Ear training tips

[Menjou]

So, i just recently started playing bass, for a little more than six months, and i'm getting a little tired of just learning the songs from Guitar Pro, i'd really like to learn how to play songs by ear, and i've tried to figure out some songs but i just can't seem to get the notes right ...needless to say, that gets me really frustrated, makes me think i'm tone deaf , but i really wouldn't want to give up

so, this leads me to the question...

do any of you have any tips for ear training? any excersises? some usefull insight maybe?

I really really really want to learn, so i'm looking forward to your replys

[Stumbo]

I suggest you put in a two or three thousand hours of figuring out songs by ear. Then if you don't get it, maybe you'll have some cause to be frustrated. Frustration can be a sign of too high expectations, especially if you don't know what you don't know.

Learning music is a life long journey. Stick with it and results will come over time. Not tomorrow and maybe not the next day...but soon.

Start with simple songs. Like kids songs. Get into the blues. Then some fifties/sixties rock and roll. And so forth. Keep a list of the songs. Get recordings and review all the songs you've learned on a regular basis.

Learning songs by ear is like learning to read books. You start by putting in the time, one to two hours a day. Start simple and go from there. The more books you read, the easier it is to read the next one. Or write one. The more time you put in, the sooner you'll progress. If you put in an hour a day, it will take you a thousand days to accumulate a thousand hours.

Maybe get some slow down software so you can hear what's happening with the bass. I suggest you slow the song down 50% and then raise the pitch an octave. Sometimes the bass is heard more easily.

There are also ear training programs available.

Check out the links in my sig. below for links to some great TB info the will definitely help you on your bass education journey.

Good luck.

[BlountEdge]

If you have cable or satellite TV with music channells (i.e., XM, Sirius, etc.), develop a daily routine of alternating channels to play along with (Classic Rock, Blues, R&B, Alternative, Jazz, etc.) You'll be surprised at how quickly you're able to play along with the random song selections.

Although I've been a bassist for many years, I am currently using this method to strengthen my guitar playing and I still use it for bass ear training.

It's the equivalent of showing up at a gig for which there has been no prior rehearsal or discussion of the music to be played. It also help to strengthen ones ability to play in a variety of styles.

Try it...

[Greevus]

I think you've gotta hear a lick or phrase and just try and play it right away, sort of 'call and response'. You have to be able to sing it really, then make your bass sing it out as well. In the beginning, just finding the right pitch/note on the neck to begin with is a challenge. Once you find the primary pitch, ie open E, seventh fret E, etc, then you can build phrases off that. I think you just put on a bunch of tunes you like and jump in. Watch everyone's hands that you can. It does a mental imprint of where the notes are coming from. It gets easier and you will improve. You are not tone deaf! It just takes some time to hear the notes. Speed in playing and speed in hearing go hand in hand for me. I've known some great players who had an amazing ear to hear long phrases and play or mimic them pretty close. I've known some great players with great technique who couldn't hear anything by ear and play it.

[varunkapahi]

learn to sing all the intervals, for that start with the major scale and chord tones

[lomo]

I HIGHLY recommend the Gary Willis ear training book (no affiliation) available through Amazon. It is a logical, step by step approach with exercises.

[Mahumadi]

Originally Posted by lomo

I HIGHLY recommend the Gary Willis ear training book (no affiliation) available through Amazon. It is a logical, step by step approach with exercises.

Any other suggestions by anybody; as far as ear training books/vids? I need to dive into this now and get going on it and Id like to approach this by formal training be it a book or dvd or anything of that nature. please dont suggest a teacher, as I dont have any money for one.

[maxgrant]

Originally Posted by Mahumadi

Any other suggestions by anybody; as far as ear training books/vids? I need to dive into this now and get going on it and Id like to approach this by formal training be it a book or dvd or anything of that nature. please dont suggest a teacher, as I dont have any money for one.

Learn your solfege syllables (Do, a deer, a female deer, re, a shining drop of sun . . .). Get someone you know to play intervals for you until you can identify any interval by ear. Seconds, half-steps, thirds, minor and major, fifths, tritones, sixths, sevenths (major and minor), and octaves.

When you hear a part that you're trying to pick out, get a player that is EASY to work with. You need one that you can quickly stop, easily rewind, and easily start up again. This sounds like good design principle for any music player but in the digital era a lot of software engineers have no freaking clue how to make it work just like a tape recorder. if your recorder drops you back to the start of a song when you hit stop, or doesn't give you a pause button, or takes a ridiculously long time to rewind, or is really difficult to jog and shuttle around the recording in, invest the time to find one that is.

The reason I say this is, you have to be able to quickly stop the song when you think you've figured something out so you can try it for yourself. Once you've done so, in order to reinforce what you've learned you have to be able to QUICKLY go back to the beginning of the phrase you've chosen and HEAR the part again, as well as play along with it.

So, get a player with controls that are simple. Of course, a regular cassette deck is ideal but none of your music likely comes like that. I don't own an mp3 player myself so I usually use winamp.

Finally, practice singing in tune. You do not need to have golden pipes. You just have to be able to sing accurately what you hear. Sing phrases you already know how to play. Get used to what those notes feel like in your mouth AND hands. This is crucial because I will next describe to you how I do it.

I start with my instrument in my hands. It MUST be amplified. Especially with bass, where it is so hard to hear the fundamental unamplified. If you can mix your desired song into headphones with your favorite no-amp amplifier, by all means do so. But you must be able to hear both. Believe it or not, I teach people all the time who have to be dragged to this conclusion: MUST. BE. AMPLIFIED.

