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Learning a song by ear??

K

Karmine

Oct 13, 2012
3
0
#1
I don't have perfect pitch or anything...so learning songs by ear is pretty hard for me. (infact I have a near impossible time with)
But there are many songs I do love that don't have sheet music or tab to go with them.

Is there anyway to learn how to figure songs out by ear?...that does not involve sitting figuring it all out note by note and beat for beat.

If there really isn't a way other than just being gifted or spending weeks on it, than I guess I am s**t out of luck sadly?
 
#2
Many people in the Rock idiom will only figure out the Key and the chords and do whatever bass line as long as it fits their taste.

The other way ... with a slowing down program or machine you can slow down a song and try to deceifer it ... at first it may take a long time ( trial and error ) but as your ear will developpe you will be faster at it.

But I can relate to your problem. Even after a degree on the DB I find that very hard and I lack the patience to do it properly. I've done it a couple of time but I'm the kind of person that if I don't have 100% right note I don't have it, just figuring out the chords isn't enough for me.
 
#4
Depends on the style of music. Been a struggle fir me too. But let's say that if you know your major scale...and you can count to 5 you are in a good place.

Generally(not always) if you figure out the first note of the song you will have the key the song is in.

Many songs are based on 1-4-5 progressions. You could almost bet that a song is going to the fourth note of the major scale next. So if you are in the key of g...you are going to c next. Then back to the 1st note and from there... You guessed it, on to the 5th note in gmajor that is d...

Okay so after that... Which is half of modern music. Some times they do 1-5-4. Or 1-5.

Or there is jazz where it could 2-5-1 or lord only knows.

Some times it's based on a minor scale and you will see 1-3-5....



Hooe that is useful, and makes sense. I am sure the more experienced will have more to add on the subject.

I feel your frustration, I used to think Ii was tone deaf.
 
#7
Karmine said:
Is there anyway to learn how to figure songs out by ear?...that does not involve sitting figuring it all out note by note and beat for beat.

If there really isn't a way other than just being gifted or spending weeks on it, than I guess I am s**t out of luck sadly?
Click to expand...

Weeks? Is that all you're willing to give it? I don't mean to be rude, but you need to get a grip on what it means to be a musician.

You should sit there and painstakingly learn it note for note, IF (and only if) that's a skill you value. It takes a long time, especially if you're new to the game. Once you get there its a great gift.

Good luck!
 
#9
Lotta good info so far. 'Figuring it out' is the only way your mind will start connecting sounds to brain to instrument. After a while the common progressions that permeate many styles of music will become clear, and ear playing will become second nature.
 
#10
Chord charts will help you, and they're way easier to find than tabs (which are usually wrong).

Like everyone else has said, just keep doing it over and over. Using MP3s makes it way easier than it used to be with records and tapes.
 
#11
I don't have "perfect pitch" either, but I've learned dozens of rock tunes by ear over the years (I play mostly originals these days). One thing that really helps is having started on guitar. Standard open/closed-string guitar chord voicings (in contrast to barre chords which tend to sound all alike) have a very distinctive sound, so if there's an acoustic guitar on a track or the rhythm guitarist is using non-barre chords, I can learn a fair percentage of tunes just by listening to them.

If you don't have that experience, what duckwater said is true - a large number of tunes are quite simple and typically employ similar chord movement. So, spending a bit of time just playing along with the radio and experimenting should eventually pay dividends.
 
#12
I have the same problem. It improved when I stopped trying so hard to just listen to music where you don't know the intervals. Instead it is important that you play intervals you know and listen to yourself. That improves the ability to then recognize what others are playing.

Also, I use an EQ to heavily boost 20-220 Hz on the music.
 
#13
I learned how to do it so long ago that I really can't remember much about the particulars, except that I know I did it a lot. Back then, we had records and you'd slow down the record by putting a finger on it, just to get an idea of what was going on if the passage was going too fast. Of course, doing that pitch shifts everything too, so it wasn't enormously useful. Now there are programs like the one mentioned above. It has to be at least a little easier now.

For encouragement, consider that I was pretty lazy but I was able to pick out songs like Roundabout, Starship Trooper, Freewill, Red Barchetta -- so it can't have been too hard or I wouldn't have done it.

Let me reassure you that it gets easier as you do it. I don't think it's the hardest part of learning the bass guitar. It just seems hard right now.
 
#14
Although I'd probably be lumped into the "gifted" side of this situation, I wasn't born knowing what <insert note> sounds like...it took years of repetition and various other things, most of which I didn't do intentionally. Here's my suggestions:

1) Record yourself singing and playing something simple. Seriously...If you hate singing, get over yourself and do it anyways, it's the only way to truly develop your pitch recognition and possibly get to the root of the problem.

Try playing a simple major scale SLOWLY (or anything you know pretty well) and sing the notes you play and record this. Listen back to it. Do you seem out-of-tune? Not trying to be mean, but there are tons of ppl out there that believe they are singing in key when they are far from it (I encounter it in students all the time).

If you are in tune, good! Move to step 2. If not, see if your notes sound higher or lower than where the bass is playing and try matching it on the next try. This is something that takes awhile if you're not used to it. You may need the help of someone whose ears you trust if you're uncertain about how "in tune" you are.

