Dave Douglas on EAR TRAINING - a must read for any musician

[Bass Catcher]

This post made me think of a question I've been pondering:

I've been working on ear-training pretty heavily lately. I realized I was too often playing what lay well under my fingers, rather than playing what I actually "heard." I'm doing these things:

1) Singing melodies, bass lines, solos
2) Singing short phrases - then playing them back

I've noticed a difference in my "hearing" and am starting to play what I hear with more regularity. However, it seems to me that the majority of what I sing and hear is relatively simple. Nothing wrong with that, but I want to up the ante a little bit.

The problem that I'm beginning to run into is my actual voice. I feel like I can sing relatively well but I am not a trained singer. My technical facility on bass far out weighs my technical facility as a singer. Because of this, it seems that it may be difficult to sing more complex lines. Now with that being said - do I want to eventually be able to sing everything I want to play on the bass - no matter how complex the melody? Or is there a point where you "hear it" but can't necessarily sing it exactly verbatim?

Matt

[damonsmith]

Originally Posted by Bass Catcher

This post made me think of a question I've been pondering:

I've been working on ear-training pretty heavily lately. I realized I was too often playing what lay well under my fingers, rather than playing what I actually "heard." I'm doing these things:

1) Singing melodies, bass lines, solos
2) Singing short phrases - then playing them back

I've noticed a difference in my "hearing" and am starting to play what I hear with more regularity. However, it seems to me that the majority of what I sing and hear is relatively simple. Nothing wrong with that, but I want to up the ante a little bit.

The problem that I'm beginning to run into is my actual voice. I feel like I can sing relatively well but I am not a trained singer. My technical facility on bass far out weighs my technical facility as a singer. Because of this, it seems that it may be difficult to sing more complex lines. Now with that being said - do I want to eventually be able to sing everything I want to play on the bass - no matter how complex the melody? Or is there a point where you "hear it" but can't necessarily sing it exactly verbatim?

Matt

There is also a kind of hearing/singing in your head. Everything I play whether clear pitch or pure texture I am "singing" Internally. Ed and others have said something similar.
As I like to say if I could sing everything I play (verbatim) I wouldn't carry the bass around

[Ed Fuqua]

And then there's the whole "singing what you play", that is, you're not really singing anything that's outside the vocabulary you use without really hearing anything with clarity. What are you doing in terms of formal ear training? I've run through my routine before, do a SEARCH of my posts if you don't recall seeing it before, but the place that you end up is singing four part chords with two tensions in all inversions and in open and closed positions. THAT gets you squarely into polytonal territory (stacked triads etc.) and hearing a multiplicity of harmonic function clearly AND hearing intervallic possibilities clearly gives you a lot of material to pull out of your mind's ear during a conversational interchange with your fellow musicians.

Sure, it ain't pretty. If it was, I'd be a singer. But if you hear it clearly enough you can hit the pitch accurately. It may be in your squeakiest falsetto, but you hit it.

[Treyzer]

I was rereading this article again because of the wealth of information and it occurred to me that I'm almost always singing a tune inside my head. Not just when it's time to practice. It may be a new tune or one that I haven't played in years or months. Nardis and Blue & Green come to mind. (OK I'm a big Bill Evans/Scott La Faro fan). There are obviously many options and ways to play through almost any set of changes. This internal singing may not be formal practice, but it sure is helpful to me. I'm sure many other players employ some similar approach. Anyone care to comment?

[damonsmith]

Originally Posted by Treyzer

I was rereading this article again because of the wealth of information and it occurred to me that I'm almost always singing a tune inside my head. Not just when it's time to practice. It may be a new tune or one that I haven't played in years or months. Nardis and Blue & Green come to mind. (OK I'm a big Bill Evans/Scott La Faro fan). There are obviously many options and ways to play through almost any set of changes. This internal singing may not be formal practice, but it sure is helpful to me. I'm sure many other players employ some similar approach. Anyone care to comment?

I can't even remember the song, but last year a crappy pop song was stuck in my head, and I worked out what was going on the the whole tune all in my head.
I may have even been wrong, but it was great exercise.

[hdiddy]

About the original article... Wayne Wallace offers a course over at the Jazzschool in Berkeley, CA for all instruments that covers pretty much the entirety in that article over 10 weeks. Highly recommended. It rocked my world and I have never practiced the same again.

The way I distill it is that as improvisers we have to be ready to move musical in any random direction. The more we practice to be able to play in X note patterns with whatever articulation, the better. That way we don't feel so uncomfortable as we would have been already introduced to playing various numbered note patterns in various rhythmic figures. So when it comes to solo time, we just reach for the notes as we already hear them in our head and have a feeling for where to move physically to get that series of notes we hear in our heads. Yes, it was earth shattering.

I veritably see the expanding musical universe before me. It's only been about 2 months since I finished that class and it feels like I'm making improvements in leaps and bounds. I'm still waiting for Wayne to finish his book on the subject. I'm sure I will post about it here when he gets it done and on the shelves.

[tacarson]

Can anyone try to explain better the parts about the metronome? What exactly does he mean by feel the metronome as dotted quarter note. How can you trick your mind to do this? By that i mean, you feel the 2 and for by switching the 1 and 3 around and counting 2 3 4 1, instead of 1 2 3 4. Are there any tricks like this for the dotted quarter note. And then the same for the dotted half note? some sort of illustration would help.

[Zachmozach]

The way I got into practicing playing dotted quarter rhythms was to play a 12 bar blues in in four but in 3. So basically it becomes a 16 bar blues in three but the changes line up as close as possible to a twelve bar blues in 4. So basically I'm thinking in three (even though the form is going by in 4) and playing the one and the and of two which makes for three bar phrases or that it lines up with one in the 4th 7th 10th measures and of course the top. Then practice it with standards.

So far it's been really hard for me to do it with a metronome like Dave Douglas suggests unless it's on really slow. I have to do it slowly and think in three till I get the pulse locked in right now and even then it's hard. I might try writing it out and just tapping the rhythm to get the feel with quarter notes (thinking in four) in one hand and dotted quarters in the other. It makes you really keep track of the quarter notes though.

[Tslicebass]

Thanks for posting this... good read and some good ideas for practicing

[Treyzer]

Originally Posted by damonsmith

I can't even remember the song, but last year a crappy pop song was stuck in my head, and I worked out what was going on the the whole tune all in my head.
I may have even been wrong, but it was great exercise.

There are no wrong notes, only wrong resolutions! (did Ornette Coleman come up with this? I can't remember!)

[edlaksmi]

great thread! this is my first post

[emilio g]

This is another gem! I'm all about working hard to push my technique, but if you don't know what to do with it...whats the point?

Also, I took a theory class with Ralph Bowen and he gave us some great rhythm exercises that I still work on.

He had us tap half notes in one foot, quarter notes in the other foot, sing the root notes of a basic 12 bar blues, then tap various rhythms over that. Some of the rhythms are 8th notes with accents every 3 notes, 5 notes, or 7 notes. Then you can do it again with triplets.

I used to have take a train to NYC for a job, and I could practice this stuff quietly enough not to disturb anyone. Easy way to slip in an extra 45 minutes of practice.