How Do You Go About Figuring Songs Out???

mz91 · #1 04-20-2002, 07:25 AM

I am one of those people that relies solely on Tabs. And i have had enough of it! I try so hard to figure out songs but i cant. I really need some advice. How do you go about figuring out songs. I have heard people talk about the "key" a song is in? What exactly is that? An how does it help in figuring out a song. HELP!

Gunnar Þór · #2 04-20-2002, 07:56 AM

There has been extensive writing about this here. Try these links.

Jazzbo's tutorial on scales. (It'll be easier with this knowledge)
http://www.talkbass.com/articles/articleview.php?ID=19

Lump's excellent thread on figuring songs out by ear.
Learning songs by "ear"

And one on song structure and chord progressions.
http://talkbass.com/forum/showthread...song+structure

Have fun.

[EDIT]

In case you want to learn more about all sorts of theory, check this out:

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showth...threadid=43479

kirbywrx · #3 04-21-2002, 04:21 AM

Lumps is perfect. You cant get it any clearer or better. Most issues of topics like that have been asked about many times before. The old threads of TalkBass come in handy if you do a search. It does work!!

XavierG · #4 04-23-2002, 12:51 AM

Develop your 'ear'. Spend time listening to, and then playing basslines.

beermonkey · #5 04-23-2002, 07:07 PM

Hey XavierG, man I listened to your clip of Spain and you cut it off right before the part I was really looking forward to hearing...

A band I'm in is doing the Al Jarreau version of it, mostly because our singer is a bad mofo.

Get that bad boy finished and posted!

beermonkey · #6 04-23-2002, 07:10 PM

Oh yeah, and my $.02 that's actually on topic for this thread...

Whenever I arrange a tune and/or work out a bassline, the first thing I do is listen to the song a bunch of times. I get very hip to what the bassline is doing, where the little fills and variations on whatever the bassist is doing are, etc. After I've listened to it enough, generally the notes can come out fairly quickly (sometimes the first pass if the song is easy enough...). It all depends on how much you do it. Working on developing your ear is a huge part of being able to do this.