PG's Nikos Arvanitis explains and demonstrates the individual sonic qualities and contrasting characteristics of the most-used modulation effects on guitar by citing the Police, Heart, Prince, Nirvana, Whitesnake, and Pearl Jam.
These basic concepts will set you on your way to mastering walking bass lines.
One of the greatest low-end innovations of the 20th century may be the walking bass line. Nevertheless, the act of walking is still something that mystifies more than a few bassists. So, how does it work?
A comprehensive method of walking bass doesn’t fit in just one column. One also couldn’t do it in five chapters. What I can offer is a brief introduction for those who are interested in future exploration.
Walking bass is aptly named, and much like the experience of walking home from the store, we need to consider a few things:
- Where’s the store?
- Where’s home?
- How do I get from one to the other?
Just like any journey, we need to consider the lay of the land—the physical pathways and streets available. After all, we’re probably not walking home in a vacuum and can’t just walk through buildings or across rivers! The better we understand the structure of the neighborhood, the better we will likely be at finding our way home. And, of course, there’s always more than one way to get home.
Likewise, in musical terms, we should know the structure of the song we wish to walk through:
- What’s happening melodically?
- What’s happening rhythmically?
- What’s happening harmonically?
Done well, walking bass lives within the realm of high improvisation.
The sound of moving towards or away from “home”—between the dominant and tonic—is one of the underlying principles behind voice leading and, thus, harmony. Melodically, we want to get this dynamic dominant-to-tonic pendulum motion happening, even if we’re only walking over a single chord, like A minor. Cultivating this pendulum sound in whatever we play is the key to walking in a way that doesn’t just seem like random meandering. But, of course, where we choose to place our pitches rhythmically is also paramount.
In the examples below, V represents the dominant (away) sound, which wants to return home to I (the tonic sound). Our entire macro progression might be made up of many micro progressions, called cadences (V / I, ii / V / I, iii / vi / ii / V / I, etc.).
Understanding diatonic harmony, chord functions, and chord qualities is essential to being able to negotiate “the changes” for a particular song. Functions tell us where things are coming from and where they are going.
Take a look at the Roman numerals and chord functions here. We could write a Bb blues progression like this:
I7 / IV7 / I7 / vm7 I7 /
IV7 / bVII7 / iii7 / VI7 /
iim7 / V7 IV7 / iiim7 VI7 / iim7 V7 //
Or, plainly, like this
Bb7 / Eb7 / Bb7 / Fm7 Bb7 /
Eb7 / Ab7 / Dm / G7 /
Cm7 / F7 Eb7 / Dm7 G7 / Cm7 F7 //
Because the blues is the underlying structure for so many popular songs, it’s also a great vehicle to practice walking on.
A Simple Walking Exercise: One useful walking exercise is to choose a single cadence within a progression—let’s say V / I. This function shorthand tells us where we are (in the key of Bb, V is F7), where we are going (Bb), and how many beats we have to get there (4). Find as many routes as possible going from F7 to Bb in 4 beats, landing on Bb on beat one of bar two.
Expand this exercise with these ideas:
- Choose starting and ending notes (the 3 going to the root, for example).
- Add direction—ascending or descending pitches.
- Play as a loop while trying not to repeat ideas.
- Use dominant-axis substitutions—B7, Ab7, or D7 in place of F7 (more on this in a future column).
- Walk using half-notes.
- Walk using a rhythmic shape instead of straight quarter-notes.
- Choose a different cadence.
- Walk over the whole progression.
- Change time signature.
- Change key.
I spent some time exploring examples of different cadences, with the goal of practicing these micro building blocks that make up larger progressions. My goal was to learn to walk through any cadence combination, and thus almost any progression. The idea is not to play fragments or patterns, but bass melodies that flow across the entire progression, and to also be able to do this sans notation, using our ears.
Done well, walking bass lives within the realm of high improvisation. The best players, who have mastered this art, are rarely repetitive (unless intended), don’t use patterns or riffs (unless they choose to), and don’t even need to stick to the “standard changes.” They’re completely unrestrained. They have mastered melody, harmony, and rhythm to the point where they can spontaneously create bass melodies that perfectly express the nature of the song in question. Far from being simply “walkers,” they are more like expert flyers, and with practice you can become one, too!
Name: Bourbon Cowboy
Location: East Corinth, Vermont
Guitar: The Bourbocaster-211
Solid-layered camouflage wood, zebrawood neck and headstock, and top-shelf electronics make for a unique and eye-catching heavyweight contender.
