Hearing and playing by ear... please be gentle

[Minotauros]

I'm just 5 weeks into learning bass, and have been using a few pre-written tabs, which even I can say are pretty bad. I've done a lot of tweaking of them.

For now I've been playing it (no pun intended) safe and using R, discovering that some chord progressions share notes, so I can either change the root note or I can stay on the shared note and play around with the rhythm as long as it sounds good.

My question, how do I develop an ear for hearing a bass line? Even playing guitar I've never learned to play by ear. I particularly like this one and would like to play it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiyf7OfYMoA

Do I just start with any note and proceed from there? I can't follow the bass player's fingers since he's moving too fast and I can't slow the video.

[onlyclave]

In order to be able to play by ear you need to hear the music. Not just listen to it and try to regurgitate, hear it. "So OnlyClave, what does that mean?" you ask.

You have to internalize the music you want to play. Listen to a short section, memorize it and sing it back. Play the recording again and sing along. Do they sound the same? Rinse, repeat.

If you can sing it back then you haven't heard it. If you haven't heard it you're just kind of stabbing at random notes in the dark. You can also rewind and loop your singing much faster and easier than a Youtube video.

[JTE]

Yep, it's HEARING the riff or melody, whatever. Can you "hear" "Happy Birthday" in your head? OK, then let's do this little exercise.

Sing "Happy Birthday" to yourself a few times. Now, start at a random note in the middle of the bass. For this example, let's use the D at the fifth fret of the third string. Now, play that note as your starting note.

Now sing just the first two notes of the pattern. That second note is either higher than, lower than, or the same pitch as the first note. LISTEN and discern which it is. If it's higher, try a note that's higher. Did you hit the right one? If so, good- now play those two while singing them to fix in your head both the SOUND of the two notes AND the way your fingers/hands move to create those two sounds. If you guessed wrong then go back to the first note and try again.

This is exactly the same process that you'll use to learn the bassline to "My Girl", "Bernadette" or anything else. The more you do it the easier it gets.

Now if you practice scales and arpeggios CORRECTLY (that is, you have your brain and EAR actively engaged while playing them- none of this idly fingering scales while watching TV) then you'll be building your ear/hand coordination so that finding notes comes even more quickly.

John

[progrmr]

I'm pretty new to bass as well (playing about a year and a half). I've been getting theory by taking bass lessons and working on blues.

What I do when I'm figuring out a new song is figure out all the chords in particular section (verse, chorus, bridge etc) before I even try to pick out the bass line. Once I have the chords down, I then listen to the bass line.

Already I have a leg up on figuring out what the bass line is by knowing what chords are in use and most likely what key the song is in.

Once you know major/minor key and the progressions in use, the bass will follow suit in some fashion. For instance, if I'm listening to a song and the chord progression is G C D - sure the bass line isn't most likely just going to hit the root notes, but if the key is G Major then I know (or can figure out) which notes make up the chord. Then I just have to listen for the details in the bass line. I already know pretty much where to start looking.

As always - you will improve with practice. You may have to put in a lot of time trying to figure out some lines when you're first getting started but it will become easier as you develop a technique.

G/L and keep at it!

[amosjones]

Playing by ear, comes with time, I guess. I thought I was tone deaf for a long time, but after about 18 months with a church band that plays every week, I am beginning to be able to pick out notes from songs.

[Minotauros]

Originally Posted by onlyclave

In order to be able to play by ear you need to hear the music. Not just listen to it and try to regurgitate, hear it. "So OnlyClave, what does that mean?" you ask.

You have to internalize the music you want to play. Listen to a short section, memorize it and sing it back. Play the recording again and sing along. Do they sound the same? Rinse, repeat.

If you can sing it back then you haven't heard it. If you haven't heard it you're just kind of stabbing at random notes in the dark. You can also rewind and loop your singing much faster and easier than a Youtube video.

Hmm... I think I understand about the internalizing. Knowing how to play a number of songs on guitar I can relate how they sound in my head to how you play them. I can hear songs I know how to play, and now I know what chords or notes those are. I guess I just have to learn to relate them to other songs.

Do you mean "If you can sing it back then you haven't heard it." or "If you can't sing it back then you haven't heard it." I just got a little confused here, since I can "doo doo doo doo doo doo doo..." the bass line without the video.

