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A Contour-based Jazz Walking Bass Generator

Conference Paper · August 2013

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2496.7207

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 Proceedings of the Sound and Music Computing Conference 2013, SMC 2013, Stockholm, Sweden

A CONTOUR-BASED JAZZ WALKING BASS GENERATOR

Rui Dias
University of Porto Carlos Guedes
INESC-Porto School of Music and Performing Arts,
School of Applied Arts, Polytechnic of Porto (ESMAE-IPP)
Polytechnic Instituteof Castelo Branco INESC-Porto
(ESART-IPCB) [email protected]
[email protected]

ABSTRACT The learning of this technique usually implies the learning

of melodic licks, for each of the commonly used chord pro-
This paper describes a contour-based algorithm for the real- gressions. These licks are small melodic phrases that are
time automatic generation of jazz walking bass lines, fol- particularly efficient and musical, and are usually related
lowing a given harmonic progression. A brief description both to the available notes of the current chord and un-
of the walking bass procedure will be presented, and also a derlying scale and to physical placement of the notes and
brief survey on some common implementations and tech- fingers on the bass. Bass learning methods like the ones
niques. by Ron Carter [2], Ray Brown [3], Bob Magnusson [4]
This algorithm was implemented in the Max/MSP graphi- and Steven Mooney [5] lead the student through a series
cal programming environment. of these licks, covering most common harmonic progres-
sions, in order to provide the student with the basic formu-
lae that can then be adapted to any song. As the walking
1. INTRODUCTION
bass player develops his technique and gains more experi-
1.1 The Walking Bass Practice ence, however, he will be able to use these phrases more
articulately. More importantly, he will be able to move
The walking bass is a very common playing procedure away from them, intuitively creating more natural sound-
used in jazz music, in which the bass walks through the ing lines and integrating several other elements like orna-
chord and scale notes in a regular pulse. This is espe- ments, theme-specific elements and group feedback.
cially used when accompanying a solo, firmly setting the ”(...) musicians string together a sequence of motifslicks
base pulse like a metronome, and simultaneously exposing as they used to be calledmodified to meet the constraints
the underlying harmony of the song. This procedure has of the chord sequence. (...) Yet, the motif theory cannot be
its roots deep in the first decades of the twentieth century, the whole story.” [6]
and was developed through the years with bass players like
Jimmy Blanton, Ray Brown, Ron Carter and Charlie Min-
gus, amongst many others. A very good insight on the 1.2 Implementations
evolution of the bass role and many of the key innovators
Due to the non-repetitive nature of the walking bass tech-
in jazz history can be found in The Jazz Bass Book, Tech-
nique, its use in computer software is actually quite lim-
nique and Tradition, by John Goldsby [1].
ited. Commonly, walking bass lines in use are pre-recorded
or manually written for the entire song length, whether
The basic idea of a walking bass line is to go from one
as audio recordings or MIDI events. This practice has
chord to the next, linking them by filling the middle beats
its roots in play-along recordings, like the widely known
with notes of the chord or scale, typically describing a
Jamie Aebersold [7] long list of score + CD Play-A-Long
smooth melodic line or pattern. Far from being completely
albums, with comping tracks recorded by real jazz mu-
passive, however, the roll and behavior of the walking bass
sicians, allowing the practitioner to play-along with the
can dramatically change from almost neutral smooth lines
recording. Computer software facilitates this method by
to very abrupt register changes and energized rhythms, dy-
easily allowing the independent mixing for each track, as
namically contributing to the overall group energy and mu-
well as change the tempo and transpose an audio or MIDI
sical result. The continuous flow of the regular walking
track, even on iOS devices with apps like Smudge Apps
bass notes, together with its harmonic and melodic content,
Band [8] with multi-track recordings and mixer.
form one of the most charismatic and important elements
More advanced software use pre-recorded small phrases
in traditional jazz playing.
for each chord-type and/or chord progressions, which are
then transposed and chained together according to some
Copyright: c 2013 Rui Dias et al. This is an open-access article distributed under more or less intelligent algorithm. This seems to be the
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License, which per- case with software like the extensive Band-in-a-box [9],
mits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the and more recently iReal b [10], on the iPad. This kind of
original author and source are credited. implementation can use audio or MIDI clips. While audio

