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How did you learn songs before the internet?

#122
Like many of you, the turntable is what I used to figure out tunes. Also, think back at the dedication that was needed. The time involved in just making a mix tape. Playing each song, one after another, until the 90 minute tape was filled up. looking at each song for it's time and figuring out what was going to fit on each side. A lost art really. Too bad.
 
#124
Datsgor said:
Like many of you, the turntable is what I used to figure out tunes. Also, think back at the dedication that was needed. The time involved in just making a mix tape. Playing each song, one after another, until the 90 minute tape was filled up. looking at each song for it's time and figuring out what was going to fit on each side. A lost art really. Too bad.
Click to expand...

This brought back some memories. I remember spending hours figuring out how to make the best fit of songs to fill a cassette and recording them from the vinyl albums.

I DJ'ed my entire wedding reception this way back in the 80's. I spent days sorting though piles of vinyl albums putting together three 90 minute tapes. It was a major project to try to put a mix together for a crowd with very different musical tastes. I had everything from Rush to Willie Nelson in that mix. It was a lot of work but the end result was great. :D
 
#125
I was the stereo freak in high school, so had the nice cassette player at home and in the car, subwoofers so I could hear the bass in the car, headphones so I could hear the bass at home.

SO I'd be rewinding the cassette over and over for tough parts. Which at that time was the entire song. I had played trumpet from third grade through college, private lessons, so I could read music pretty fluently. Had to transpose bass clef to treble clef in my head though, that slowed me down a bit, but only had one band back then that worked off sheet music.

Turns out all that edjumacation was a hindrance, we never learned to use our ears. I was horrible at playing by ear.

Made it my mission to learn how, so I'd try to learn every song on the radio on the way to/from work. Stuff I'd have a recording of I'd play along with the bass when I got home.

Takes some work, but eventually you get good at it, and your ears are the most important instrument you've got, when they work. Gotten gigs because I can pick progressions up fast by listening once or twice, been able to succeed on fill in gigs where charts were wrong or people went to the wrong spot.

That makes a nice segue to the earplugs thing, blow your ears out by playing too loud. Never too early to start wearing earplugs, with today's gear people can really play way too loud.

Randy
 
#129
Before the 80s, we had radio, LPs and tapes and you did it by ear. Many people still do. Then MIDI was invented and before long thousands of hopelessly bad ham fisted versions of every song were available. Then somebody invented painting by numbers. You remember - pieces of card with pictures converted into little sections each with a number. You then painted on the correct oil paint into each section, and when you have finished you had a sort of version of Constable's Haywain. that with your eyes screwed up kind of looked a bit like it, and you could tell your friends you were an artist. Then an idiot had the idea of the musical equivalent, TAB. Putting your fingers on these frets as per the diagrams makes you sound like Knopfler, Santana or Satriani. Midi, painting by numbers and TAB all have the drawback that they enable idiots to think they are good - while really good people who already have the ears (or eyes) can use them to produce excellent work. I must admit that sometimes even an awful MIDI track can save me lots of time.
 
#130
Back in my day....

I learned to slap by going to the music shop to watch their Louis Johnson video and try to soak in as much info as humanly possible before catching a train home to play what I could remember. The sales guys must've thought "here comes that shabby lookin kid again."

 
#131
In the 80s, I'd learn songs two ways. Starting out, my ear wasn't that great so I'd have friends show me what to play or use tabs in guitar magazines. The more I played, the better my ear got and I could figure out some songs myself. Luckily, I had friends that were good guitar players, so I learned songs that I couldn't figure out myself by watching them.
 
#133
By ear using lp's which was pretty significant now that I think about it.
It taught me a lot about standard tuning, half step down, etc. A little later on it was the Ibanez rock n play. Those things were awesome! I still have it and it still works. One of the most useful tools I've ever had. I was using a tascam bass trainer until it fell apart. Now I run my phone thru my bnx3. How did we ever live without cell phones?
 
#134
me and my guita said:
Before the Internet, I used to record my favorite songs. I just put my recorder ready (on pause ) and when my favorite songs played on the radio, I just released the pause button and up... recorded! Then the fun part started by pressing play, back, play, back until I was able to play it! Long process, but I learned a LOT!
Click to expand...

This^
And LP's.
Got fed up with the things playing back out of tune, and little tuning differences between songs so I opened up the tape deck and took apart the motor. Added a remote potentiometer to the motor speed control trim pot and mounted it to the back of the machine. So a slight turn of the knob would speed up or slow down the playback and I wouldn't have to retune the bass. LOL
 
#136
Well by ear, before or after the internet. I've never relied on tabs. I bought a tab book once in the beginning and it only took me a few months of playing to realise that even when people are paid to tab things professionally for Hal Leonard, they are often very wrong (interestingly enough for that tab book the author didn't forget notes, he added a lot...i guess he found the parts too boring..i have a feeling there isn't much quality control even at Hal Leonard). Online, the handful of times all these years ago i went to look at tabs, i found them to be even more so ridiculously wrong, i don't know why but it seems that only people who can barely play are intent on writing down tabs to post on sites... I actually for fun used to check out tabs of song i'd learned that i knew were a 100% right just to see how wrong the authors were...sure enough...i don't think i ever saw one that transcribed any song i knew right.

As for youtube, i have yet to use it to learn songs on bass, but i used it once on guitar for The Smiths' This Charming man and when i started keyboard, i looked at videos to learn two or three songs and get me going ( i don't read music and so tabs aren't an option plus since i was starting out, i doubted my ability to pick a whole song on piano by ear). Though even then one of those had a part wrong...i'd been playing keyboard for just two months and already i was correcting people on youtube for their flawed instructional videos.. I mean..why teach it if you don't really know it...

Of course, while i used to pick songs up while listening to cd's, now its been mp3's for the last like 13 years.
 
#138
Well, I remember transcribing "Message in a bottle" by Police because the text was not printed in the CD booklet. It took me a few days until I finaly got it "right". Good practicing for learning english. Back then I even asked a native speaker, if I got it right. Well looking at it now, it was not so very accurate... :rolleyes:

Gruesse, Pablo
 

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