I am not blessed with the "playing by ear" technique. Is there any tool/equipment, or skill that you may use that helps you figure out bass lines to a song? For sake of discussion, tabs and chord charts are not available.
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Figuring out basslines w/o an ear
- Thread starter MOEBASSPLAYER
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get a friend to show you.
I've you-tube'd several songs here as of lately that I needed to figure out in a pinch. Like for church service the next day, etc....
you'll wind up with at least one person that can show you the main licks of the song, the rest is cake...
I've also got the guitarist or keyboardist to play ambiguous chords for me so I could find the root note
I've you-tube'd several songs here as of lately that I needed to figure out in a pinch. Like for church service the next day, etc....
you'll wind up with at least one person that can show you the main licks of the song, the rest is cake...
I've also got the guitarist or keyboardist to play ambiguous chords for me so I could find the root note
Learn interval identification. You WILL then be able to identify bass lines (or any melody). Start by playing a note (any note) and then play a different note and listen to the difference between the two. Do this every day several times for a while (years) and you WILL see your ability to identify melodies improve. THIS WORKS but it does take some time. My college intro to music class did this for about 1/3 of the class time and in one semester I dramatically improved my ear, and ability to "hear" bass lines. Repetition at identifying intervals will drive this home for you so keep at it. As a younger player I struggled with the same thing and interval training was the thing that provided the tools to learn those parts, I can hear and play almost anything in 2 try's and ANYTHING if given a few minutes to think and hear it in my head. Today at 54 I can learn most any part in a few minutes without an instrument and you can too. Keep at it. Start with the major scale (do, re, me... ) and progress to the unusual intervals like flat 5th and other odd intervals.
I'm not blessed with a natural ear, but I have learned through the years to recognize a lot of the cliches and tropes for a lot of pop/rock/reggae/blues/country music. Really, even if you have to learn your scales and chord voicings by rote, you'll be able to start connecting them up with what you hear at some point.
In other words, what bassmeknick said.
In other words, what bassmeknick said.
You can check youTube. Sometimes a vid has both the player's hands in view and you can tell how it's played.
I've gotten lots of basslines that way.
Lots of basslines (of the type I play) are easy to figure out by ear. Just play along to the recording. If you are not playing the right note, you'll know. If you are playing (something like) the right note, you'll know too.
I've gotten lots of basslines that way.
Lots of basslines (of the type I play) are easy to figure out by ear. Just play along to the recording. If you are not playing the right note, you'll know. If you are playing (something like) the right note, you'll know too.
Ear training is not a simply or quick result that you can get but everybody can.
About the euipment now there are several choice, as hardware you can get the Tascam CDBT2 player, really good tool, as software you get the Amazing Slow Downer.
These are great tools but I can suggest you another two important things, first focus when you ear a song on the bass and than try to follow his sound after first time, second time, third time listening you will understand a good portion of the line, off course it's depend a lot from the mixing of the song too. The second thing try to study some ear training book, is a good combination. Ear Training from Michael Horvit is a good one.
Cheers. Enrico
YouTube
WebSite
About the euipment now there are several choice, as hardware you can get the Tascam CDBT2 player, really good tool, as software you get the Amazing Slow Downer.
These are great tools but I can suggest you another two important things, first focus when you ear a song on the bass and than try to follow his sound after first time, second time, third time listening you will understand a good portion of the line, off course it's depend a lot from the mixing of the song too. The second thing try to study some ear training book, is a good combination. Ear Training from Michael Horvit is a good one.
Cheers. Enrico
YouTube
WebSite
My simple method is to put the song on my headphones and mix the bass in. I just start trying to hit the right note. After having done this several times, most of the song falls in place. Then I record my playing and dub it over the original on the computer. I put Headphones on again and make notes of the flaws. After a while the bass line of the original is replaced by your own.
Start the song you're looking to learn and then hit every note on the G string one at a time and figure out which notes are in the key. From there, figure out what the major chord is. Once you have that figured out you can usually pick out songs pretty quickly because there really are only so many progressions that are played in modern pop music.
Without tabs or charts you're pretty much cooked. Check Youtube I guess or maybe buy the sheet music. But sitting down and just trying to play with the song will pay off pretty quickly.
First try finding the roots to all the chords then adding in the rest of line. I just recently started doing this ater getting tired of relying on crappy internet tabs. After about two month I can pretty readily pluck out the chords and some of the more common licks. Still have to hit youtube or look for tabs.... but I imagine my reliance on them will decrease as time progresses.
