Walking bass

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In music, a walking bass is a bass accompaniment generally consisting of unsyncopated notes of equal value, usually quarter notes (known in jazz as a "four feel"). Walking bass lines are used in rock, blues, rock-a-billy, ska, R&B, gospel, latin, country, and many other genres (Friedland 1995, p.4).

Contents

Many boogie-woogie basslines are walking bass lines:

Typical boogie woogie walking bassline

Walking bass often moves in stepwise motion to successive chord roots, such as often in country music:

Walking bass I-IV

In this example, the last two quarter notes of the second measure, D and E, "walk" up from the first quarter note in that measure, C, to the first note of the third measure, F (C and F are the roots of the chords in the first through second and third through fourth measures, respectively).

In both cases, "walking" refers both to the steady duple rhythm (one step after the other) and to the strong directional motion created (ibid); in the examples above, from C to F and back in the second, and from root to seventh and back in the first.

Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.