Play by ear - learn to match notes/keys/intervals etc by ear... tips?

[Jeff Bonny]

Lots of great suggestions. First and foremost sing...if the notes aren't in your head there's nothing to match.

YouTube sessions are good. Pick a song to play along with then keep moving through random new songs from the next up selections. Same idea as playing along with the TV except you're going through material you've chosen that might be stuff you'll play sometime for real.

 

[Carl Hillman]

How can one train their ear to match notes and play by ear? I can't do this at all.


Back in the day when I was having lessons, I don't think my teacher, who had a naturally good ear for tone, understood... I guess it was trying to explain colourblindness to an art teacher when he A ) never heard of colourblindness and B ) hardly listens to what you say [mad but crazily talented elderly Irish man] - when I asked him to play notes and let me match them, he would play a note and I would play up and down the frets to match the note and as soon as I played the right note, despite not having yet been sure that I had played the right note, he would go "right!" though I had no idea... That was a waste of time.

I've also posted this question on another forum before and someone suggested "sing along to the notes and you'll soon get it" - but I can't match my voice or ANYTHING to the right note, I mean, on the odd occasion with LOTS of repetitive playing of one note, I can play it as long as the instrument is the same, the tone is the same and it's on the same octave, but I can't just go "oh this is the right note!" or "this is completely off!" (except where it's way off, but there it's obvious)...

If I play a song tuned down three semitones and then in standard I can hear that I'm playing a higher version of the song, but I can't hear that it's specifically three semitones higher.


How can I practice to improve these issues with hearing notes?

Start out by having someone (teacher, friend, or an app, if there is one) play two consecutive notes. Listen to them and try to determine if the second note is higher in pitch, lower in pitch, or the same pitch. Don't worry about singing them yet.

Work on this repeatedly until you can nail it with a high degree of accuracy. Write down how many you get wrong or right every time you do this so you can track any progress you make.

Keep at it. If you don't see any improvement after practicing this every day for a month-to-six weeks, get checked out by a doctor (neurologist) to see if this is an organic problem.

Good luck.

 

[madbass6]

How can one train their ear to match notes and play by ear? I can't do this at all.


Back in the day when I was having lessons, I don't think my teacher, who had a naturally good ear for tone, understood... I guess it was trying to explain colourblindness to an art teacher when he A ) never heard of colourblindness and B ) hardly listens to what you say [mad but crazily talented elderly Irish man] - when I asked him to play notes and let me match them, he would play a note and I would play up and down the frets to match the note and as soon as I played the right note, despite not having yet been sure that I had played the right note, he would go "right!" though I had no idea... That was a waste of time.

I've also posted this question on another forum before and someone suggested "sing along to the notes and you'll soon get it" - but I can't match my voice or ANYTHING to the right note, I mean, on the odd occasion with LOTS of repetitive playing of one note, I can play it as long as the instrument is the same, the tone is the same and it's on the same octave, but I can't just go "oh this is the right note!" or "this is completely off!" (except where it's way off, but there it's obvious)...

If I play a song tuned down three semitones and then in standard I can hear that I'm playing a higher version of the song, but I can't hear that it's specifically three semitones higher.


How can I practice to improve these issues with hearing notes?

Perfect pitch course ! order it online..

 

[Jeff Bonny]

Start out by having someone (teacher, friend, or an app, if there is one) play two consecutive notes. Listen to them and try to determine if the second note is higher in pitch, lower in pitch, or the same pitch. Don't worry about singing them yet.

When he says "don't worry about singing them yet" he's not undervaluing singing he's saying this exercise isn't the place to start singing. "Yet" is the operative word here.

 

[BassUrges]

I see two issues that are not the same: relative pitch and absolute pitch.

If you can pick out a melody by ear, your relative pitch is good. If not, the suggestion that you start with familiar melodies and move on to less familiar ones is sound. As others have said, if you know the shape of the major scale, you can eliminate half the notes to make it easier.

If you can't pitch match, that's more an issue of absolute pitch, and the only answer I can think of is practice. Work on picking out the right note on your fretboard. Maybe sing, too, but the voice is "fretless" so it's trickier.

