Training My Ear

[michaelkoss]

I have a terrible ear for music. If you played me a simple three note run, I wouldn't be able to play it back to you. This is easily my biggest weakness in music holding me back with my bass. What are some ways to train my ear? I would really like something I could play in the car during my commute (40 minutes a day). Should I record myself playing a bunch of scales then put it on random in the car? Should I record many variations of two notes and quiz myself on the interval?

[Ewo]

I'm impressed with Bruce Arnold's ear training method.

Pull up his web site and check it out.

[waveofthinking]

Originally Posted by michaelkoss

I have a terrible ear for music. If you played me a simple three note run, I wouldn't be able to play it back to you. This is easily my biggest weakness in music holding me back with my bass. What are some ways to train my ear? I would really like something I could play in the car during my commute (40 minutes a day). Should I record myself playing a bunch of scales then put it on random in the car? Should I record many variations of two notes and quiz myself on the interval?

I find transcribing songs and then applying what I've learned to be more effective.

[tonym]

I have the same problem as you and worked through an ear training book/CD by Gary Willis on relative pitch. Really helped! It's called "Ultimate Ear Training", was written by a bassist, is easily available and cheap! Great book.

[rainbownorth]

+1 to Gary Willis, that's a great book, very cheap and comes with a cd to boot. Very comprehensive, and if you get serious enough about it and put the work in you'll get plenty out of it.

[longfinger]

Real ear training is a full brain activity and cannot be done while driving or doing something else. For the 40 min commute, just listen to some favourite tunes. Do your ear training at home. There are many courses available out there that will guide you through it step by step.

[Randyt]

You need to try to start singing it or saying it...if you cant do that you cant play it!...very rough ideaology but it works...
Try starting with SoFash in a key and move forward...I have a piano app on my phone and try to sing on key all the time...it had helped me greatly with my playing.

[Peter Weil]

Originally Posted by Ewo

I'm impressed with Bruce Arnold's ear training method.

Pull up his web site and check it out.

I am in agreement here.

I did a few years of solfege at Players School of Music with Jeff Berlin and Bruce Arnold's stuff flows very logically onwards from this. I continue to improve using his materials and direct email contact with Bruce. I can also use Bruce's materials in my car.

A cheaper way of doing similar stuff to what Bruce asks is to use the Functional Ear Training software from miles.be. It's easy to take a wrong step though, I would recommend a teacher to guide you e.g Bruce Arnold.

However, if you are too skint to pay up, a good place to start with FET software downloaded from miles.be is detailed by Joe Hubbard on his blog posting about ear training. You'll have to do a google search to get to his website. The first exercise he gives might take you months or longer depending on how much you practice. It works.

I have done a lot of interval training after leaving PSOM, but I find that I am having to unlearn it to properly train my ear in 'functional ear training', which uses my solfege. I should have stuck to solfege after I left school.

I write this as if it was straightforward to find out. Took me a lot of scrabbling around to find it, so enjoy the fruits of my labours without the delays and misdirections I took.

Pete

[aidan784]

I agree with the Bruce Arnold stuff. I'm currently still working through his 'one note' intermediate CD it's pretty hard going and quite a commitment but I'm improving and enjoying it. I definitely feel like I'm on the right track with this stuff as opposed to random interval training.

I'll be getting the 'fanatic's guide' soon too which I'm looking forward to working through.

Also Pete, Bruce's stuff is based around his lessons from Charlie Banacos, Jeff's teacher. If you look on the miles.be site you'll find an article called 'the Charlie Banacos exercise' which is essentially the one note product.

[Joe Nerve]

Take some simple songs into your car and give a go at learning them just by listening. Which you most likely won't be able to do at first. If you keep doing it though you'll start to get used to the practice and I believe things will start to get at least a little more clear. Listen to stuff like Ramones and see if you could visualise the changes on the bass neck when you get a bass back in your hands. Also practice picking out the notes to melodic tunes on the fretboard. Xmas carols, nursery ryhmes, etc. The more time you put into it, the easier things will get. I'm sure everything else people recommended is worth a go also.

[Peter Weil]

Originally Posted by aidan784

I agree with the Bruce Arnold stuff. I'm currently still working through his 'one note' intermediate CD it's pretty hard going and quite a commitment but I'm improving and enjoying it. I definitely feel like I'm on the right track with this stuff as opposed to random interval training.

I'll be getting the 'fanatic's guide' soon too which I'm looking forward to working through.

Also Pete, Bruce's stuff is based around his lessons from Charlie Banacos, Jeff's teacher. If you look on the miles.be site you'll find an article called 'the Charlie Banacos exercise' which is essentially the one note product.

Yep, turns out most of the 'good stuff' can eventually be traced back to Charlie. 'One Note' is the same as the 'Charlie Banacos exercise' which can also be found at Frank Singer's website and the miles.be website; Functional Ear Trainer at miles.be also does the same thing.

