While all this may be "in the stickies," as a teacher, I know that's like saying "it's in the textbook." Discussion boards are much more like conversation - and I too, learn from this modality (as opposed to just reading). Maybe it's because the doses of information are more random.
Anyway, all the things you mentioned do come together as a cluster - and there's hope! I would have said the same thing about myself - 20 years ago, I felt hopeless about playing by ear (and so did my teachers). It's taken a loong time, and I could have worked harder at it, that's for sure.
Eventually, it was learning some of the nature of music theory as it applies to bass playing that cleared things up. First of all, I can play along with a bass line when I'm listening to a lot of music. So listen to lots of music and listen just to the bass lines.
Then, I got two patterns for you (let us know if this is Old Hat or not)
I, IV V
and
ii/II V I
Now, if this made so much sense to you that you thought, what the heck - why does she think I need to read THAT, then let us know.
If, instead, you look at those Roman numerals and say, what the heck do those mean? - then you have a starting place. You know tab - and you may or may not know standard notation - but both pale in comparison to knowing how a chord functions in a song/line. At least to me, they do. I read standard notation (have, for more than forty years) and I read tab (a little weaker there but basically not bad). But - it wasn't until I began to understand functional harmony that I trained my ear.
So what I mean is - you should know what those symbols refer to (they're dandy because they work in ANY scale) and then train your ear to hear those intervals.
If I think a person is a total beginner in learning functional harmony, I'll play chords on the keyboard (major and minor only) and if they can't hear the difference, well - that's something they have to learn to hear. I'll bet your ear already hears that - so your ear isn't as bad as you might think. Then, I'll play various seventh chords. Some people despair of ever learning to hear the differences (and you don't have to be perfect at it or anything - it just helps if you CAN hear these differences, otherwise it helps to know your ear limitations). But most people can easily discern a major chord, a minor chord and a dominant seventh. The Roman numeral system notes I used above didn't refer to any sevenths - just majors and minors, because you really need to hear that difference.
The other thing that learning those intervals represented will do is make you much more aware of the actual number of tones (or semitones) in between the various notes in a chord or line. That's very good for ear training.
If I play the root note of a I chord, and then jump to the root of a V chord - you should be immediately able to recognize that's what I've done. Put another way, if I play the I of a scale and jump to the V of that scale - you should be able to tell. With practice, you CAN tell. I'll bet you already can do this.
So where are you in all this?
