The brilliant bass line to Aerosmith’s Walk This Way!

Walk This Way

The bass lines and fills of the original Walk This Way (from the Toys In The Attic album) are MUST LEARN material for any budding rock bass player.

Wanna learn how to play awesome, funky and interesting bass fills. Got it! Wanna play syncopated 16th rock bass lines? Got it! Wanna build your picking stamina with awesome 16th note grooves? Got it!

We’re going to break down the different bass riffs (including that surprising chorus) and then look at the various bass fills Tom plays to add some interest.

Intro

The opening riff plays a few times and has a really cool funky swagger to it. On the fourth time round, we’ve got a little variation with the pushed A played on the ‘&’ of beat 3.

Guitar Solo

There’s a variation Tom plays for the ending guitar solo that is very similar to the main riff, but begins on different notes as shown on the stave and TAB below.

Verse

The verse modulates between an E7 and a C7 and has a slightly simpler vibe to it while still staying funky AF!

Chorus

The chorus riff features this almost Tower Of Power style 16th note workout and even features a few slides here and there! Take your time nailing down that slippy fill on beats 3 & 4 of bars 2 & 4 as shown below.

Running Into The Chorus

Now we can add in the extras, as you can see on the stave and TAB below, there’s a fast little run just before the chorus.

THAT Famous Fill

This is the most famous fill in the whole song, which occurs just after the chorus. It’s that cheeky, quick little slide up the neck. This comes in towards the end of the second bar and slides up as shown below.

Chorus Fills

We also have a similar fill in the second chorus ending where the bass accentuates the main vocal of the chorus. This features another little slide at the end of the bar 1.