How To Learn Lots of Songs Quickly for a Gig

[Jarrett]

Originally Posted by Floyd Eye

Another fast way is to go to YT and type in the name of the song, followed by "Bass cover". You will no doubt have to wade through scores of Shiite, but there is usually at least one guy doing it right. I have done this when I HAD to.

The funny thing about this is most of the time when I go look for tabs or something on YouTube, I find I waste time I could have been using to just transcribe the song by ear. Every now and then I will find something on YouTube that just nails it and I use that, but most of the time I find I have to fall back and rely on my old ears.

[Floyd Eye]

Originally Posted by Jarrett

The funny thing about this is most of the time when I go look for tabs or something on YouTube, I find I waste time I could have been using to just transcribe the song by ear. Every now and then I will find something on YouTube that just nails it and I use that, but most of the time I find I have to fall back and rely on my old ears.

That's true. The few times I have done the YT thing though, it seems like it only takes a few bars before I know if I'm wasting my time or not. I agree with you though, if I had my druthers I just pick the song out myself.

[AfroCubanFunkMa]

Mods, I hereby nominate this thread for Sticky action.. Can I get a second?

Jong, you really covered it here.. I'm also a Nashville Numbers guy due to running into too many subs that like to change keys on the bandstand.. DOH.

One thing I'll add is that I just found the latest real book app, iRealB.. only for chord charts (no notation) but pretty functional for reference on the bandstand. Singers can modulate to their hearts content and I can hit a button to move the whole charts as needed or switch over to Nashville Numbers.. This and an iPad will have me in tip-top, play anything shape for next wedding season..

Not much else I can add except, don't trust the chord charts you get online.. It's good if you're under the gun to get a whole lot of songs down quickly but you'll still need to go through and fix all the 1st inversions and many, many mistakes out there so open your ears and spend at least 10-15 minutes on each song unless it's easy-pleasy pudding pie money chords as Jive would say... Even then, I recommend you create playlists for all the new material and listen to that list of songs constantly until the gig, especially if it's on short notice.. Internalizing the song is everything..

The last thing I would add is that if you have 50 songs to learn in a week.. break it up to manageable chunks.. say 5 every morning and 5 every night.. review the previous songs the next day and add 5 in the morning and 5 at night.. etc.. If you have to you can do the marathon all day/night learning session but I prefer breaking it up a bit..

[hrodbert696]

Originally Posted by Jarrett

The funny thing about this is most of the time when I go look for tabs or something on YouTube, I find I waste time I could have been using to just transcribe the song by ear. Every now and then I will find something on YouTube that just nails it and I use that, but most of the time I find I have to fall back and rely on my old ears.

+1. When I first started playing a couple years ago I relied on tabs a lot. Now it's just quicker to figure out the progression and do it by ear. I'll still check a tab if there's some tricky bit I can't quite sort out by ear, but most songs it's enough.

[lokerola]

Sticky!

[Jarrett]

Something I thought I should mention is revisiting songs. For example, I learned Brick House in 1993 for a band I was in. I played it with them for a few years. Everyone that heard it loved it, thought the bass part was dead on.

I just went back a couple of weeks ago and listened to again and I have been playing some of the more subtle parts wrong for a long time. No one caught it, even me until recently.

Obviously my ears have gotten better over the years. Back then I guess I could only hear the main parts, but now I can make the more subtle pieces in there that really give the line life. Could I have continued to play that line incorrectly without anyone ever knowing, yep. But it did me good to go back and relearn it. I learned something from music I thought I already knew. Cool how that works. I hope I get a chance to relearn it in another decade or so

[Sundogue]

Since I was a part of that other thread's derailment, I'll post up my thoughts on the matter.

We as musicians often find ourselves in situations where we need to get up to speed and learn songs rather quickly. So I'll pass on my "method" if you will.

This is for learning A LOT of songs FAST.

First two things are assumed...

1. Know your instrument backwards and forwards, inside and out. No point in jumping into learning songs if you don't know how what you hear relates to where it goes on the fingerboard.

2. Listen! Develop your ear. This ties directly in with No. 1 because if you know your instrument well, simply listening to the parts will allow you to envision how it is played even before you pick up your bass.

Now on to the fun stuff (and this is assuming you already know how to do 1 and 2)...

3. If you need to learn songs quickly, I highly suggested putting the songs you need to learn onto one CD or onto an MP3 player and have that MP3 or CD player available every moment you can. Spend every possible moment "listening" to these songs over and over again until they get ingrained into your consciousness, like you've heard them your whole life (assuming you haven't heard them your whole life).

4. First time sitting down with them and your bass. Get a notepad and your player out and write all the titles down leaving room for notes. Play the songs only long enough to identify the main structure of the songs. Break the songs into sections and only focus on the Key of the song and the basic chord progression for each section (Intro-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Lead). Write them down.

