Playing by ear: trying not to hunt 'n peck

[Jazzerbone]

What you are probably going to find with all of these suggestions is that they may be able to give you different approaches to playing by ear, but most likely nothing will suddenly cause you to "get it". It's an on going process that lasts your whole life. If something does cause you to make a huge breakthrough, then you probably already had the abilities and just hadn't found the right path of getting it through your head.

You seem smart enough to know this though. I guess this is for anyone reading hoping for a sure fire way to make it happen quickly.

The only way to learn this is by doing. The more you do, the more you learn. It mostly boils down to how much investment one is willing to put into working on the things they don't want to like ear training or scales.

There is more than one way to skin a cat though. Different people learn differently and it's good to find which way your mind functions in relation to music. Some guys are visual (like me) and see shapes and patterns easily. Some guys think better in terms of intervals and numbers. Could be a combination of things too.

2 am rantings aren't as much fun to read the next day.

[SmittyG]

Playing by ear, unless you are told a key up front, is ALWAYS a hunt and peck affair. Well, unless you are one of those lucky fools gifted with the ability to honestly recognize exact pitches. All that happens is that, over time, lots and lots and lots of time, the time it takes to hunt and peck gets less and less. I have helped host a lot of blues jams over the past four years and so have heard a LOT of songs in the keys of A and E and slow blues in G. So what is the key I can most often recognize after hearing just the first chord strummed? D. Makes no damn sense to me, hoss, but that is how it turned out.

If you get told the key and the starting chord (not always the I chord), then it pretty much comes down to two things: how well you hear intervals (I practice that every single day, regardless if I work on anything else) and how well you know standard song structures (most genres of music have "patterns" to them). Again, at first, it is fumbling around that gets you through. Over time, and with a lot of practice, you get better at your "guesses" and you hit more right notes than wrong.

In the end, there are no short cuts or quick fixes--playing by ear comes down to nothing more than practice and experience.

[dhemstra]

Really good thread! What really helped me to develop my ear is transcribing loads of songs, basslines, solos, melodies, the works. Interval training is really good as well, or chord progression training. The situation in which you learn the most are the ones where you feel the least comfortable being in.

Playing in jamsessions is a good example. Often I get asked by someone to do a show or a recording and I just have to figure out the songs they play on the spot while playing (usually during a rehearsal). That is something that can get me really nervous but already helped me loads in improving my ear.

Something else I've been doing lately is just turning on the radio and playing along to the songs that are broadcasted. Patterns get obvious after a while and it's a great way to get to know new music haha.

I'm nowhere near where I want to be yet, but I've seen drastic improvements just doing the things I've listed above. I hope they make sense and can be of help to you or anyone else who reads this.

Try not to let failure get you down for too long. It can be really harsh to just screw something up completely in front of other people or sometimes even just when you're by yourself, but be sure to remember you'll certainly do better next time.


~ Dennis

[bassbully]

I agree to the jammin with bandmates and playing to the radio approach. Both helped me early on learn to hear chord changes and feel for notes in my head and then translate it to my hands. Ya sometimes its a pure guess but it is right more time then not when you continue to do this and practice playing with diffrent music.
I find now i dont get lost much if i get off track since i feel changes better and like said on here there are only so many notes and most major music today repeats the patterns done over and over for years. Get these in your head in the grey matter and it will be recalled when you hear it...but it takes time and practice.

[Groovy Bastard]

Originally Posted by jazzmonk

This is all too true: the song trick is getting in the way now. How do you break free from it and be able to identify the intervals for what they are instead of being the first two notes of a melody? For example, is it better to sing up/down the scale (using solfege) to the target note in order to get a better sense of the distance and be able to say "ah, that's a maj 6"? Or is there a better way?

Thanks.

[Edited]
I guess DocBop addressed my questions above. Groovy, please feel free to share your own insights.

There are a few exercises I use that helped me a lot:

-Transcribing. Sometimes with, sometimes without an instrument. Also when listening to songs try to make a mental transcription, identify intervals and functions, and translate them to fretboard shapes.
Sometimes the whole song, sometimes just a part, sometimes the melody and sometimes the bassline, and sometimes just forget all that crap and enjoy the music

-Earmaster software. I love this program, I used it for intervals in the past but now mostly for chord types. To get rid of the "song trick" it might help to start with harmonic intervals, by wich I mean that the 2 notes are played at the same time. First you get better at estimating the 'gap' between them, later you can tell exactly how far they're apart = the interval. The rest of it is just a big load of trial and error (woodshedding!)

