Any other suggestions by anybody; as far as ear training books/vids? I need to dive into this now and get going on it and Id like to approach this by formal training be it a book or dvd or anything of that nature. please dont suggest a teacher, as I dont have any money for one.
Learn your solfege syllables (Do, a deer, a female deer, re, a shining drop of sun . . .). Get someone you know to play intervals for you until you can identify any interval by ear. Seconds, half-steps, thirds, minor and major, fifths, tritones, sixths, sevenths (major and minor), and octaves.
When you hear a part that you're trying to pick out, get a player that is EASY to work with. You need one that you can quickly stop, easily rewind, and easily start up again. This sounds like good design principle for any music player but in the digital era a lot of software engineers have no freaking clue how to make it work just like a tape recorder. if your recorder drops you back to the start of a song when you hit stop, or doesn't give you a pause button, or takes a ridiculously long time to rewind, or is really difficult to jog and shuttle around the recording in, invest the time to find one that is.
The reason I say this is, you have to be able to quickly stop the song when you think you've figured something out so you can try it for yourself. Once you've done so, in order to reinforce what you've learned you have to be able to QUICKLY go back to the beginning of the phrase you've chosen and HEAR the part again, as well as play along with it.
So, get a player with controls that are simple. Of course, a regular cassette deck is ideal but none of your music likely comes like that. I don't own an mp3 player myself so I usually use winamp.
Finally, practice singing in tune. You do not need to have golden pipes. You just have to be able to sing accurately what you hear. Sing phrases you already know how to play. Get used to what those notes feel like in your mouth AND hands. This is crucial because I will next describe to you how I do it.
I start with my instrument in my hands. It MUST be amplified. Especially with bass, where it is so hard to hear the fundamental unamplified. If you can mix your desired song into headphones with your favorite no-amp amplifier, by all means do so. But you must be able to hear both. Believe it or not, I teach people all the time who have to be dragged to this conclusion: MUST. BE. AMPLIFIED.
Cue up your song, and try to figure out generally what key it is in. Generally it is the last chord of the song (chorus or verse or whatever structure comes last) but not always. Pick a song that is fairly simple to start with. See if you can get the main phrase of the song down. Since we're bass players, we like to play the same thing over and over again, so you will hear the phrase you want a LOT as you try to suss it out. Sing what you think you hear. Stop the tape, and try to play on your instrument what you just sang.
If you don't get it right, here is the important part: DO NOT JUST STOP. You keep sloughing through the song, trying and trying and trying. If you hate the song, pick one that you really like. Do not fatigue yourself with something that seems pointless.
Another hint: try recording yourself along with the song. Nothing complicated. Just get a mic of some kind where it is picking up you with the song kind of in the background. Listen to how your part sounds against the song. Then listen to just the song.
After you've done this rigmarole (I am merely describing to you what I remember from my quarter-century-past experience of learning how to do it) for some time you will eventually be able to speed up the process. But as another poster already stated, this is not a skill that most people just pick up. It takes several long months of dedicated effort to train your hands, ears, and mind to learn stuff as you hear it.
When I started, I essentially felt like I was tone deaf. I know that's not true, but I had no picture of what was going on in music. It looked like one of those pointillist paintings to me -- all complicated detail that resolved itself to a nice song if I backed away, but too difficult to suss out close up.
Some years ago my acid test in ear training came when I was tapped by a student of mine for a show. He calle me at 1:00 in the afternoon the day of the show. I called him back and said I'd do it at 3:00 in the afternoon. At 6:00 the guitar player came over and spent an hour or so going over the material with me. At 9:00 I went on stage with 40 songs that I had mostly never played before, and at the end of the night they asked if I wanted to replace my student as their bass player.
I declined.
, but i really wouldn't want to give up
