Improving my Ear, Timing, and Theory

[Mr. Lovejoy]

You can never be too good at these things apparently.

I recently half-assed this ear test
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3...lineScreen.swf
and got an 81.6% or 86.1% (I get dyslexic when I am tired) on it. Which reminded me that I was meaning to improve my ear, timing, and theory a few months ago (but forgot).


So I found the books I was meaning to study up on (Amazon each if you don't know of them):
Bass Fitness
Bass Bible
Berklee Music Theory Books 1 & 2
Mel Bay Fingerboard Theory for Guitar
and
Hal Leonard Music Theory: Everything You Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask

I bought each of which during that period I mentioned before.



Basically I am wondering if there is any other instruction or methods (practice tips, old family secrets, whatever) to help streamline my process in improving my ear, timing, and theory. Any help would be appreciated.


Cheers.


P.S. I have the entire Beatles discography, so simple tunes to play along with are covered.

[Ed Fuqua]

The best "...method to help streamline my process in improving my ear, timing, and theory." is to get a good teacher.

Read this and see if anything resonates, it did for me about 11 years ago. I had been to music school , had been playing professionally for about 20 years already but hit a brick wall. Somebody handed me this and I started studying with Joe.

[Billnc]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

The best "...method to help streamline my process in improving my ear, timing, and theory." is to get a good teacher.

Read this and see if anything resonates, it did for me about 11 years ago. I had been to music school , had been playing professionally for about 20 years already but hit a brick wall. Somebody handed me this and I started studying with Joe.

Thanks for that! Good read. I wish the Guitar Hero crowd would read that. When I took a couple lessons last year, my girlfriend and others asked why since I already have been teaching 23 years. My reply was even the best athletes have coaches.

So many on TB ask about learning without lessons, yet even the teachers take lessons!

[Fergie Fulton]

Originally Posted by Billnc

So many on TB ask about learning without lessons, yet even the teachers take lessons!

+1, i believe it to be they believe there is a magic routine or lesson that explains it all, to makes improvement in days. We all know that is not the case, and Joe is an example of slow(ish) practical application, with space for you to explore and discover, of what you can learn, in order to be a good player, knowledge without application is useless.

My grandfather told me "what you need to learn cannot always be taught". I always took from that... that my experiences will teach me better because they are mine, rather than someone telling me about it. But its always nice to have someone ( good teacher) to point you in the right direction.

[Rockman]

I don't really see how books can help you improve your ear training skills, unless the book is just the answers to a bunch of melodic dictations that come on a paired CD, in which case i understand. I found out the best way to improve your ear is do critical listening and transcribe everything.

[Mr. Lovejoy]

Originally Posted by Ed Fuqua

The best "...method to help streamline my process in improving my ear, timing, and theory." is to get a good teacher.

Just to bring back the 90's here for a second here...

Well duh!

Originally Posted by Rockman

I don't really see how books can help you improve your ear training skills, unless the book is just the answers to a bunch of melodic dictations that come on a paired CD, in which case i understand. I found out the best way to improve your ear is do critical listening and transcribe everything.

The Berklee books have ear training portions. It is apparently the text book everyone uses for their introductory course.

Thankfully I have had teachers who went to Berklee, so they can help me with it.

[fivestringgecko]

On improving timing...

Every musician should have at least one metronome ("Well, duh!" ), but one thing that has HUGELY improved my sense of time is a phrase sampler. I started out with a Boomerang+ (currently have a Boss RC-2... WAAAAY more pedalboard friendly) and would just sit in my basement and loop and loop and loop and loop and loop and loop and loop and loop and loop and loop and loop and loop and loop... sorry. lol

Seriously, your timing improves just by trying to create seamless loops in the first place, then you can play over a "backing track" that has a rock solid tempo. It's never going to miss a beat or change tempo or get tired.

I'm SO thankful that I decided I needed a Boomerang on a whim... I didn't think about the implications at the time, but looking back, it's the first thing that comes to mind as the best purchase I've ever made that has helped me improve skills. Groups/people I jam with look to me for tempo... the drummer at church tested me on a tempo for a piece we did almost a year previous and I was only 3BPM off!

5sg.

[Mr. Lovejoy]

I have just come up with an exercise to help my ear in a big way.

I want to transcribe the following song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSdOk5VUtfE (Mourning this Morning by Dredg)


Any tips? I also think learning that song will seriously improve my groove as well.

[jpfbass]

My double teacher sent me a link a few months ago to a site that's great for ear training: http://www.good-ear.com/servlet/EarTrainer?chap=1
It's definitely helped me more then any book I've gotten.

[Zombbg4]

EarMaster and Auralia are great software for ear training. I try to get in 20 minutes every day. I also find singing while playing helps a lot. While warming up I'll sing in harmony to scales/chords in 3ds, 5ths, 6ths ect. Transcribing is good too, just make sure to start with something your comfortable with.