Learn Walking Bass in 7 Days
Craft connected basslines for jazz and beyond.
Late beginners
If you’re comfortable with scales and arpeggios but want to capture the driving feel of walking bass, this class is for you.
7 days
Daniel McLaughlin will guide you through 7 days of instruction with daily practice plans and assessments.
Build basslines that flow
By the end of this class, you’ll be able to turn simple patterns into fluid grooves for jazz, pop, and beyond.
Take the next step
Once you've mastered this class, keep learning with more challenges and guided Learning Pathways.
What you'll learn
Each day, Daniel will introduce a new walking bass skill and show you how to weave it into grooves that work across genres. From traditional jazz lines to modern bass parts, this class will help you build fretboard confidence and play with purpose.
- Inject momentum into your basslines
- Navigate chord changes like a pro
- Improve your fretboard fluency
Curriculum
Stay focused with this step-by-step learning program designed by our expert team of music educators.
Day 1. Walking blues cliché
In this intro lesson, you’ll start by learning the fundamentals of walking bass and applying them to a 12-bar blues progression.
Who said clichés had to be a bad thing? To kick off the class, you’ll learn the iconic walking bass move.
This lesson is all about what makes a walking bassline different from a normal bassline, as well as how to place your notes to create forward motion.
You’ll then put these skills to the test over a blues track inspired by the iconic ‘50s tune Rock Around the Clock, by Bill Haley & His Comets.
Day 2. Two feel vs. four feel
Learn the two foundational feels for walking bass.
Day 2. Two feel vs. four feel
With your walking-bass basics down, we’ll look at two different ways to feel time that you can use to accentuate the rhythm and add variety to your playing.
You’ll start with a two feel, which consists of notes on the strong beats (1 and 3). Then, you'll move on to a quarter-note pulse, which forms the foundation of walking bass.
To get this idea under your fingers, you'll learn that incorporates both feels as a way to build momentum throughout and avoid "over-walking".
Days 3-4. Target notes and chromatic walking
Learn how to keep your eye on the prize and jazz up your playing.
Day 3. Target notes
They say it’s about the journey, not the destination, but in walking bass, your destination shapes the entire path.
In this lesson, Daniel will show you how to approach root notes using half- and whole-step approaches to emphasize chord changes. Using a Van Morrison-inspired track, you’ll focus on the strongest beat of all: the 1.
Day 4. Chromatic walking
As long as you know your target notes, there are few limits to the number of notes you can use to approach them. Using chromatic walking lets you experiment by adding different levels of momentum and tension leading up to your root note.
Daniel keeps it tame in this lesson with 3- and 4-note approaches over a track inspired by Hey Joe, performed by Jimi Hendrix. You’ll also learn how to enclose your root note to incorporate melodic movement in your bassline.
Days 5-7.
To wrap up the class, we'll explore different ways you can approach your target notes and explore three outlier techniques to take your playing further.
Day 5. Step-wise walking
Chromatic walking will serve you in many situations, but what if you want to add a little melody to your lines? Well, in this lesson, you’ll learn how to use the scale of the chord you’re playing over to follow the chord changes more precisely and place your notes to emphasize the strong beats.
You’ll learn how to walk up using perfect 4th intervals and walk down using perfect 5th intervals. By combining step-wise walking with chromatic walking, we can outline the chord without losing the forward momentum leading back to the root.
Day 6. Intervallic walking
Throughout this class, we’ve been using intervals, but today we put a name to it and explore the theory. Thinking about walking basslines through the lens of intervals helps us better understand how the notes we’re playing interact with scales and chords.
We’ll look at several common types of intervallic walking basslines, including dominant 7th arpeggios, 6ths, and octave leaps. Using these in your playing will perk up your listener’s ear and complement the chords.
Day 7. Outliers
Now that you’ve got the fundamentals of walking bass down, you probably want to learn how to add your personal touch to the basslines we’ve been playing. In this final lesson of the class, you’ll explore three more advanced techniques that you can use to add flavor to your lines.
Ghost notes will let you think like a drummer and subdivide the beat. Triplets help you emphasize the swing feel of a song. Finally, you’ll learn how to bring attention to the most important note of all with the octave pedal.
Performances
Now that your walking-bass skills are locked in, you’ll get three chances to apply them to genre-spanning tracks. Time to show off those new walking-bass skills.
Your Instructor
Learn how to walk the walk. With Daniel’s clear, musical approach to teaching, you'll master walking basslines that groove across genres.
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Frequently asked questions
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