Cue up your song, and try to figure out generally what key it is in. Generally it is the last chord of the song (chorus or verse or whatever structure comes last) but not always. Pick a song that is fairly simple to start with. See if you can get the main phrase of the song down. Since we're bass players, we like to play the same thing over and over again, so you will hear the phrase you want a LOT as you try to suss it out. Sing what you think you hear. Stop the tape, and try to play on your instrument what you just sang.

If you don't get it right, here is the important part: DO NOT JUST STOP. You keep sloughing through the song, trying and trying and trying. If you hate the song, pick one that you really like. Do not fatigue yourself with something that seems pointless.

Another hint: try recording yourself along with the song. Nothing complicated. Just get a mic of some kind where it is picking up you with the song kind of in the background. Listen to how your part sounds against the song. Then listen to just the song.

After you've done this rigmarole (I am merely describing to you what I remember from my quarter-century-past experience of learning how to do it) for some time you will eventually be able to speed up the process. But as another poster already stated, this is not a skill that most people just pick up. It takes several long months of dedicated effort to train your hands, ears, and mind to learn stuff as you hear it.

When I started, I essentially felt like I was tone deaf. I know that's not true, but I had no picture of what was going on in music. It looked like one of those pointillist paintings to me -- all complicated detail that resolved itself to a nice song if I backed away, but too difficult to suss out close up.

Some years ago my acid test in ear training came when I was tapped by a student of mine for a show. He calle me at 1:00 in the afternoon the day of the show. I called him back and said I'd do it at 3:00 in the afternoon. At 6:00 the guitar player came over and spent an hour or so going over the material with me. At 9:00 I went on stage with 40 songs that I had mostly never played before, and at the end of the night they asked if I wanted to replace my student as their bass player.

I declined.

[MonetBass]

Originally Posted by maxgrant

Learn your solfege syllables (Do, a deer, a female deer, re, a shining drop of sun . . .). Get someone you know to play intervals for you until you can identify any interval by ear. Seconds, half-steps, thirds, minor and major, fifths, tritones, sixths, sevenths (major and minor), and octaves.

To add to this, you need to practice identifying the intervals both up AND down. Ex: Up a minor third, down a minor third, etc.

[Menjou]

wow, really great advice from everyone...well, could'nt expect less from such experienced users

i guess i should be more patient and a little more disciplinate about it

but thanks to all, i really apreciate the advice

[JimmyM]

buy a keyboard and learn how to play at least basic piano, where the notes are, how to form chords, etc. non-keyboard players are always skeptical, but for ear training, i think it's so valuable to know a little piano. you can actually see the note relationships in graphic form, making identifying intervals a lot easier.

[crustychef]

+1 on the keyboard. This helped me imensely when I was in music school. My room mate and I would quiz each other on basic intervals, then we would add some distraction souns like the radio or we would play a tritone pattern with one hand whlie hitting the test interval with the other.

[aBoMoFo]

+2 on the keyboard/piano. Another big help is to identify intervals by a song you know very well. Examples: the old NBC tv station call sign (or maybe ABC) is tonic, sixth, fourth. A tritone is the first lil lick in YYZ. A fifth is every single friggin pop/rock common guitar chord...

[JimmyM]

Originally Posted by aBoMoFo

+2 on the keyboard/piano. Another big help is to identify intervals by a song you know very well. Examples: the old NBC tv station call sign (or maybe ABC) is tonic, sixth, fourth.

you're very close...got the intervals right but the first note is the 5th, then 3rd, then tonic. they have arranged that little jingle into songs before, and the last note is always the key they choose for the rest of the music, so it's the tonic.

and it's nbc.

[aBoMoFo]

Well SHOOT! At least I got the station right...

Dang, time to readjust my priorities I guess.

[JimmyM]

Originally Posted by aBoMoFo

Well SHOOT! At least I got the station right...

Dang, time to readjust my priorities I guess.

nah, it's all a mattter of context.

[wdinc01]

Try www.musictheory.net for help with intervals. If you can hear intervals, and tell what they are, then really all you need is the first note. I think it also helps as a musician in general, because I was certainly able to sing better when I worked on intervals in my music theory lab class. Then I got sick and just forgot everything.

You'll also learn that a lot of songs use the same chord progressions, so knowing some of the common ones means that if you tune to a random song and start playing it, you'll just immediately realize "Oh, they're doing this. Easy."

I also like using programs like Audacity or something to slow songs down and loop some parts if you're trying to learn them without having to go back over and over. This is something I especially do with more obscure music that I listen, i.e. not something that someone will have tabbed out.

There's really a number of ways you can do it, but just playing along to a radio, or even your library of music is a very good start.

[bassybeenz]

this is what we do for college ear training, few people can actually just name a note, however, finding the relationship between the first note and the next not is not so difficult, take time time to figure out the sound of intervals. start with the major scale and learn to match the pitches with a bass or piano with your own voice, generating pitches with your vocal chords is a great way to start internalizing intervals. heres a great exercise, if you have a piano, play a C major scale (white keys)then the root fifth then octave, cover your eyes and use the eraser end of a pencil to hit a random white key above the root you started with, try to guess the note the look, ive been at this for almost a year, ive found that figuring out baselines has become a lot easy if i can sing them in my head and pick out the intervals or at least the notes of the strong beats.

this also helps alot in getting the lines in your head out through your hands and into the bass much faster than just guessing around.

Beenz