5.

Walk-downs and Walk-ups

This is a very effective fill-in technique in which you use a chord progression to move
from one chord to the next. Lets take our example:
C G/B m
!air - est Lord
"m #$ C
%e - sus
m "m #$ C F/G - G
&ul ' er of all (a - ture
C ! C ! C # F/A G/B
) Thou of #od and man the *on+
C ! C $ "m
Thee will , cher ' ish-
,n our first walk-down- we are going from a C chord to m- so the note in .etween is /-
the corresponding chord to go with the / note in the left hand would .e a # chord- so you
would play a / note in the left hand and a # chord in the right.
The second fill-in is actually not a walk-down .ut are filler chords you can use when
there are two or more .eats to fill and you are staying on the original chord- which is
usually the one chord. ,t is called the 0 over 1 chord- .ecause you play the five chord in
your right hand and the left hand plays the 0
th
note in the scale- or in this case a # chord
with an ! .ase note in the left hand. This is also a turnaround chord to use to repeat the
song.
The third fill-in is a walk-up chord progression. 2e are going from a # chord to the C
chord and we have 0 .eats to get there. The notes from # to C are and /. The
corresponding chords that go with them are ! and #. *o you would play an note in your
left hand with a ! chord in the right- followed .y a / note in the left hand and a # chord
in your right. 3ou would play them on .eats 4 and 0.
3ou may also 5ust use the left hand to walk the .ass notes up or down and not play the
chords at all in the right hand- or mix and match for variety. ,f you are playing with a .ass
player- they can fill-in the left hand .ass notes with you- .ut if you are playing alone- it is
particularly important to use these walk-downs and walk-ups to define the movement in
the song.
Tip: 2hen you are starting out- you might want to make little notes on your chord charts
indicating where ou !ight want to use certain of these techni"ues in a song.
fter time- it will .ecome second nature to you with no thought needed- .ut in the
.eginning it is helpful to plan out your arrangements more.
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