Please some ideas to improve my ear

[morris888]

I've played bass guitar for almost two years, I think that my technique is good, but my ear is bad, please give some ideas or some examples to improve my ear

[Hestan]

Hi mate,

I'm not janek!, but saw your post and thought i'd suggest a few things I think have helped my ear.

Most important is trying to work things out (i.e. transcribing) from records. No matter how simple it is - try and figure out as much as you can. I'm amazed at how much some of my pupils can do when i just force them to try.... It improves so quick you'll be amazed at what you can do.

Also - try and memorise all the different intervals from the major scale. Then record random ones for say 5 minutes on a tape (all from the same key eg C-E , C-G , C-B. Go back a day later and either write down the names of each one (maj3rd, prfect5th, maj7) then check with your bass at the end etc.. or try and play back in the gaps what you hear. There's no limit to how hard you could make this.

Also - Gary willis has a cool book 'ultimate ear training for gtr and bass' which is well worth a look.

good luck!

J

[DocBop]

I will add start singing everything you do. Good eartrainning courses involve a lot of sightsinging because singing drills the sound in. Transcribe but sing the phrase and transcribe from your singing line back. That helps with the ear/fretboard relationship.

[janekbass]

Training your ear is a matter of being concious of what you're listening to.

I would listen to the radio as much as you can, and start to identify simple chord progressions in pop music. There's a good chance a song that you know will come on, and within a few days of really listening hard to simple songs on the radio you'll start to recognize shape and form in the songs. a large number of pop songs are made up of very few chords, and follow a similar form, so not only is it an easy place to start for your ear, but an essential part of music to understand form of songs.

As your ear becomes acustomed to musical shapes you'll find it will naturaly progress to identifying melodies, voicings, and all manner of other things too.

All of this is, of course, to be twinned with your instrument. You have to put in the time with your instrument to where translating what you hear to your bass is a feel thing, and not something mechanical that slows down your process.

I hope this helps.

Easy,

Janek