2) Sing the open strings of the bass while you play them (after tuning, of course). Do this every time you pick up the bass. Do this just before you put down the bass. Do this every time you have a little downtime during a rehearsal. It may or may not work for you, but slowly, you might start to remember these pitches. After 4 years in High School Band, the sound of B flat (tuning pitch) is burned into my skull along with the open strings of a Bass guitar and electric guitar.

3) In addition to learning how to play major and minor scales (while singing them), learn what the following intervals (or jumps) sound like and eventually learn it in all 12 keys (learn how to sing them while playing too):

  • from the 1st note to the the 4th note of a major/minor scale (and from 4 to 1)
  • from the 1st note to the 5th note of a major/minor scale (and from 5 to 1)
  • Arpeggios (1st, 3rd, 5th and 8th note of a scale)

4) Get a slow down program/training device. I recommend the Amazing Slow Downer for PC, or Anytune Pro or Anytune HQ if you have an iPhone/iPad (highly HIGHLY recommended). Start with something really simple, slow it down (I'd say start at around 70% original speed) and LEARN THE MELODY FIRST, THEN THE BASSLINE. Over time this will help you understand why you play certain things over certain chords/melodies. Take it slow and keep with it, it'll start to make sense over time.

5) In my late teens I realised I could remember what key a song I heard was in, no matter how long ago I heard it, so I started assigning songs I love to a particular note or key to help me quickly recognise the keys of other songs. Maybe this might work for you, maybe not but give it a shot.

Regardless of what techniques you try, don't give up if it takes forever the first couple tries. Be persistent and it will get better.
 
#16
When I first started playing back in 1977, there wasn't any sheet music, tabs, ect. available for the music that I wanted to play. My instructor was more into teaching me the Mel Bay books than to teach me the songs that I heard on the radio. I took it upon myself to learn them It's really hard at first, but I just kept at it. So in other words, it's hard for you now, but with a lot of practice, you will get it. :)
 
#17
Karmine said:
I don't have perfect pitch or anything...so learning songs by ear is pretty hard for me. (infact I have a near impossible time with)
But there are many songs I do love that don't have sheet music or tab to go with them.

Is there anyway to learn how to figure songs out by ear?...that does not involve sitting figuring it all out note by note and beat for beat.

If there really isn't a way other than just being gifted or spending weeks on it, than I guess I am s**t out of luck sadly?
Click to expand...

Have you taken music lessons? You'll need some of the theory as a basis to work from.

Can you learn to hum or sing along with a song fairly quickly? If not, work on that. If you can, the next thing to do is learn where the notes are on your instrument, based on simple musical intervals. Listen to the sound of fretting one note and the ones two frets away, on both sides. That's a major second interval. Learn the sound of all major and minor intervals. You don't need to work for hours every day- you need to do some of this, or you won't be able to learn by ear, though.

Most of the songs that make it to the radio have bass lines that aren't much more than I-IV-VIII, or the root (letter name of the chord, the fifth and the octave. As a bass player, t's very important to learn this "form", which can be played as a chord. It moves around with the key, but it's used A LOT. Learn how it sounds and it will make life a lot easier when you try to learn the songs. Take a song like House Of The Rising Sun- it starts with a group of arpeggios

The other thing that's most important is to learn to hear the root note of of the chords. Once you can do that, it goes much faster because you can move that I-VI-VIII all over and keeping your index finger on the root tells you where you are.
 
#18
I use my cheap plastic piano to find the root notes of a song first and then the rest of the major and minor cords. I have a tin ear and can't decifer worth a beans.
I use the piano's drum machine and metranome too.
You don't need to know how to play the piano very much to find the right notes, and the pitch is always right on.
2c
 
#19
Lots of good suggestions here so far.

Are you starting from the very 1st note of the song & trying to pick out each note as you go along? That can be time-consuming, frustrating, and inefficient (that's what I did when I started learning songs). Thanks to reading a bunch of threads here at TB, I learned instead of a "micro" (bottom-up) method, it's better do it "macro" (top-down).

Learn the key of the song, then the structure (verse, chorus, bridge, etc.), then the chord progressions in each section. Certain genres will use the same standard progressions (read this). Once you learn what the chord movement is, and you put in the time & effort to learn theory (chords/intervals/etc.), you can narrow down your note choices to a certain few instead of using the hunt-&-peck method to work your way through a song.

The above, plus being able to hold down the groove, could be enough to get you through a bunch of songs, especially when time is short.

For more detail, use software (I prefer Transcribe! but have also used Audacity) where you can isolate a section, loop it, slow it down, etc., if you want to work on getting a particular song/version you are working on note-for-note.
 
#20
Another possibility, and one I use sometimes, is to have songbooks. Not necessarily tab, but just something that shows the chord arrangement. Then you'll know the basic structure and where the guitar and other instruments change chords. Then you can see key and structure and know which roots to use to follow the chord structure. You could construct your own bass line from that, by filling in appropriate chord tones between changes, or keep listening to the song with at least an idea where it starts and how it changes, until you nail it. Many ways to go about it, but whatever you find works for you is what's best for you. This way of doing it is almost like reverse engineering from the guitar chords. I've picked up a few non-tab songbooks just for this purpose.
 

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