I’m the Bourbon Cowboy, a singer/songwriter from East Corinth, Vermont, and proud owner/operator of the Bourbocaster-211, an S-style guitar that I designed and built over the spring/summer of 2021. The guitar body and neck were built by a luthier named Tom Boise from New Haven, Vermont, who hand-labeled this body “Serial #1” on the inside of the control cavity.
The stunning camouflage design is not a paint job: It is solid (layered) wood, stained various colors and glued together before being carved into a guitar shape (you’ve likely seen cutting boards made with a similar technique). The exotically gorgeous neck is zebrawood, I believe, as is the headstock.
When I received the guitar as a gift from my brother and sister-in-law, it was only the guitar body and neck. There were not even screw holes drilled to mount the pickguard! I ordered and installed a set of Hipshot locking tuners, including the very cool Hipshot GT2 Electric Xtender Key, which allows for drop-D tuning at the flip of a switch. I lined the control cavity and pickup routs with black shielding paint, drilled a hole front-to-back for the ground wire, and installed a pickguard loaded with Lace Chrome Burner pickups.
A local luthier friend, Dave Richard, carved and installed the bone nut, and installed the Hipshot US Contour 2-point Floating Tremolo system, which is a delight to play—so much fun!
The Bourbocaster-211 is a heavyweight contender, weighing in at over 10 pounds. It plays with a smooth, charcoal-mellowed feel, but is also capable of delivering kick-you-in-the-face, rotgut whiskey rock ’n’ roll!
The .38 Special shell casing on the 5-way selector switch and a Jack Daniels neck plate complete the design of this stunning and unique dream guitar. If you catch my current musical project, 65 Miles from Normal, you’ll get to see the Bourbocaster-211 in action.
Send your guitar story to submissions@premierguitar.com.
When designing a guitar rig, stick to your music’s essentials.
Whether you navigate it consciously or unconsciously, guitar-rig building has multiple stages. In the beginning, it’s all possibilities and no responsibilities. The current state of the art and status of the market are such that nearly anything that you can conceive of is within your grasp. If you’d like your pedalboard to produce the sounds of yesterday, the guitar hive mind will provide you multiple methods. If you want to do something that’s never been done, the sheer volume of pedals and other gear that’s available makes for a set of permutations whose depths can likely never be fully sounded.
As a rig builder, I’m often brought in after the initial conception stage. The player has at least a general sense of what this pedalboard or rig has to be and do. There are lots of potential problems that can manifest at this point. A very common one plays out as follows: A young player (either in stage of life or stage in career) gets their first major gig. Their initial desire is to build the rig of their dreams— something with enough pedals and sounds to ensure there is next to no chance they won’t have what’s needed in every situation from stage to studio. This leads to a sort of feature creep as they add more pedals to deal with musical edge cases. “I’m going on the road with a mid-market Americana band, but one time 10 years ago, I sat in with a band to play ‘Shakedown Street.’ So, I should probably have an envelope filter.”
The result of this unfettered specification can be a pedalboard three sizes too large. For bigger touring outfits, any remotely reasonable size is manageable, as semi-trailers are spacious. But I can tell you from experience that inappropriately prepared players can open themselves up to chiding by bandmates and crew who might perceive the player as pretentious or, worse, clueless. The problem really comes to a head when this well-intentioned player now has to play the employer’s a-shade-over-three-minute 1–5–6–4 single at the Opry as a host of grizzled veterans stand in the wings wondering why there is a spaceship preparing for takeoff at the stage’s edge for an act that is going to come and go between commercial breaks.
Picking pedals for a gig means knowing the songs, arrangements, and having a producer’s ear.
Is the rig “good?” Without a doubt. Is it “right?” In terms of essential simplicity, maybe not. During that initial design phase, having a very clearheaded understanding of what the board should not be is just as important as determining what the board should be. You might be thinking this overzealous gear response is strictly the domain of newbs and rookies, but you’d be wrong. I’ve sat in hour-long rig consults with some of the most recorded guitarists in history—card-carrying guitar heroes—and in the first conversational lull after arriving at the “final” plan, this supremely confident, completely secure player will say, “Is there anything else I should be putting in there?” The idea that we might be missing something is no respecter of persons.
I’ve been having this same conversation with guitarists of all ages and stages for over 20 years. Recently, it has gotten me thinking of a certain Swiss patent clerk who said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
So, how do we follow patent clerk Albert Einstein’s exhortation to keep it simple? Picking pedals for a gig means knowing the songs, arrangements, and having a producer’s ear for what sounds and parts are actually required to make it through a full set, a shortened direct-support position, or a one-off TV date. Having drive pedals that are useful separately and stacked can round out your tonal core. Adding your bread-and-butter modulation and time-based effects will keep that section from becoming too expansive. A multi-effect pedal can catch all those edge-case scenarios that would otherwise add low-utility square footage.
