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Double Bass Need Some "Hearing" Advice

#21
Kam said:
I believe it's just a "do it yourself" aural skills lesson plan with tools. If you use it regularly it probably does get you to the point of excellent relative pitch. I don't think you can learn perfect pitch though.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly. It seems to be something you're born with. Besides, most of the time I don't see much help in it. It's more important to learn to play in tune with the group than to play in tune with yourself. These are just my thoughts; I would love to hear some feedback from a person who actually has it.
 
#26
While perfect pitch sounds more like a curse than a blessing, perfect rhythm sounds handy. I'll be honest: when I'm sitting at a red light, it drives me nuts not to be able to immediately tell the rhythm difference between two car's turn signals. Seriously.

Oh yeah, and Mozart could write down, note for note, entire musical compositions, having only heard them once. At the age of 5. Obviously, he came from outer space.
 
#27
I'm actually now using the software going through the program. It is quite interesting and what he says is two things....

"Perfect pitch CAN be learned"

"Perfect pitch doesn't necessarily mean to be EXACTLY right on the pitch to 1 hert, more that you can hear any pitch in your head and say it, or train yourself to be able to hear any pitch or chord and you will be able to name it."

I have only gone through two lessons so far so it is more of just the intro not much training yet, but once I get more into the training I will let you guys know more.

Peace,
Davey
 
#28
I still don't consider that perfect pitch..I'm pretty good at picking out pitches, but it is because my relative pitch has been trained. I always require a reference point, whether it's in memory or within a tune. My freak friends with PP will call out the pitch a refridgerator is humming at, or the fundamental of a train horn while we're walking down the street. I can't typically do that because i have no reference point, but also because my brain goes "Train horn," not "Bb."
 
#29
Check out: [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

I've used this cd for a couple of years and it's helped me greatly. Right now, I start each practice session by playing the major and melodic minor scales in all 12 keys from Simandl Book I to this cd. I've found and fixed lots of trouble spots with my shifting (lots of work left to do though).

The thing about this cd is that it provides perfect 5th's in "pure" temperament so that it's similar to playing in a string section as opposed to with an even-tempered keyboard.

- Martin
 
#30
All of you folks interested in perfect pitch, relative pitch, etc. would probably enjoy reading this book: Music, The Brain, and Ecstacy by Robert Jourdain. It is all about how we hear and perceive music; mostly the science of it. It is a really fascinating read. Check it out. :cool:
 
#31
How wonderful that we are discussing the intonation improvement of the double bass, the singlemost out of tune section in the orchestra. Without a doubt. And the most awful sounding section when out of tune, so "koodos" for noticing and joining the crusade for intonated bassists.

Friends, there is noting I enjoy more than hearing bassists focus on fixing intonation! There is nothing I love more than improving my own. I would highly recommend the drone although I don't yet know baout the darkness technique... it's at the top of my list to try out!!! Like the great quote, do unto others as you'd have done unto you... intonation is a serious weapon of mass destruction when ignored!!!
 
#35
I've met several people who have told me they had perfect pitch, but only one that really did. He was a mathematician-pianist friend at UCLA in the 60s named Bill Jackson. He had one blue eye and one brown, not that that had anything to do with it. He never talked about his pitch gift, and if you tried to get him to it was like pulling teeth. He'd never voluteer that a musician was slightly sharp compared to the others in his trio, or that a piano tuner was a bit flat in tuning the upper registers. You'd have to ask him three or four different ways before he'd finally admit noticing anything like that.

Bill seemed to be so used to everyone not being absolutely in tune that he could ignore it and rave about the music anyway. But he did let a group of us test him one day . . . absolutely amazing. Tones were as individually and instantly recognizable to him as people's faces. He could tell you if spoon tapped against a glass of water was a teaspoon shy of F#. Instantly. No humming around, he just instantly knew.
 
#36
Scales. . . and then more scales.

Do them with a drone and do them with accompaniment. Do them every day for the rest of your life.

Free 3-octave scale accompaniments at various tempos here:

http://www.billbentgen.com/podcast/index.htm

Jason Heath has accompaniment tracks for 1, 2, & 3 octave scales free for the download also.

A person on this list who I play with every week has called me "The Scale Nazi".
 
#39
Bill, one more question.

I am practising your scales right now. Seems like you have a slightly different fingering then I have learned (from Simandl and others).
Especially when going in the thumb position. I use my thumb to fret the notes from around the octave G and you start using it around the high D or not using the thumb at all (for example G major).

Always good to try a different fingering of course.
Is that fingering your own or from a specific method?
 
#40
On the Simandl Etudes

I've played through these once a year for the last 30 years. To me, they are a method on how to manage the bow. . . when to use hooked bowings, when to alternate, when to recover the bow, before or after the short note, etc. When you study all 30 of the etudes in sequence, it makes a lot of sense.​

On the scale bowings

Use the bowings you're comfortable with. My fingerings in the scale book kind of evolved over the years after I played through the Simandl, Montag, Billé, and Petrachi books.

Rather than a big long explanation, they greatly reduce the number of different fingering patterns and eliminate awkward hand positions. They also use the 3rd finger more than a lot of people would advocate, using the reasoning that if the 3rd finger is the weakest finger, why not strengthen it playing my scales every day.

These are "home" fingerings for me. I believe you need to practice other fingerings also, and then use what's appropriate when you're sweating under the lights​
 

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