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 Proceedings of the Sound and Music Computing Conference 2013, SMC 2013, Stockholm, Sweden

clips keep all of the little nuances, sound and groove of the 2.1 Target note calculation
original player, the MIDI clips allow more flexibility for
The algorithm needs to know the current chord and the
editing notes, instrument, and even tempo and phrase ele-
next one in order to be able to calculate a phrase. The
ments.
target note is the last note of the phrase to be generated. A
These implementations based on the use of pre-recorded
simple probabilistic algorithm chooses which of the notes
phrases, whether audio or MIDI, have however some limi-
belonging to the next chord will be used e.g. fundamen-
tations:
tal, 3rd, 5th, 7th, etc.. Currently, in order to maintain a
- If the number of pre-programmed phrases is small, the
strong sense of the base harmony, a setting of 100% prob-
output will easily sound repetitive;
abilities of choosing the fundamental note of the chord is
- The larger the number of pre-programmed phrases, the
used. Then, according to the current note and to a direction
larger the chances of melodic inconsistencies and non-musical
parameter, the algorithm will find the chosen chord note in
results;
the right octave.
- In order to obtain smooth transitions between chords, the
The direction parameter defines whether the target note
pre-programmed phrases have to be very neutral, resulting
will be selected up or down, relatively to the current note,
in a very neutral sounding bass line;
and there are five different settings: lowest, down, nearest,
- It is not easy to handle less conventional harmonic pro-
up, and highest. The down and up settings tell the algo-
gressions.
rithm to search for the nearest note in that direction, while
with the lowest and highest settings, the algorithm will se-
lect the lowest and highest note in the instruments range.
2. A CONTOUR-BASED APPROACH: This parameter can be defined manually or automatically.
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION So, for example, considering a double bass instrument de-
The work presented in this paper stems directly from the fined with a range from E0 to G3 (having C3 as the middle
research that led to the development of the GimmeDaBlues C), if the current note is a C2, and the target note is an
app [11]. It describes the algorithmic generation of melodic F, the direction parameter will define which F will be se-
phrases that connect the chords in a previously defined har- lected. The down setting would select F1, while the up
monic grid, by calculating a path from the current chord to setting would select F2. The lowest note setting will return
the next, according to user-defined settings controlling the F0 - the lowest F on the defined range - and the highest
direction and range of the melodic contour. setting will return F3 the highest F on the defined range.
The phrase generation algorithm consists basically in three
stages: Target Note calculation, Trajectory calculation, and
an event manager (Player). The general structure is showed
in Fig.1.

Figure 2. Possible target notes for the four direction set-

tings.

With the ”nearest” setting selected, the algorithm will au-

tomatically go up or down, choosing the F that is nearest
to the current C2, which will be F2, because its a Perfect
4th interval, while F1 would be a Perfect 5th.

2.2 Trajectory
The trajectory is constituted by a selection of notes that de-
fine the path the bass line will take from the starting (cur-
rent) note to the final (target) note. In a typical case for
a chord duration of one bar in a 4/4 measure with the bass
Figure 1. Algorithm structure. playing quarter notes, the complete generated bass line will
have five notes, in which the fifth is the first note of the next

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 Proceedings of the Sound and Music Computing Conference 2013, SMC 2013, Stockholm, Sweden

measure. The three passing notes between the starting note

to the target note are calculated recursively, going from the
strongest beats of the measure to the weakest, and depend-
ing on the trajectory calculation algorithm.
An openness parameter will set how direct or indirect the
path will be, influencing the selection of the middle notes
in the calculated bass line. The name relates to the notion
of closed and open forms of a chord. The closed position Figure 4. Phrase b) is the same as a) but with an ornamen-
will be the more direct path to the target note, while more tal triplet repeating the G in the third beat.
open path will tend to use a wider trajectory, using chord
notes in an open form.
The notes to use will be drawn from chord tones, scale 2.4 Control
degrees and chromatic inflections, according to each steps The combination of the direction selection and the trajec-
beat position. The stronger beats of the bar will tend to tory openness provide a contour-based definition of the
have chord tones, while the weak beats will tend to have walking bass line, which not only creates smooth and nat-
scale notes acting as passing notes from one chord note ural lines but also allows an effective and intuitive control
to the next. The last beat of the bar can also be a chro- in interactive real-time implementations.
matic approximation to the target note. This is a very com- A simple example of a possible manual controller for this
monly used technique, as the chromatic passing note cre- walking bass generator would be a joystick type controller,
ates a strong attraction to the target note, emphasizing it as where the vertical axis would control the direction param-
well as the sense of direction in the melodic phrase. eter, while the horizontal would control the openness pa-
Fig. 3 shows four examples of possible trajectories of the rameter.
calculation of a bass line for a C7 F7 progression, where
the initial note is C2, and the target note is F2.

Figure 5. Example phrases with different settings.