Leave it at that for starters. Seriously. DO NOT clutter your mind with details at this point. Keep your notes handy if necessary and just listen to them (no bass in hand) again over and over paying attention to what the bass part is doing through each section of every song.

5. Next time you sit down to practice. Start with your notes and work your way through each section of each song playing what you heard the bass parts doing. Don't fret over whether or not you have them down right at this point. Keep it general at this juncture so as not to bog yourself down in minutia.

If you have the verse part down, skip every other verse (unless it is significantly different). If you have the chorus down, skip every other chorus (again, unless it is significantly different). Do this with every section of every song. Then STOP. Just listen to the songs over and over again, taking what you already learned and pay attention to the parts you haven't gotten down yet.

6. At this point you should already have the songs down well enough to play along to them even though there may be subtle parts not learned yet. As you play along skip through what you know and stop at parts you are still stumped on. Dig a little deeper into that one part. Go over it until you find it.

Again, at this point you are refining. If there are parts that are a bit more complex or physically difficult, start playing them slowly until you gradually can play them faster without fail. Once you have them, MOVE ON.

7. Listen some more. Now that you've been playing along to the CD and you know them pretty well, pay closer attention to subtle parts you may missed along the way.

In no time at all you will have a ton of songs learned.

My point is to deconstruct the songs into basic sections first. At every point along the way, resist the urge to jam through complete songs because if you already know how to play various sections, going over them needlessly is only wasting your limited time.

To sum up.

1. Listen (only listen, no play along).
2. Find the Key and Chord progressions.
3. Listen (only listen, no play along).
4. Learn the basic parts to the bass line.
5. Listen (only listen, no play along).
6. Skip over parts you know and only work on the parts you don't. THIS POINT IS CRITICAL to learning songs FAST!
7. Listen (only listen, no play along).
8. Refine the last bits needed you might overlook.

Unless a song is physically challenging to play on the bass, learning new songs is more of a memory issue.

[hotrodjohn]

If you can "sing" it, you can play it...

+1 to getting the tunes on to your iPod and listening to them constantly while walking, driving, etc. With time you can hum or scat the bass line along with the song, tap the rhythm to the notes, and imagine the fingering, all before you actually pick up the bass. You will also pick up the vocal cues and other hints that will help guide you when you perform the song live. +1 to approaching a tune in sections.

I have been transcribing bass by ear now for almost 40 years. I would learn songs off of 45rpm records by bouncing the lid on my Close-and-Play; after that I would destroy albums and record players by bouncing needles up and down; after that it was destroying cassette tapes, etc. Nowadays, we have iPods, internet, YouTube, slow-downer software, pdf charts, tabs, etc. Much much easier to dissect a bass line out of a song today.

[AfroCubanFunkMa]

Just thought of this.. it's a step I go through when I outline the song.. on the side, write out the arrangement.. i.e. [Intro, V1 (2x), Chorus, V2, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus (2x), Outtro]

Arrangement notes are vital when you run into variations such as verse 2 is half the length of verse 1, etc.. Can I get a third for Stickness of this Thread..

[Jarrett]

Originally Posted by hotrodjohn

If you can "sing" it, you can play it...

I was thinking about mentioning this. Something I found that helps me was in musicianship class in college I had to learn to sing scales. One exercise that helped me and stuck with me was singing the major scale. Just singing it straight up and down helped a little, but the one that really helped me was singing in intervals.

Back then it was the Do Ra Mi deal, but for now I'll put it in note names. So the exercise was to go:

root, second, root, third, root, fourth, root fifth, etc. Up and then back like root, seventh, root, sixth, root, fifth, etc. That really taught my brain and ear what the sound of an interval was. Drove it home. I had to be able to know it, sing it, hear it, etc to do that.

So later transcribing songs, I could hear those intervals and it made it much easier to pick things up.

Originally Posted by hotrodjohn

tap the rhythm to the notes

This is another one. Sometimes if I get stuck, I count/tap the rhythm of the bass line. Like: ONE and two AND THREE AND four and ONE... etc. That helps solidify the rhythm of the line in my mind before I worry about notes.

Originally Posted by hotrodjohn

I have been transcribing bass by ear now for almost 40 years. I would learn songs off of 45rpm records

Hats off to you, seriously. Much harder back then. I remember my bass teacher telling me he learned Portraits of Tracey off the record. Can you imagine having never seen Jaco trying to figure out where those noises were coming from?

[Eight_Stringer]

Well done jive1, many useful tips and techniques to mix and match. Appreciate all the thought and effort in typing the information, well written by the way. Joined the dots on your Roman numeral style of fret board finger positions. Easy peasy to change key as required.

