By Ear

[cubinicano]

Im not sure ive seen this post somewhere on here before, but here's my question.

How in the world do you learn a song by ear?

I have no idea where to even begin.. -.-

[RavynWolf]

What I do is find the first note. From this note, you can logically decide where the next one will be. Through this, those notes become riffs and before you realize, you have a learned song on your hands.
I always learn this way. If I am butt**** lost, I see if I can find some kind of tab, play it and see how wrong/right it is, and this is usually results in a song. I've only really been completely stumped and could not learn a couple.

[camiloochoa]

what i generally do is find the first note/chord in the song, then I aply some theory to "decode" the chord progression, and finally when I have the full progression i find the phrases in the bass or whatever instrument i´m transcribing.

[cubinicano]

Originally Posted by camiloochoa

what i generally do is find the first note/chord in the song, then I aply some theory to "decode" the chord progression, and finally when I have the full progression i find the phrases in the bass or whatever instrument i´m transcribing.

how would you tell wat is the first note? then how would you tell wat key its in?

[RavynWolf]

Originally Posted by cubinicano

how would you tell wat is the first note? then how would you tell wat key its in?

Easy enough, listen for it and find it on your bass. If you really can't, perhaps look up the progression for the song.

[Jim Campbell]

Originally Posted by cubinicano

Im not sure ive seen this post somewhere on here before, but here's my question.

How in the world do you learn a song by ear?

I have no idea where to even begin.. -.-

try youtube.....there are lots of guys doing covers there,and if you have to you can see their hands

[Toptube]

generally songs that I want to play are songs that I've listend to a lot so I already know the rythm, timing, and have a general memorization of what the notes sound like. "knowing" the song like this first helps tremendously.

I have the ability to hear notes and then find them on the bass, So I will just concentrate on maybe a 5 second section of the song to get all the notes spot on. You also need to find the logical position on the neck to play the notes. You've usually got a couple of places you can recreate the note, but you need to find where it makes sense in relation to moving to the notes that follow.

Recently I bought an MP3 player that allows me to mark an "A" and "B" flag at any points I want in a song. Then I can play the section of song contained between them over and over and over. This has made it SO MUCH EASIER to learn songs by ear. I don't have to keep moving my hands away to grab my mouse or whatever and scan back to the point I want to start playing. I can just mark the section and let it go over and over, concentrating on hearing and finding the correct notes.

[camiloochoa]

Originally Posted by cubinicano

how would you tell wat is the first note? then how would you tell wat key its in?

for the first note you can try singing it or doing it on the hunt and peck method (the thing is that your gonna have to use yours ears)

and about knowing what key the song it is in, I do it with my theory/harmony knowledge, but in most of the cases, the first chord determines the Key of the song.

I encourage you to try it for yourself, pìck an easy song and try, in the beggining it is not going to be easy tho, but the more you spend time on it, the more easier it´ll be for you.

[Chris K]

Originally Posted by cubinicano

how would you tell wat is the first note? then how would you tell wat key its in?

No offense guys, but your anwers to this question don't seem very practical to me. In 90% of the cases the key of a song is represented by the FINAL note of the melody.

Next step would be to determine the chord progression by playing along with a recording, trying to find the root notes to the chords that represent the backbone of the progression - ignoring passing chords and such for the time being.

Finally, develop a nice melodic bass line on these backbone chords, where you could:
- substitute root notes with other chord notes if they are a better fit for your bass line;
- find nice passing notes between the notes of the basic progression, thus creating your very own passing chords

However...
The better way to analyse a song is to transcribe it. If you use a music notation program, you can also play it, add your own ideas, in short, create your own arrangement.

If you are not that good at reading music, this method will surely be a great help to learn just that.

[JTE]

Say you want to play the melody of "Happy Birthday" on bass. SING it to yourself until you KNOW cold how it sounds. The rhythm, the shape of the melody, everything. Then grab a note, any note. That's your first note. Now sing the first two notes to yourself. LISTEN- the second note can be only one of three directions. Either it's higher note than the first one, it's lower than the first one, or it's the same as the first one. That's what you're listening for. So, you decide that the second note is higher, so you try a higher note. Is that the right choice? If it is, then you sing the first three notes, listen, and repeat...

If your guess for the second note is wrong, then you listen and decide if the note you picked incorrectly is too high or too low. That tells you where to try for the second attempt. Repeat. The thing, whether it's "Happy Birthday", "Havonna", "Get The Funk (Outta My Face)", "Giant Steps", or "Iron Man", the PROCESS is exactly the same.

Now there are a lot of things that will make your "guesses" less random and much more educated. Those things include:

SING everything you play- Don't just run a scale, but sing each note before you play it- this both forces you to have your ear and brain involved with the playing, AND it helps your muscles learn to associate the sound of a whole step with different fingerings. Sing arpeggios. Sing bass lines you know and love. Sing everything you play.

LISTEN carefully to things well before you touch the bass. Don't go in with preconceived ideas of what it should look like on the fingerboard. LISTEN to the line a million times, burn it into your brain and HEAR what it sounds like all by itself. Then when you start working on it, you'll be able to get it faster.

PRACTICE- Just like any other aspect of playing, the more you do it the better you get and the easier it gets. But ya gotta put in the time, the sweat, and the dedication to doing it well. No shortcuts- do it right, do it consistently.

John