Figure 5 shows three example phrases with different set-

Figure 3. Phrase b) is the same as a) but with an ornamen- tings:
tal triplet repeating the G in the third beat. - a) direction: nearest / openness: low;
- b) direction: down / openness: low;
- c) direction: down / openness: high.
2.3 Ornaments
Although the construction of the phrases are the base of
3. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE
the walking bass technique, there are several other aspects
DEVELOPMENTS
regarding the notes, rhythm and articulations that have an
important role in a good performance. These aspects, here The overall outcome of the described algorithm is quite ef-
referred to as ornaments, are little nuances and additions to fective and promising, mainly due to its flexible nature, by
the phrases that dont change nor define the main contents adapting to any arbitrary harmonic progression and by al-
of the phrases, but nevertheless can contribute consider- lowing a meta-control over the bassist behaviour.
ably to the quality and the dynamic of the walking bass Future implementations will focus on the way the phrase
lines. generation can be controlled algorithmically, exploring the
The current implementation allows for the use of eighth- contour shapes for the creation of motivic oriented groups
note triplet variations (or eighth-notes with a swing feel- of phrases. Several strategies can be approached, like Markov
ing) that can be set probabilistically. This is one of the most models and genetic algorithms, to control the succession of
common rhythmic variations in the walking bass technique, phrase parameters musically.
in which some of the notes are anticipated by one triplet Due to its recursive nature, the current algorithm only deals
(or swinged eighth) with the same or another pitch. The with multiples 2/4, 2/2 and 4/4 measures. In metrical terms,
control is done by a single percentage value, setting the the beat hierarchy in measures with an odd number of beats
probability factor. is not so clear, and thus the algorithm has to know how

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 Proceedings of the Sound and Music Computing Conference 2013, SMC 2013, Stockholm, Sweden

to handle them appropriately. Also, and relating to metri- [13] Randy Felts, ”Reharmonization Techniques”. Boston:
cal aspects in the phrase calculation, is the notion that the Berklee Press, 2002.
phrases played by good bass players tend to have very of-
ten a length of two measures instead of just one. This cre- [14] Mark Steedman, ”A Generative Grammar for Jazz
ates more fluent lines contributing to the smoothness of the Chord Sequences”, in Music Perception 2, 1984. pp.
musical form but also to the musical dynamics and move- 52-77.
ment by relieving the measure-by-measure step size. [15] Mark Steedman, ”The Blues and the Abstract Truth:
Regarding harmony, some interesting developments can Music and Mental Models”, in A. Garnham & J.
include the introduction of harmonic variations like chord Oakhill (eds.), Mental Models In Cognitive Science.
substitutions and alternate chord progressions, which is a Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum 1996, pp. 305-318.
very common practice with advanced players, described in
books like the ones by Nettles and Graf [12], or Felts [13],
and addressed in the work by Steedman [14] [15].
Also, in order to make it sound more human and active, the
ornaments features regarding rhythm, dynamics and artic-
ulation will have to be addressed.

4. REFERENCES
[1] John Goldsby, ”The Jazz Bass Book Technique and
Tradition”. Backbeat Books, 2002.

[2] Ron Carter, ”Building Jazz Bass Lines”. Hal Leonard,

1998.

[3] Ray Brown, Ray Brown’s Bass Method”. Hal Leonard,

1999.

[4] Bob Magnusson, ”The Art of the Walking Bass”. Hal

Leonard, 1999.

[5] Steven Mooney, ”Constructing Walking Jazz Bass

Lines” (book series). Waterfall Publishing House,
2011.

[6] P. Johnson-Laird, ”How jazz musicians improvise”, in

Music Perception, Spring 2002, Vol. 19, No. 3.

[7] a list of the Jamie Aebersold

publications can be found at
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List of songs in Aebersold’s Play-
A-Long series
(consulted in March 17th 2013).

[8] Smudge Apps - Band. www.smudgeapps.com

(consulted March 14th 2013)

[9] PG Music - Band-in-a-box.www.pgmusic.com

(consulted in March 17th 2013)

[10] Technimo LLC, iReal b. www.irealb.com

(consulted March 14th 2013)

[11] R. Dias, T. Marques, G. Sioros and C. Guedes,

”GimmeDaBlues: an intelligent Jazz/Blues player and
comping generator for iOS devices”. in Proc. Conf.
Computer Music and Music Retrieval (CMMR 2012).
London 2012.

[12] Barrie Nettles and R. Graf, ”The Chord Scale The-

ory and Jazz Harmony”. Rottenburg: Advance Music,
2002.

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