What with pitch changers abused by recording studios, just add "pulling" a note sharp ( or going tone/semitone lower and pulling sharp ) is also a useful live time playing technique. Had to learn that in the 70's with the guitarist instruments going out of tune, sweltering stage lights etc...

As to the usefulness or other wise of youtube et al. Even incorrect keys, wrong bass patterns, wrong song construct, just sharpens your skill, if you can hear a published tab is incorrect then your ear is working as it should, no problem in the long run, out of the incorrect comes the correct and learned in a fashion that sticks in the mind.

Never mind ear style learning, in the 70's. We used to purchase published sheet music for the song notes ets. Can you imagine Black Sabbath Paranoid in piano notation!! Left hand piano bass lines, think that set me back 6 months on learning the bass.

New players and older players may well find your efforts very helpful, know i do. Regards.

[jive1]

Originally Posted by walterw

now i'm curious as to what other way there is to learn a lot of pop songs besides understanding the more common changes.

Here's some more about learning songs that aren't one of the money chord progressions.

First, see if it's similar to one of the money progressions or a combination of them. Sometimes it's the same progression, but a relative minor is substituted for one of the major chords. For example, Redemption Song is basically a I - vi - IV - V with a ii substituted for the V, with the ii being the relative minor of the IV.

If it doesn't fit any of them, then you'll need to rely on your ear and some theory.

Listen for dissonance and harmony
Being able to hear harmony will let you pick out the major chord tones in a song. Being able to hear dissonance will let you pick out the minor and dominant 7th chords out, as well as minor intervals in a bass line. Try playing a root note and the major 3rd, and then the root along with a minor 3rd. Listen to the differences. Listen to a root with the 5th, and then listen to it with a flattened 7th. Then play the 5th with the flattened 7th. Listen to the differences - you should be able to hear harmony and dissonance as you move between major chord tones such as the 3rd and 5th and minor chord tones like a flattened 3rd or 7th.
It doesn't hurt to actually grab a guitar or keyboard and play various chords so that you can hear the various voicings and parts that are harmonic and dissonant. Play the individual notes of the chord to hear the intervals.
Some songs will have notes or chords that don't fall into the scale. Usually you will hear dissonance, and the best way to guess at those is to play the dissonant notes that are not in the minor chords of the scale you are playing in such as a flatted 5.

Listen for whether intervals climb or descend
Play one note, and then play one higher and another lower. You should be able to hear that one is higher or lower in pitch than the other pretty easily. Now play a root and then the 2nd, but an octave lower. For example if you hit the A on the 7th fret of the D string, play a B on the E string 7th fret. The pitch is lower, but you are also going up a chord tone. Do this with different notes and intervals so that you can not only hear a pitch going up and down, but the direction of chord movement as well.

Once you have these two skills down, the rest will come easier.

The key is to use what you know to figure out what you don't know

Here's an example to help you along.

Santeria by Sublime

OK, this one is not purely a money chord song, but simple non-the-less. The song is in E major. So we can make an educated guess that the chords likely to be used will be E, A, B, C#m, G#m, and F#m. What I'm listening to are the chords that the guitar is playing to hear harmony and dissonance. Where I hear dissonance, I will guess a minor or dominant 7th chord. Where I hear harmony, I will guess on a major chord. So, from listening to the song a couple times, and fiddling with my bass just to get the chords down, I come up with E, G#m, C#m, B for the verse and A, B, E , C#m for the bridge/chorus.

Now the song has a melodic bassline, so you can't just pound the roots in 4/4 and do the song justice. So, using the chords we have we can come up with a bassline that moves. The rule of thumb is that you can play the root or fifth on just about any chord (except for a diminished or augmented chord) and get harmony. On the verse, the first chord is a E major, so you can play the notes of an E major scale and it should fit. When you go to the G#m and C#m, you can play the chord tones that will fit in the E major scale but still give these chords that dissonant feel. Root, 5th, flat 3rd, and flat 7th of the chord are good intervals to use here. Since the C#m is a relative minor of E major, you can also use any note from the E major scale on it. The B will use the chord tones of a B major chord, since they fit in the E major scale. B is the V of the E major scale, D# is the VII, and F# is the II.
On the bridge, we hear the climb of the chord progression (A to B). There's a walkdown on this part from the E to C#m minor, and based on the major scale, we can walk down scalewise to the C# and add an embellishment if you want.

If you are not used to playing melodic bass or not comfortable playing lots of notes, try to create movement rhythically. If you must play root-fifth, try to at least vary the rhythmic values of the notes to keep the line interesting.

If you're not used to playing in this style, or any style for that matter, listen to the drummer's hi-hat to get the feel and tempo of the song. If you are locking into to the kick drum, you are coming in too late, even if it's nanoseconds. When I say "lock-in" I mean lock in mentally, not necessarily sonically. You still want to sonically lock with the kick drum. Lock in with the hi-hat so you can anticipate the kick and really lock in. For this song, listening to the hihat will help you get the syncopations and feel of the song, so your melodic lines will fall into time.

