Walking bass lines/chord comping

I think this stuff is awesome... you're essentially combining the role of the bass player and comping guitarist. Ignoring those lessons you can easily find on Google, I just wanted to do it myself. Rules to this game:

-Must always start on the root of the chord
-Use chord tones (thirds, fifths, sevenths)
-Chromatic note above or below before switching chords

This last rule was really what dictated how I was going to play my bass line. It took me a while to figure it all out, a mix of trial and error and some miniature epiphanies. This is the chord progression I used:

-Bb7 - Eb7 - Bb7 - Fm7 Bb7 - Eb7 - Edim7 - Bb7 Eb7 - Dm7b5 G7 - Cm7 - F7 - Bb7 G7 - C7 F7 -

Four beats in between each dash line (thus that Bb7 to Eb7 in the middle means that each chord has only two beats).

Starting with just the bass line-
This first two changes are easy: Root (Bb) to third (D) to fifth (F) and chromatic down to the Eb (so E to Eb). Hey, we landed on the root note of the second chord!

But getting back to the Bb involved more chromatics: Root (Eb) to seventh (Db... which isn't in the key of Eb major but that's because Eb7 is really in the key of Ab major!). And from that Db, chromatic all the way down to the Bb (C to B to Bb).

Similarly to get from Bb7 to Fm7 chord, just went root to third and chromatic up. With the two beats in this measure for the chord, I ignored any chord tones except for the root F and just chromatic'd (made up that word) above the following Bb7 chord (so just did F to B natural).

So eventually figured out that bass line and now I have to add the chords in between (check out the sound clip of just the bass line). But for the chords, I just used a 3rd and a 7th, so for example in the Bb7 chord I played the Bb root and on the upbeat, played the 7th and 3rd (Ab and D). Just thirds and sevenths. Except maybe the diminished chord, I cheated on that and played the diminished fifth. Pretty experimental in terms of finding the right fingerings and the easiest ones, but got it eventually. Check out the other sound clip.

Lessons learned: Look at the notes, follow those rules, and it turned out alright. I'm happy. And it got easier the more I tried to do it, so hopefully for other progressions it won't take as long.

Bass line

Bass line with chords