Paul Chambers on double bass. Haha. I'm going to talk about the bass walking. Remember how the ride pattern is about the crotchets then the skip notes? Same with bass. It's all about the crotchets, or quarter notes. From the end of the head, the moment Paul Chambers came in you can feel the push in the music.

Most probably would feel as if the music is being sped up, but the truth is because of the fact that he was pushing so hard that it sounds rushed, but if you counted through, you'd realise that the pulse remained.

The walking bass is a very interesting thing. It's supposed to be smooth yet have its emphasis and as "walking" goes, it is not really meant to be a line that's jumping around. The imagery is that it's supposed to flow from one chord to the other and using small steps to walk the way, but of course it's not a hard and fast rule. More importantly it's about the big phrases, like 4-bar phrases before the next key change or to keep the phrasing open to give the soloist the freedom to start and end their phrases as intended.

More importantly is the fact that the bass is the driving force for the rhythm of the band, keeping the music going and flowing forward.



Another form of bass rhythm. 2-feel. Playing on the 1 and 3 mainly. But still ahead of the beat and adding a lot of triplet phrasings and a lot of rhythmic lines into the music.

The importance of a bassist is just like the drummer, giving good subdivided beats, and giving more of the big beats than providing every single beat. It gives freedom of expression for both the soloist and the drummer, to colour and fill as and when they want. It forces everyone to feel the pulse more rather than just depending on standard "metronome click"-like walking bassline. This gives a lot more freedom into the music and a lot more organic a sound. It also frees up the bassist to do more interesting lines and fills which can be interlocking with the pianist or the drummer.

That is the rhythm for bass. =)