Ear Training Idea

[andybb1500]

Hey Guys,

Ive come up with an idea that i dont think has been mentioned on TB yet and if it has been i apologize.

Well anyway my idea is seeing as im a bassist trying to become a better musician I thought I better start learning songs by ear. In the last few weeks I have learnt about 5 songs but one of the things i found was alot of the songs were too difficult for a begginer so heres my idea.

Come onto this thread and put down a song you think is good to learn by ear, put the band name and the track name and next to that put a difficulty, an example of difficulty might go something like this:

Sure Know Something - Kiss (Easy/Medium)
Call Me - Go West (Easy)
Bernadette - The Fourtops (Medium)
What Is Hip - Tower Of Power (Medium)
Portrait Of Tracy - Jaco Pastorius (Hard)
Amazing Grace - Victor Wooten (Hard)

you get the idea, now start posting!

[andybb1500]

aww no one thinks this is a good idea ?

[Pythagoras]

The songs I'm writing down are very popular and have easy to figure out basslines:

With or without you - U2 (Easy)
Whole lotta love - Led Zeppelin (Easy)
comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd (Easy)
Time - Pink Floyd (Medium)
Hotel California - Eagles (Medium)

This are the ones that come to my mind almost instantly

[andybb1500]

thanks i was actually thinking of doing hotel california funny bout that. i think it might be a bit hard for me though but its worth a shot

[T. B. Player]

As you said in your first post, I just think it's been done before...

Ear training is only one way of learning. While educational scholars point to three learning domains (visual, audial and kinesthetic), I believe, that with the advent of visual technology, that there are now four.

Historically, the visual learning was the one who read something or saw someone do something and learned from it. Audial was listening and learning. Kinesthetic was the "learn by doing" approach, much akin to the apprenticeships of tradesmen.

I would propose that those alignments have modified for the 21st century, and have specific applications in music education. The visual learning is the one that watches someone on YouTube, on a DVD or in person and learns from what they see; the audial learning is ear training - doing just what you've proposed here - listening to recordings and duplicating the product; the kinesthetic learner is the one that learns by doing - practicing scales, "shedding" as it's called here, and taking lessons from a seasoned mentor. The representational learner, however, is one that can learn from someone else's notation of learning - in musical terms, reading the notes. Today's it's becoming lost as more and more visual and audio opportunities are made available through technology.

The real point of learning and becoming a musician is to not only "learn" the bassline to a song - it's to incorporate it into your own personal experience so that you come up with something that's uniquely "you," rather than being a carbon copy of someone else.

And today, if you're a carbon copy, they might start to try to reduce your carbon footprint.

Z

[andybb1500]

youve got a good point. IMO i think that learning songs by ear is even better than reading sheet music as it develops your ear, and your ear is the most essential thing in music (obviously) but yeah as you said about incorporating what you learn into your own music. Thats what i try and do in my band, though sometimes its a bit hard when you learn funk, jazz, fusion stuff and you play in a rock band haha but i seem to manage

[DocBop]

Ear training is all about singing and and learning what your are singing, then relate it to your instrument. Start with real simple songs from childhood and sing in interval names or solfeggi. Same with intervals find a songs that you can relate to the interval like Hot Blooded by Rod Steward is a P4th. Once you have a good grasp on these melodic fragments and songs for intervals then start taking songs, learn to sing the bass line, and transcribe without your instrument. You goal is if you can sing it you can play it.

Last get a keyboard of some kind to practice ear training/singing with you can pickup a decent KB for under a $100 these days. Guitars just aren't in tune enough and make it harder to study ear training.

[mrkode]

There are more than one way to practice ear training.

There are different manuals and software and there is simulated and real live experience.

IMO / IME, a good mix of both is perfect.

If you can afford it, buy and download Practica musica. One of the finest ear training software that exist. http://www.ars-nova.com/home.html

It still has it's limits as, like a lot of tutorials and methods out there, it's more classical than popular so V/VII does not always apply in our modern chord notations.

Another way I found really useful is just logging on to whatever online radio station and play along to whatever song is playing. That's in the line of what you're explaining in your original post. Most of the songs on popular radio are very easy, mostly always the same chord progressions but arranged differently.

If you want to push it even further, try and buy some lead sheets from a reputable source. (meaning you'll know for sure it's the right chords). Don't look at them until you're working on the songs. Then, proceed just as if you were taking a dictation at school. Listen to one of the songs and try and write the chords you hear. When you're finished, compare what you wrote to the real lead sheet, correct yourself and then listen back to the song while reading the right chords. Try and analyze what you hear and get the colour of each chord. If you're not quite sure, try and have a keyboard handy and a chord chart so that you can play it by yourself as for exemple, it may not be that obvious to differentiate a sus2 chord from a minor triad at the beginning.

Hope this helps.

[gmstudio99]

To really round yourself out as a musician, start learning the other parts to each of these songs (on your bass) after you've worked out the bass line. Instead of playing along with the bassline on "Hotel California" for example, try playing the vocal line along with the recording, and then the vocal harmonies. If the song has a horn part, start working that out on your instrument, too. See if you can comp some or all of the guitar parts on your bass. Learn the "song" as a whole.

[alexei]

Well, here are my 2 cents:

I'm from argentina so I'll recommend a band from here, that some of you guys may have heard of. They are "Los Fabulosos Cadillacs", and the songs I was just learning by ear yesterday are:

Los Fabulosos Cadillacs - El León Santillan (difficulty: easy/med; interesting bassline)
and
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs - Siguiendo la Luna (difficulty: easy; time: slow)
both are reggae feel

But the bass player in that band has good creativity and he makes specially tastefull basslines while keeping them simple, I recommend any song by them, actually. You can find a lot in youtube.