learning by ear.

[BassBoy24]

does anybody have tips on how to get better at learning songs by just listening to them?

[InRodweTruss]

Try writing internet tablature! Go to Ultimate-guitar.com

I've been learning by finding a song to play, playing along, then if something doesn't sound right in that specific tab, I'll listen to the song and try to mimic it and write out my own tab. By playing along first, I get an idea where my fingers "should" be..

(If you look up the band "The Faint" on that site...I wrote a couple of those bass tabs. Posed to Death, Take me to the Hospital and Your Retro Career Melted = me, me, me )

[Deacon_Blues]

First thing is to know some music theory. If you know major and minor scales and some standard chord progressions (like I-IV-V-I (for example: C-F-G-C)), everything gets much easier. The modes that everyone likes to talk about so much here is IMO less important to know in the beginning. Knowing the basic major and minor (mainly natural and harmonic minor) scales are much more important. Well, you might want to learn at least dorian and mixolydian, but learn the major and minor scales first.

Also start transcribing songs. Write down the chords and/or the bassline to songs or part of songs. I would say that in general, it's most important to know the chords, because they are often more critical to the song than the exact right bassline is (of course, this is very much depending on the song/genre). While doing it, you need to use the pause and rewind functions a lot while figuring out the chords (e.g. on a guitar). Then start to play along to songs. Start with easy three-chord songs. The AC/DC repertoire is excellent in this perspective, so is most country music.

Then you can gradually move to more advanced music. There are no shortcuts here, in my opinion. Building a good ear takes time and effort. Also, only one music genre is not enough. I don't know which is your main genre but here are some styles that you can choose from: pop, rock, funk, jazz, bossa nova, punk, country, folk, metal.

Then start playing in a cover band. You'll learn a lot.

[Pacman]

Originally Posted by BassBoy24

does anybody have tips on how to get better at learning songs by just listening to them?

Assuming you've done this a little, the way to get better at it is to do it more and more. Like anything, practice.

[jschwalls]

I learned ALOT of RUSH songs by ear in the beginning....
They are complicated songs but.. usually the bass parts follow the vocals somewhat, which makes it easier if you can hum what you think may be played.

JON

[Torch7]

Agreed with all the posts above, what also helped me is after learning some basic theory. Associating Numbers to intervals and singing through songs.

You'll find that lots of songs are repetitive, and like Pacman said, the more you do practice the better you will become at picking out patterns heard, and similarities from other songs learned.

[jeromebass]

excellent free ear training software.http://www.solfege.org/ You can make it look like a fret board and it will play two notes. It shows you the first note on the fretboard and you tell it where the second is. You can set it to practice ascending, descending, melodic intervals, scales and alot of other stuff.

[fenderphil]

man, just turn on a CD and go at it!

but be ware, if you are playing metal, you might need to retune your bass.

tool and nirvana taught me Drop D.

Alice in chains and Live taught me tuning down the entire bass a half step.

if you are learning by ear, then youwill need to dedicate alot of time to practice playing what you love. scales and modes and stuff will get really boring, really fast.

[jeromebass]

www.Pandora.com is a free online radio that plays whatever kind of music you want to hear. You could just jam along with it.

[Bassist4Life]

Do it a lot. A LOT. Pick a song and figure out the form: Intro, Verse, Pre-Chorus, Chorus, Bridge, Re-intro, Outro...

If you have the chords, this might help (if you know what the pitches are in the chord).

The style of music will sometimes help you understand how chords are connected.

Get Audacity. It's free software that will allow you to slow down, speed-up, change pitch, and loop audio. It's a great tool.

Now go transcribe.

Peace,
Joe

[D.Don]

Originally Posted by BassBoy24

does anybody have tips on how to get better at learning songs by just listening to them?

|: Listen and play :||

,)

D.Don

[ksandvik]

Originally Posted by jeromebass

www.Pandora.com is a free online radio that plays whatever kind of music you want to hear. You could just jam along with it.

Yes, I recommend Pandora and slacker.com, just try and try, after a while everything is second nature. I think the natural way to learning is the most effective one; you could read theory about playing by ear for months, but the actual learning process is done by doing it. --Kent

[stringslinger95]

Ok here's my opinion and a quick way to learn. Find a band you like, and learn a song or two or maybe even three from that same band, by just reading tabs. Play along with it and at first learn it by the tab, don't even try to listen. Once you've got a grip on it, listen to the song and pay special attention to the bass in the song. Since you've just learned what it's like to play and how it should sound, you know what to listen for, which makes it that much easier to pick out. Do this to a couple of songs so you get a feel or "ear" for how the bass generally sounds in that particular band, After that pick a song you don't know by the same band and just learn it by ear keep messing around until you find something that sounds close. Doing it this way I find is the easiest because as I've said after you learn how to play a song when you listen to it you know what to listen to for. By the time you've learned a couple songs by the same band you have a feel for what that bassist normally does, and makes it easier to listen for and to figure out what his hands are doing. I don't know just my opinion.

[MarkTAW]

VLC Media Player.

Shift + Left Arrow = back 5 seconds. (or is it CTRL + Left Arrow? One is a minute and the other is 5 seconds)

Winamp has a similar feature, I think it's just the left arrow in winamp.

"What was that? Was that an A? No... (goes back) Was that an E? No... (goes back)... Was that a D? yes!"

And +1 everything in this thread. Learn enough theory that you know what's likely to be happening next, but train your ears up first and foremost by transcribing lots & lots of songs.

[BassMan250]

+1 to everything said previously, but the thing that helped me the most was learning intervals; once you learn them it's extremely easy to figure out the chord changes, and then construct a bass line from there.

[GBGLJE]

Play a note. If it sounds wrong, try another.

[Lokire]

Learning / transcribing by ear is something that just takes a lot of time to get good at. The best way to get better at it is to just do it over and over again. The more you use your ear, the easier it gets. It helps if you know some basic theory. So you can more easily identify parts of different scales, modes, or intervals. Different chord types, etc. Then you just have to listen closely and work through it bit by bit.

A good exercise I do is to listen to some music (in the car or something) that you're not familiar with, and without a bass, try to think of how to play the melody in your head. Then when you get back home, play it on bass and see how close you were. Playing by ear is all about being able to play what you hear in your head.

I almost always play along with songs in my head when I don't have a bass nearby. Visualize myself playing bass and think 'how would I play this, or what would I be playing here instead?'