Also +1 to interval training.
First try finding the roots to all the chords then adding in the rest of line. I just recently started doing this ater getting tired of relying on crappy internet tabs. After about two month I can pretty readily pluck out the chords and some of the more common licks. Still have to hit youtube or look for tabs.... but I imagine my reliance on them will decrease as time progresses.
Also +1 to interval training.
+100 don't be lazy
You can start by learning to tune your bass.
From there, go with stuff that you are certain is in standard tunings... know what it's in before your approach it (A 440 vs A 442 makes a difference too). You'll get set back jamming Eb songs when your bass is in E.
If it's just a matter of experience, get a friend to help you. Have him/her play a random note and you try to find it. Do that a few hundred/thousand times and you should gain an affinity for it.
No one is "tone deaf" unless they have a serious physiological problem. It's psychological.
I don't think the OP is cooked if he/she can't find tabs or youtube vids. I agree with the technique of finding the notes of the scale in by playing each note on a string.
If I can't figure out which key a song is in, then I slide up the E string playing each note until I find the tonic or "root" note. Then I determine if it's major or minor. From that, I can usually hear the spacings of each consecutive notes (this is where good interval training comes in) and/or the chord progression and learn to play accordingly. I've only started playing bass less than a year ago, but I've been writing and playing music (mostly keyboard, drum machine and synth-based electronica) for 5-6 years now and I think I've had decent self-taught ear training by then. I agree that ear training is better, but a tab or video can help get you started.
If you are more technologically inclined, then there are various software solutions to finding the notes in a recording. One I used that I was impressed with was Transcribe.
I found this to be a great program that can pick out individual notes, chords, and polyphony all from just highlighting the section on the recording (like this) . It can also loop, change speed w/o changing pitch, program to midi controllers and even read video files!
It's free to try for 30 days, but I think it's $39 USD after that.
There are other software (and hardware) that can help, but I just liked this one.
Check it out and hope this helps,
Edward
If I can't figure out which key a song is in, then I slide up the E string playing each note until I find the tonic or "root" note. Then I determine if it's major or minor. From that, I can usually hear the spacings of each consecutive notes (this is where good interval training comes in) and/or the chord progression and learn to play accordingly. I've only started playing bass less than a year ago, but I've been writing and playing music (mostly keyboard, drum machine and synth-based electronica) for 5-6 years now and I think I've had decent self-taught ear training by then. I agree that ear training is better, but a tab or video can help get you started.
If you are more technologically inclined, then there are various software solutions to finding the notes in a recording. One I used that I was impressed with was Transcribe.
I found this to be a great program that can pick out individual notes, chords, and polyphony all from just highlighting the section on the recording (like this) . It can also loop, change speed w/o changing pitch, program to midi controllers and even read video files!
It's free to try for 30 days, but I think it's $39 USD after that.There are other software (and hardware) that can help, but I just liked this one.
Check it out and hope this helps,
Edward
In my experience people don't just "have an ear". People that can learn by ear started somewhere and kept at it until they got better and better. It's just like anything else, if you don't put the time in it ain't gonna happen.
I've spent the last twenty years or so learning music and for me a part of that whole thing is listening to stuff and trying to figure it out in your head.
If this is something you're really interested in, I hate to tell you but there is no quick and easy way. Find a way to get yourself some ear training, whether it's private lessons, books/cd's or just listening over and over to something and figuring it out, depending on how much time you're willing to put into it, you could make leaps and bounds or you could spend years and years trying to figure it out. Just get in there and do it.
I've spent the last twenty years or so learning music and for me a part of that whole thing is listening to stuff and trying to figure it out in your head.
If this is something you're really interested in, I hate to tell you but there is no quick and easy way. Find a way to get yourself some ear training, whether it's private lessons, books/cd's or just listening over and over to something and figuring it out, depending on how much time you're willing to put into it, you could make leaps and bounds or you could spend years and years trying to figure it out. Just get in there and do it.
Hi
What ever happened to lessons? My first year or so of playing consisted of constant practice and 2 to 3 lessons a month. I was 16 and paid for them myself. Do you really like the bass and want to learn or you just dabbling in it? I remember wanting nothing but to be the best I could and learn everything I could. Soak it up like a sponge. Get serious if you want to become a good player. Listen to all types of music. Pick out the bass on the recordings. Use your ear. Find the notes on your bass. Play along with the records. These players are pros. Get some local instruction. Dive in!!