-Cubase has this midi-effect which changes a pitch to a random pitch. I just import a midi file which is 1000 times the note f. Then I apply the random-filter and press play. What you get is an almost endless stream of random quarter notes (I do set the range of possible notes to about 1,5 octave so I don't get ridiculous jumps). Put the tempo slow, and just try to hit each note on the bass right after it sounds. if you want to, name the interval also. Repeat for 100 years and check progress

Especially this last one is a really 'basic' exercise but is great to develop your sound-to-grip instinct. I noticed that some intervals were easy for me, but that I got lost with the big ones (major & minor 7th). So then I started listening extra carefully for those ones, and after a week of doing this 15 minutes a day it got a lot better. Still far from perfect though after 2 years.

You can also set it faster for more difficulty, or mimic bigger groups of notes (=actually 4 notes melodies for example).

For the mac there's a program called 'follow me' which does the same (easier to use actually).

-Last exercise: Sit down at the piano. Play a chord in the left hand. Close your eyes, and drop a finger from the other hand somewhere on the keyboard. Name the function as fast as possible (major 3rd for example). Pick another chord, best very unrelated (if the first chord was Fmaj7, go to Abm7b5 or something, or a different major 7 chord). I often stay on the same chord type for a while, esp halfdim chords an ambiguous chords like 7(b5) can be tricky.

[jazzmonk]

Originally Posted by Bassist4Life

These people have a lot of experience doing what they do. Bass lines tend to follow predictable patterns and progressions. After you've experience a ton of these, you'll be able to pick them up easier too.

Don't assume that other people have this hidden "talent". That may be true in some cases; but in most cases, I'm going to say that it comes from experience.

Keep pushing yourself, but please be patient.

Joe

When I read old threads where people mentioned how learning intervals or contextual ear training really helped, unfortunately since they didn't provide a whole lot of detail, I was mistaken to think it was the last major hurdle to overcome (or so it was my hope).

Now that it's drilled into me that there's much more time to be spent on practice and woodshedding beyond the ear training, I'm getting the bigger picture. I have the patience and the drive (I can play what I hear now after years of only sheet music and tab), but now I have the perspective too.

Thank you all for the tips and perspective.

[brianh]

Learning as many chord progressions and bass lines as you can will certianly help. When you lean a progression to a song, think about how it works (and for me it helps to think of it in terms of I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi....etc rather than C, d-, e-, etc....). Then maybe try it in various keys. So many pop/jazz tunes have similar chord progressions it really pays off to do this.

A great pianist also once told me "study how music moves," i.e. how to get from chord to chord. So, think about the common ways to get from I to vi, or I to IV, and so on....Then it's kind of about identifying what you know and connecting dots.

[jazzmonk]

Originally Posted by Groovy Bastard

There are a few exercises I use that helped me a lot:

-Transcribing. Sometimes with, sometimes without an instrument. Also when listening to songs try to make a mental transcription, identify intervals and functions, and translate them to fretboard shapes.
Sometimes the whole song, sometimes just a part, sometimes the melody and sometimes the bassline, and sometimes just forget all that crap and enjoy the music

-Earmaster software. I love this program, I used it for intervals in the past but now mostly for chord types. To get rid of the "song trick" it might help to start with harmonic intervals, by wich I mean that the 2 notes are played at the same time. First you get better at estimating the 'gap' between them, later you can tell exactly how far they're apart = the interval. The rest of it is just a big load of trial and error (woodshedding!)

-Cubase has this midi-effect which changes a pitch to a random pitch. I just import a midi file which is 1000 times the note f. Then I apply the random-filter and press play. What you get is an almost endless stream of random quarter notes (I do set the range of possible notes to about 1,5 octave so I don't get ridiculous jumps). Put the tempo slow, and just try to hit each note on the bass right after it sounds. if you want to, name the interval also. Repeat for 100 years and check progress

Especially this last one is a really 'basic' exercise but is great to develop your sound-to-grip instinct. I noticed that some intervals were easy for me, but that I got lost with the big ones (major & minor 7th). So then I started listening extra carefully for those ones, and after a week of doing this 15 minutes a day it got a lot better. Still far from perfect though after 2 years.

You can also set it faster for more difficulty, or mimic bigger groups of notes (=actually 4 notes melodies for example).

For the mac there's a program called 'follow me' which does the same (easier to use actually).

-Last exercise: Sit down at the piano. Play a chord in the left hand. Close your eyes, and drop a finger from the other hand somewhere on the keyboard. Name the function as fast as possible (major 3rd for example). Pick another chord, best very unrelated (if the first chord was Fmaj7, go to Abm7b5 or something, or a different major 7 chord). I often stay on the same chord type for a while, esp halfdim chords an ambiguous chords like 7(b5) can be tricky.

Coolness! This is the type of responses I had hope for when I started the thread.

I suspected that learning harmonic intervals would help and have practiced it off and on. Now I'll do it more often since I really, really need to lessen my reliance on the song trick.

Thanks for the detailed suggestions. They're all very creative ideas and on target with what I'm trying to accomplish.