[Minotauros]

Originally Posted by JTE

Yep, it's HEARING the riff or melody, whatever. Can you "hear" "Happy Birthday" in your head? OK, then let's do this little exercise.

Sing "Happy Birthday" to yourself a few times. Now, start at a random note in the middle of the bass. For this example, let's use the D at the fifth fret of the third string. Now, play that note as your starting note.

That's what I was thinking, but wasn't sure.

Now if you practice scales and arpeggios CORRECTLY (that is, you have your brain and EAR actively engaged while playing them- none of this idly fingering scales while watching TV) then you'll be building your ear/hand coordination so that finding notes comes even more quickly.

John

Yeah scales... hearing them and knowing what they sound like. Something all three of my teachers over the past years blew off. Ninety percent of their students just wanted to learn to play songs and not what was behind playing. I said I wanted to learn music. So now I'm doing it myself.

Thanks.

[Minotauros]

Originally Posted by progrmr

Already I have a leg up on figuring out what the bass line is by knowing what chords are in use and most likely what key the song is in.

Once you know major/minor key and the progressions in use, the bass will follow suit in some fashion. For instance, if I'm listening to a song and the chord progression is G C D - sure the bass line isn't most likely just going to hit the root notes, but if the key is G Major then I know (or can figure out) which notes make up the chord. Then I just have to listen for the details in the bass line. I already know pretty much where to start looking.

Yes, I'm working on that and getting there. Not just staying 100% of the time with the root. Once or twice I found myself using the 3rd or 5th because... well, because it sounded good!

G/L and keep at it!

Thanks!

Originally Posted by amosjones

Playing by ear, comes with time, I guess. I thought I was tone deaf for a long time, but after about 18 months with a church band that plays every week, I am beginning to be able to pick out notes from songs.

Congratz! Encouraging.

Thanks guys.

[Stumbo]

~Ear training
Goodear.com
Test your ear
Free downloadable ear trainer (basic/advanced) Solfege. Xlnt program
Trainers/tutorials. Music theory, ear training, read music, chords, intervals, etc.
Online Visual Beginning Theory, ear trainer

Learning piano will help as well. Playing melody with the chords will train your ear and increase your musical memory.

+1 on learning to sing.

[Minotauros]

Thanks Stumbo... keepers!

[MalcolmAmos]

Back to Happy Birthday. Playing by ear -- next note is either up scale or down - douggah - really it's that simple, and they probably are not that far apart.

Another thing that helped. Each lyric word gets at least one melody note - some get two, i.e. Hap-py gets two, as do lit-tle, Ma-ry, etc. Which two, the two that sound good together. That douggah again.

Helps to write down what you've discovedrd. It takes a bunch of playing by ear to whip out a full tune by ear. But you gotta start somewhere. Unless you start it never will happen.

[kesslari]

Do I just start with any note and proceed from there? I can't follow the bass player's fingers since he's moving too fast and I can't slow the video.

Start with simple things, not fast complex things.
Some great initial ear training advice has already been given on this thread.
To apply it to basslines - pick a song with a simple bassline. Listen to it enough to be able to sing it. Then apply the techniques cited in the above posts.

[Minotauros]

Thanks guys. I'm glad the thread was resurrected because I didn't want to be a pita about it.

This is what happened. I was just one note off! The riff starts off (actually all it is, with a fun rhythm pattern, is)

G|-------------------|
D|---4-7-4-----------|
A|-5-----------------|
E|-------------------|

I initially had

G|-------------------|
D|---3-7-3-----------|
A|-5-----------------|
E|-------------------|

But I wondered why mine sounded flat. Heaven forbid I should have tried moving up one fret. Unfortunately, though I appreciate the good intentions, someone gave me the correct riff.

When I played it slow I was pretty sure I had it.

It's just the R 3 5 3 of Dmaj. Since the song is in A, this riff is pretty much played, far as I can tell, with almost no variation throughout the song. Dmaj has notes in common with Emaj, Amaj, F#m7. So at any point playing any of those chords you've got
A = R 3
D = R 3 5
E = R
F#m7 = R 3 7

That's not the usual rendition of Obladi Oblada, but of course this isn't Obladi Oblada. If I mucked anything up, I'll take my beatings.