Consider a more modular approach where a primary board can have auxiliary boards patched into it to expand its utility and allow it to collapse in size easily when necessary. Don’t be afraid of adding what’s called for, I’ve built super complex rigs that were as simple as they could be, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking a single monolithic pedalboard setup is the only answer.
The Foo Fighters’ frontman once took my Les Paul at a Halloween gig and played it onstage, with glee, for 90 minutes. But his new autobiography is full of better stories and plenty of wisdom.
“Life is just too damn short to let someone else’s opinion steer the wheel.”
—Dave Grohl, The Storyteller
In 2013, I was playing a Halloween party at Paul Allen’s Beverly Hills home/studio. It was a surreal gig, playing “Season of the Witch” with Donovan while supermodels, musicians, titans of industry, and celebrities like Sacha Baron Cohen, Dan Aykroyd, and Gina Gershon weaved around the packed yet spacious and spooky dance floor. Right in front of me, dressed like an Amish farmer, was Dave Grohl bobbing his head to the music. I held out my guitar to him and shouted, “DO YOU WANT TO PLAY?” He shrugged his shoulders like, “why not,” jumped onstage, took my Les Paul, and proceeded to play for 90 minutes, pretty much nailing every cover song requested by the crowd.
It was an impromptu jam at a party, but Grohl turned it into an epic performance, putting everything into every song, hitting the high notes by screaming like his life depended on it while beating my guitar like it owed him money. I remember thinking, “Man, no wonder this guy is a two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer. He gets it.”
I hadn’t thought about that for years until last week, when Dave Grohl told me his life story over the course of 10.5 hours as he read the audio version of his autobiography, The Storyteller.
Right in front of me, dressed like an Amish farmer, was Dave Grohl bobbing his head to the music. I held out my guitar to him and shouted, “DO YOU WANT TO PLAY?”
If you’re a musician, you know people like the young, pre-Nirvana Grohl: the seemingly misguided who dropped out of high school to tour with a bunch of grown men in a dodgy van, sleep in abandoned squats, and survive on a diet of gas station corn dogs, generic cigarettes, and whatever else a $7 per diem can get you. Most professional musicians go through a similar rite of passage when they first forsake all common sense, security, and comfort to play music full time. Check back with those friends 10 to 30 years later and you’ll hear a lot of stories—some sad, some triumphant, but few more inspiring than Grohl’s. Consider these differences between Grohl’s experience and other sadder versions of parallel musicians’ lives.
Grohl put in the work.
Before he had drums, Grohl learned to play by hitting pillows in his small childhood home and making drumbeats with his mouth when no kit or pillows were available. He played and listened all the time, learning every song by his favorite bands. So, when Scream auditioned drummers, he already knew the entire catalog, proving that success is when preparedness and opportunity intersect.
Grohl had the humility to listen and learn along the way.
Like many young drummers, Grohl was shoehorning fills into every space, thinking he was killing it. One day, Scream bassist Skeeter Thompson forced Grohl to get very high and play one simple groove without any fills for 30 minutes. Grohl described it as “breaking a wild pony.” I know a lot of young drummers who could not or would not do this. Consequently, they never get to the next level.
Grohl puts everything into every performance.
When Nirvana saw this skinny kid playing the shit out of his drums for the tiny crowd at a Scream show, they knew he was the guy. I see guys onstage checking their texts between songs or looking bored. If you’re going to play, be in it. Every gig is not just a performance. It’s an audition for the next gig.
Grohl said, “It’s hard to put into words the belief I have in music. To me, it is God. A divine mystery in whose power I will forever hold an unconditional trust.” We’ve all met wild-eyed Law of Attraction zealots who look at the universe as a divine vending machine, where you say the magic words, believe with all your might, and then get the shining prize you crave. It’s not about the prize; it’s about the journey: the rejection, embarrassment, discomfort, and lessons you learn along the way. The reward is that you become the person you’re supposed to be. I suspect the trick to manifesting your destiny is to move forward trusting that what’s happening to you is happening for you. Big dreams remain an empty distraction from real life unless you put in the work, sacrifice, and hustle to make it happen.
Honestly, if, like Grohl, you steadfastly work, keep your mind/soul open, say yes, be grateful, and put your whole heart into it, eventually, amazing things will happen to you. It will be a wild ride full of soul-crushing and soul-expanding experiences that will lead you where you’re supposed to be. That may be rich and famous or poor and anonymous, but if you can find happiness in one, you will have it in the other as well.