In the third of his four-part series Tim Pettingale delves further into the bassline, chord and melody style of British jazz guitar legend Martin Taylor.

In the previous two articles Martin covered the essentials of creating walking basslines for jazz guitar accompaniment. Now it’s time to add some creative variations around the basic structure. We’ll explore how to play walking bass with a ‘two’ feel, how to play up at the dusty end of the fretboard, how to add a little bit of melody, and how to play the minimum of chords while still laying down the essential harmony of the tune.

“Chet Atkins and Merle Travis would play using walking basslines, but I knew I didn’t want to go country pickin’!”

Martin Taylor

Martin will begin with one of the most tangible elements of texture: playing in twos. Until now, we have been walking with four even bass notes in each bar, but now we will vary that and use a different rhythm to accentuate the root notes on beats 1 and 3.