[Thor]

Originally Posted by AfroCubanFunkMa

Just thought of this.. it's a step I go through when I outline the song.. on the side, write out the arrangement.. i.e. [Intro, V1 (2x), Chorus, V2, Chorus, Bridge, Chorus (2x), Outtro]

Arrangement notes are vital when you run into variations such as verse 2 is half the length of verse 1, etc.. Can I get a third for Stickness of this Thread..

MOD insert:
I did do some work to clean up and consolidate the 'stickies the other day so individual stickies don't take up half the screen, especailly with more phone apps out there. This thread is now linked in the "FAQ's".

Other nominations and links are always welcome, PM them as you find them if they are not already linked.

/Mod hijack.

[Stumbo]

I did an emergency one-off sub gig for a good friend of mine. Rehearsed in the afternoon. Played a 2 hour gig in the evening.

The guitarist/singer called out key/chords/arrangement to me at rehearsal which I noted on a small wired bound pad. All the songs were popular rock songs; guitarist sang them all. I put the pad on top of my amp cab (Sunn 2000s) for easy reviewing. We did fine.

Only thing was the bass player sang lots of harmony which I didn't do at the time. Guitarist didn't care for that. Oh, well. Live and learn.

[fingerbun]

Originally Posted by Stumbo

I did an emergency one-off sub gig for a good friend of mine. Rehearsed in the afternoon. Played a 2 hour gig in the evening.

The guitarist/singer called out key/chords/arrangement to me at rehearsal which I noted on a small wired bound pad. All the songs were popular rock songs; guitarist sang them all. I put the pad on top of my amp cab (Sunn 2000s) for easy reviewing. We did fine.

Only thing was the bass player sang lots of harmony which I didn't do at the time. Guitarist didn't care for that. Oh, well. Live and learn.

Jeez...you had a whole rehearsal to learn 2 hours of material and you didn't nail the harmonies? Would NEVER have happened in MY day...the younger generation.....

[Jarrett]

You will never understand since you weren't there when vocal harmonies were born

[bassbully]

Great stuff Jive. Its only music and we all use the same chords and notes ..right?. The diff is what style of music are you playing? I found rock was not that much different than country except country didnt use much 1/8 notes and rode the root/fiths more with a walk here and there.
The oldies songs used allot of the same walks like "You gave me a Mountain etc...easy once you see there really isnt a huge diffrence just a change up of the chording and the way they are played.

[Toastfuzz]

Just a tip, as I do this when we add new songs....

Listen to them on repeat as ambient background noise in your day-to-day activities, and when you have a free moment actually LISTEN to them and concentrate on knowing whats coming next. Then ambiently let them play in the background for a few more hours and when you're mind is free again, concentrate. I'll do this with 10 songs for an 8-hour workday with my headphones in and can roll into practice that night, without ever actually playing the songs, and nail em in 1-2 tries. If I have 15 minutes before practice to figure out the notes and chords, even better, but thats all it really takes once you have a familiarity with both your instrument and the songs.

At that point, its more important to learn the song WITH YOUR BAND than by yourself, unless you're trying to mimic the studio recording as close as possible.

[soulman969]

Well said and very good advice. For those of us who've played for decades most of this stuff comes easy and we forget just how difficult it was to "lift the veil" on the how to's in the beginning.

To me learning to numbered chord progressions (I IV V, etc.) is the best thing a newer player can do for him or herself. That makes on the spot trascriptions simple. Second is to develop a mental picture of the bassline in at least two different spots on the fret board. Maybe one using open strings for more versatility and the other rooted on a different part of the neck using all fretted notes. This goes to the idea of having to simplify a line when singing or shifting a key to fit the vocalists range.

The last suggestions I would add are 1) to learn the melody and chord progression on guitar or keyboard depending on which is your secondary instrument. There are an awful lot of keys to varying your bass line interwined in the melody and 2) understand and be able to play in many different "grooves" as Jive suggests. There's nothing worse than knowing the notes but not the right "feel" for a song.

One of the worst examples I can think of this happened at a blues jam I played at one night. The singer/harp player called for a medium tempo shuffle in A and the drummer had no idea how to play a shuffle. Talk about a push you pull me effort, whoa. Needless to say he got his one tune and was immediately relieved. So it's not enough just to know the tune. Know the correct way to play it as well.

Great advice in this thread guys.

[Nick901]

I use a free website called Songsterr. I find it very helpful in getting the basics of the bass lines (it also has guitar tabs, drums, etc). Then I listen to the song and adjust the lines where necessary. I ended up subscribing to it (very cheap) because that gave me additional options.