Walk Ups | 3 Styles & How to Play Them

Have you ever noticed a nchord progressio that has the quality of walking up from one chord to another?  I’m sure you’ve heard of them.  I want to share with you three walk-ups that you can play right now.

 A walk-up is an ascending bassline that transitions from one chord to another, usually stepwise through the key you’re playing in. They add momentum to the chord progression and clearly define where the chord is moving to.

Walk-ups are played in all styles of music so I want to share a few with you as an example of a few styles you can play them in.  

The walk up of a bassline is very simple to understand.  Let’s say you’re in the key of C Major.  Like any other key, it contains 7 notes that are numbered 1 thru 7 per the *number system*.  

Key of C Major

With the key being numbered, the walk-up is referred to numerically as it refers to the bassline.  

A walk-up could be something like 1-4-5.  The bass notes would be these tones:Or the walk-up may be 4-5-6

The bass notes will correspond with these numbers but not necessarily the diatonic chords that coincide with them.  

For example, the 3 chord could be the E minor chord, or it may be the C Major over E slash chord.  

E minor is the 3 chord.C Major is the 1 chord.Just keep in mind that with walk-ups, the numbers are referring to the bass notes of the ascending chord. The chord that matches the bass note could be any chord that fits within it.

So let’s take a look at these three walk-ups on the piano.

The Gospel example 1-4 Walk-up

You’ll find walk ups all over the place in gospel music. They’ll often include an altered chord or two.  So that’s exactly what I added to this walk up for the second chord in this example.

CDm7b5C/E

F

The Jazz example 2-5 Walk-up

Jazz chord progressions often include altered chords as you find in blues and gospel.  But you’ll also find other types of extended chords such as a Major 13 which I added as the third chord in this walk-up.

Dm7b5Em7
FM13
G7#9#5