[Peter Weil]

I also meant to say - transcribing helps a lot too. Also picking out and playing along with recordings. +1 to what Joe Nerve says.

[Stumbo]

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

[carlthegroover]

Originally Posted by waveofthinking

I find transcribing songs and then applying what I've learned to be more effective.

Same here. And like the OP, at the very beginning of me playing bass (I had a year playing guitar already) I still sucked at even finding the individual notes and root notes of chords, and such.

I thought I was destined to be enslaved to tabs forever, even when I learned they are largely inaccurate. Also, because of this apparent lack, I was truly scared of even attempting to transcribe any easy song. So I was playing off tabs for most of my first year.

The very first song I actually transcribed was "Fire" by Jimi Hendrix... and once I did, I checked the tabs, and we had the same notes (meaning, I could actually do it). Even with that, I still wasn't eager to just go for ear training full-blast. A few more months passed and I was still learning songs with tabs.

Then, all of the sudden, pam. I found myself wanting to just give it a shot. To learn the songs by ear. Now, even if I know I can't nail the song completely, and can miss a few things here and there, I'm realizing I'm not so bad at it, when it comes to hear the notes, and even the key, of a song. At the same time, I'm not paying attention to any tabs, and if I need a reference, I prefer to use chord charts instead.

And I can't say I'm a very experienced musician (2 years under my belt is definitely on the rookie side), but I am doing my transcriptions with easy songs. Whenever I feel ready, I will start with harder songs.

I say, just give this a shot, and if you make mistakes, it will only help you to start recognizing common chord progressions, intervals, and such. Heck, even some fills aren't that hard to figure out once you have the backbone of the song nailed. If you think you still can't do it, give yourself time, and try again when you feel the urge.

[Rockin Mike]

Make mnemonics. Take all of the basic intervals and think of a tune that reminds you of them. For example,
Major third = doorbell, Avon calling
Perfect fifth = The two opening notes from Star Wars
Major seventh = The 1st and 3rd notes from the Chorus of "Bali Hai" from the musical "South Pacific" where she sings the words "Bali Hai"
and so on.

Then when you're listening to a tune, grab an interval in your mind and compare it to your mnemonics until you can recognize them at will.

Intervals are the alphabet of the ears. Start there.

When you have intervals down, do the same thing with chord progressions. Think of each chord in a key as having a number, for instance a standard blues in C using the chords C, F and G would be called a I-IV-V (1-4-5 in Roman numerals) progression. This thing: [Lyrics+Color Coded] Grease - Summer Nights - YouTube starts with a very easy-to-hear I-IV-V progression. Learn to recognize I-IV-V progressions, then learn to recognize songs that are I-vi-IV-V (the 6 is not capitalized because in a major key the 6 is a minor chord).
Learn to recognize common progressions that lead to the end of a section (called "cadences"). IV-I is common, V-I is common, ii-V-I is common, and so on. But don't spend time on chord progressions until you are starting to get good at recognizing intervals.

Oh yeah, and learn what intervals go with various finger positions on your bass. Getting it from ears to brain is only half the battle, it has to then go from brain to fingers.

P.S. it's also good to do what jazz players call "scat", where you hum a tune and immediately play the same thing on your bass. That is very good for training your ear/brain/finger instinctive connection. I believe it's just as important to train the musical instincts as it is to train musical knowledge.

[bassist4dalord]

Sit down with your bass, your iTunes/music library, and push play. Listen first with speakers that you can hear the bass on. Play along until you can play a song on the fly without playing it before. Then, do this with speakers in which you can't hear the bass.

Also, sit down with a friend and have them play notes. You guess what note is being played. Receive an electrical shock every time you're wrong. You'll learn REALLY quickly

[IncX]

i bought this Ear Training Book that has a CD, i studied and took the quizzes all the time that i ended up memorizing the answers, and i still could not tell a minor 7th from a 5th.

[Stumbo]

Originally Posted by michaelkoss

Should I record many variations of two notes and quiz myself on the interval?

If you get an inexpensive keyboard, that would help you create any type of audio learning file you need.

[anonymous122511]

One of the classic Talkbass posts on ear training.

[Ed Fuqua]

Certainly you're free to do whatever the hell you want to. As Robert Heinlein said, if you feel like you win at cards because you wear your lucky hat, then wear your lucky hat.
But, to me, the problem with working on ear training by just transcribing (which is what you're doing when you "play along" with recordings trying to get the exact line being played) is the saem one as trying to develop a high level of skill playing basketball (if you've never played before) by just jumping on the court and playing the game. Pro players don't do that, they spend a lot of time drilling plays, working on specific shots, exercise, etc etc.
The thing that working with a keyboard and internalizing the sounds you are hearing by singing them with accuracy does is build a firm foundation, so that when you transcribe it's not stabbing around in the dark.