NEEDS URGENT HELP

[Spoud]

Been playing in a band for about 3 months and things are going well, gigging and practicing reguarly and i feel i am falling a bit short of whats needed of me. Been playing for around a year and i find it extremely difficult to learn songs by ear and i feel this is restricting me BIGTIME, can anyone offer any advice on how to overcome this obstacle?

[Bassguy87564]

I would say take some eartraining course or you can practice online on some websites. this is one website http://www.good-ear.com/ there are also many other ones

[Skitch it!]

There is a little exercise you can memorize to help with interval recognition by using tunes to remember the intervals/scale e.g. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, the first 2 notes are a perfect 5th apart so you can hear it without an instrument, there is a tune for all the intervals in the major/minor scale, also Zeppelins Whole Lotta Love, the first two notes are a minor third apart...and so on.

If you wanted to expand on this.. Twinkle Twinkle as above.. the third note is a major 6th.. within 3 notes you have the root, a perfect 5th and a major 6th, remember to reference everything from the root, and be careful not to do this in public too much especially nursery rhyme songs, people may get the wrong idea

[MalcolmAmos]

Are you trying to play with out any sheet music. Three months with the band is a relative short time - a few fake chord sheets on the floor, top of the amp, what ever, might eliminate that problem.

What the heck bring the music stand take a peek if needed.

[codeinedreams]

here's my post from an older thread that I cut and pasted and edited:
I learned bass strictly by ear (I can read sheet music with other instruments but didn't learn bass that way). you do have to have a good sense of pitch. start by hearing or humming any note and then finding it on the fretboard. then build up by imitating simple riffs or melodies that you're hearing or humming. then focus on just what the bass is doing in a recorded song. and for gosh sakes, have a decent sound system with high quality speakers where you can play CDs etc. and actually hear the bass clearly. that helps to distinguish tones and pick out bass lines. small bookshelf speakers connected to the computer just don't cut it IMO. (it's like, why do people have to go to their car to see if their recording is mixed right? anyway...) I've spent a lot of time playing along to recordings. I'd go through it bit by bit pausing and going back until I get it. Now I learn songs off youtube on my laptop even though the sound quality sucks, but that's because I've been doing it for a while. and I would also say try not to look at sheet music while trying to learn by ear (unless you're with your band and it's in a pinch) because you're using a different part of your brain to process that different information.

also, see the recent thread on "playing along" in the general instruction section.