Rob
What ever happened to lessons? My first year or so of playing consisted of constant practice and 2 to 3 lessons a month. I was 16 and paid for them myself. Do you really like the bass and want to learn or you just dabbling in it? I remember wanting nothing but to be the best I could and learn everything I could. Soak it up like a sponge. Get serious if you want to become a good player. Listen to all types of music. Pick out the bass on the recordings. Use your ear. Find the notes on your bass. Play along with the records. These players are pros. Get some local instruction. Dive in!!
Rob
Everyone can pick out bass lines from listening unless its something completely insane to play or the bass is badly mixed. When the songs are to hard, like many people have said on this thread is using youtube to find bass covers of the song.
Obviously everyone picks up things at a different pace. Some are natural some have to be patient with the tracks.
Obviously everyone picks up things at a different pace. Some are natural some have to be patient with the tracks.
I had a conversation with my mother a few weeks ago. Just to give you the context, I have played for over 25 years now. I can pretty generally sit down with any piece of music and get a sense of it almost immediately, and for most music I hear I can play the bass line usually by the end of the song I'm trying to learn. I'm working on learning jazz theory right now because I'm just getting this feeling that I've been limited for all these years (though I did play DB in college and some jazz). When I was younger I used to get the latest Rush album (back when Rush albums came out every 1-2 years instead of every 5) and sit down with it to learn all the songs -- in one sitting. I usually could nail half of them right out of the gate, with the other half requiring me to go back and do some rewinding and extended listening. The upshot of all this is, not to brag, but I am in the words of one of my friends a human bass machine. All you have to do is play the song at me and I've got the bass line for ya.
Anyway, my mom remarked that when I first started playing music, according to her I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. It takes some time to develop your sense for intervals, but trust me it can be done and it just takes patience. There is an application for Android phones called Interval Recognition and I'm sure it is not the only one. Get something like that and just spend time training your ear to recognize relative intervals.
The more you learn about music theory, the easier ear training and transcription becomes. You can access that information easily using Google. I had to get into a theory class in college and buy a textbook to learn what you can now search for in a few minutes. So there's no reason for you to suffer without that ability. I started with nothing, and now I've got a very confident grip on what is going on musically at any time. If I, who once could not carry a tune in a bucket can do it, so can you.
Anyway, my mom remarked that when I first started playing music, according to her I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. It takes some time to develop your sense for intervals, but trust me it can be done and it just takes patience. There is an application for Android phones called Interval Recognition and I'm sure it is not the only one. Get something like that and just spend time training your ear to recognize relative intervals.
The more you learn about music theory, the easier ear training and transcription becomes. You can access that information easily using Google. I had to get into a theory class in college and buy a textbook to learn what you can now search for in a few minutes. So there's no reason for you to suffer without that ability. I started with nothing, and now I've got a very confident grip on what is going on musically at any time. If I, who once could not carry a tune in a bucket can do it, so can you.
I think this is excellent advice.
I don't have a great ear either but I have put in some time and that's -CONSISTENT time. What I often do is keep a bass near a chair when I watch a movie, etc. I mimic a rif or something that I remember (often I don't even like it that much). I just did that last night with the "Simpsons" cartoon
My "self talk" will hum or "da-da" the song and by knowing the intervals on the fretboard I play it out. Then I listen closely over and over so I am fairly sure I'm in key. So (for me) the concept is in two parts. One is the simplistic interval element (imagine humming a familiar tune), the second is matching the note. When I tune I use a harmonic, then fret the note. I let it ring on so I hear what the difference is in a wide spacing. It would be very challenging to start with a half step - better to try a E and G. The issue (IMO) is doing it over and over.
This is where learning to read music has helped me more than most anything else because I can see the staff in my mind I can see the jump. Of course it wouldn't do a lot of good unless I know the fret-board. I think if you know the fret-board it becomes very fun. Even if you start out like that game "Wack-a-Mole" & run all over trying to find what fits, the learning of where that note is will become memorized IF you do it consistently. I do my best to make any sort of practice fun even if it's extremely repetitive.
That is an excellent idea. I might suggest using a program called Amazing Slow Downer. It has helped me out quite a bit when I am having trouble hearing a bassline. You can perform a bass boost and pitch shift the song where the bass is more pronounced. It also helps being able to take a section of the song and slow it down.
