Shortening the Gap Between Mind and Fingers

[Beginner Bass]

I find that a lot of times, when just fiddling around with my bass, I can usually find something I like from my messing around. But when there's something in my head, I have trouble translating it to my bass. My friend reccomended this, but I wanted a second opinion before I went with it, as, despite the coupons in my BP magazines, it is rather expensive for me. So I really have 2 questions. They are:

1) Does anyone have any tips for this?

2) Has anyone tried the aforementioned course, and if so is it a good idea?

[mambo4]

looks like a waste of money to me...
Ear playing and playing whats in your head is more about relative pitch than perfect pitch. You don't need to hear if a note is C or C# ; but you do need to hear if an interval is a Major 3rd or a minor 3rd, for example.

The skill you seek can be acquired by investing lots of time figuring out parts of songs from recordings /the radio. Slowly at first but eventually you'll learn to recognize melodic phrases and riffs more quickly. Learning the sound of common chord progressions (I-IV-V, ii-V-I, I-vi-ii-V etc) can help you quickly figure things out.

[Gintaras]

subscribe...seen this being sold for a few decades. Always wondered if it had any value.

[Ed Fuqua]

My buddy Dan is Director of Academic Affairs for the jazz program at The New School, he and I talk a lot about the brain, improvisation, learning, concepts and approach (he's written two books and Chuck Sher has asked him to write a third, I've only written one) and (if I'm correctly remembering the numbers) one of the things he was saying was that the incidence of perfect pitch in the general population is about 1 out of every thousand, but the incidence within the population that are active musicians is more like 1 out of every hundred. And sure, having perfect pitch makes it easier to pursue becoming a musician because you have a HUGE amount of work (ear training and all that entails) that you don't really have to do.
But as the other 99 of us illustrate, working really hard at developing your relative pitch (ear training, recognizing function and quality of chords etc.) is entirely within your grasp.

The only person I know that did this program, who had a really great ear and relative pitch when he started the program, was guitarist Nick Russo. He said that after a few weeks he was starting to hear some pitches "distinctive vibrations", but I don't think he ever finished the program. He's got a website, you can e-mail him about it...

[Jazzdogg]

I agree that relative pitch - interval recognition - is the key ingredient.

I had an aunt who had perfect pitch. She would get terrible headaches listening to music that was slightly out of tune; not something I covet.

Almost everything in life that's worthwhile requires commitment and hard work. Be wary of snake oil salesmen pitching easy solutions to complex (or non-existent) problems.

[dtiii]

Sing along with what you play, especially scales and intervals. This helps a lot. It doesn't necessarily need to be full out 'frontman' singing. Just work to match the pitches and understand the contextual relationship of one to the next. With time and practice, you will be playing the melodies or lines that you are hearing within your ear.

best,
d

[Fergie Fulton]

Have to agree that its a waste of money. In the link the same sort of thing was discussed with some good ideas to follow especially from JTE.

Develop your hearing with intervals and relative pitch exercises. Use songs that you know have these intervals and learn to identify them in other songs, as in basic blues structure or rock 'n' roll. You can learn to follow songs from those genres in your head because you can internalise the intervals used quick fast. Then you can move to the variations that say rock, country, jazz, etc present.

This of course means listening to music and learn to pay attention to the detail in it, it is quite hard to start with but as usual it gets easier the more you understand what is required of you you develop it, and of course practice helps internalise it.

I see it as a two stage task,

1/Outline, note or sketch the format and and progression of a song by just the root note on paper. That means learn it as a basic simple song to familiarise yourself with how it flows and changes from verse to chorus to bridge to middle 8 etc if applicable.

2/ Now fill in the blanks and add the colour. Use passing notes and identify chord tones that may be being used.
If in your out line you played say A-C in a verse work out if that is a Am, AMaj, A7 etc.. has the chords used have extensions, are they notes your using harmonised or melodic etc?

As time goes on the more you learn to work out music through intervals the more natural it becomes to hear them, this is not a quick process to learn, as are any of the music process that require development..there is no short cut to doing the work.

Check out the link.

Taking out my frustrations - theory into practice.

[MalcolmAmos]

Perfect pitch is a gift, most of us well never have. The few I know that do find it's a curse. One friend can not stick with a band as he is always asking the other members to re-turn as he hears them as being flat. That gets old after awhile. He will re-tune in the middle of a song. Public address system dings - he announces Bb, now I really did not need to know that. In general just does not fit in with us mortals.

Relative pitch is attainable with a lot of work.