Mostly, expect it to take a while. If you can understand speech, you can discriminate both pitch and the harmonic content of sound, so the basic ability is there.

I'll stick in a plug for Suzuki instructional materials. The whole schtick is learning to "speak" music as a language, so there is much emphasis on ear training. The recordings are nice and clear (as opposed to a rock band mix where there are lots of other instruments), and the songs are arranged deliberately to teach things in order. My son complains constantly about having to learn by ear but he's getting crazy good at it after 6 months.

I'm working with the bass books and recordings, which are meant for DB. the tone is impossible to match, but my fretless intonation is improving.

 

[DavC]

like any technique ... it takes practice ...

some intervals can have little song melody bits to help you remember them ...

i think sitting in front of a keyboard helps a lot ... giving a good picture of what you're hearing

and visualizing the notes on the staff , as you sing them in your head

use your imagination

 

[AndyPanda]

I have good relative pitch - I am not even close to perfect pitch though. I have no idea what specific note is being played but once I hear a starting pitch, I know where everything else is relative to that. I find that working with a piano keyboard works best for the way my brain/ear works - where I can easily see and count the half steps ... and I learned music by banging out random chords on keyboard and listening to how they sounded and then looking at the intervals to see why the chord sounded the way it did.

You got some really great answers in many of the previous posts ... you should be able to train your ear to intervals without too much trouble.

Perfect pitch, however, is another beast that can be learned as a baby but cannot be learned as an adult. Here is an amazing kid, his father taught him pitches as a baby:

 

[AndyPanda]

This video may be interesting - though it is using a piano:

 

[secondtake]

I plunked down $50 for a PC program called "Multilateral Ear Trainer." I like it. There's a demo version that's at byear.com. It's very thorough and flexible - I've spent days just doing major seconds and have now started on minor seconds. It builds you up an interval at a time - major seconds, minor seconds, etc. You get to control what part of the neck you want to practice on - not into the ultra high notes, so I told it to limit tones to the first five frets at first, then worked my way to 7 and 12 frets.

My leap to major seconds has shown me that I have a ways to go, but I feel like I have an attack plan, a method, a road to follow. It's frustrating as all hell, and I still can't take an hour straight of "bong-bing! bong-bing!" but I've made significant progress in my time on major seconds.

Good luck. I started a thread similar to this and it's kind of amazing how many people take their natural talent with relative pitch for granted when they don't realize everyone isn't as lucky as them.

 

[ThePresident777]

How can one train their ear to match notes and play by ear? I can't do this at all.


Back in the day when I was having lessons, I don't think my teacher, who had a naturally good ear for tone, understood... I guess it was trying to explain colourblindness to an art teacher when he A ) never heard of colourblindness and B ) hardly listens to what you say [mad but crazily talented elderly Irish man] - when I asked him to play notes and let me match them, he would play a note and I would play up and down the frets to match the note and as soon as I played the right note, despite not having yet been sure that I had played the right note, he would go "right!" though I had no idea... That was a waste of time.

I've also posted this question on another forum before and someone suggested "sing along to the notes and you'll soon get it" - but I can't match my voice or ANYTHING to the right note, I mean, on the odd occasion with LOTS of repetitive playing of one note, I can play it as long as the instrument is the same, the tone is the same and it's on the same octave, but I can't just go "oh this is the right note!" or "this is completely off!" (except where it's way off, but there it's obvious)...

If I play a song tuned down three semitones and then in standard I can hear that I'm playing a higher version of the song, but I can't hear that it's specifically three semitones higher.


How can I practice to improve these issues with hearing notes?

Have you tried something like Interval Ear Training From Note ?

Does this speak to you?

 

[gregmon79]

Everyone is different. Some can pick those things up like nothing in no time. For me, it took years. I'm still not great at it. But I can usually pick up most notes/keys by ear now. But it took like 13 years or so. I simply played. A lot. Got used to what my bass sounded like and what notes sounded like. My ear leaned them over time. So I guess my advice, play. Often. Playing with songs helps I guess. But for me, time and a lot of playing is what did it.

 

[FuzzFacetious]

How do I know? By reading and understanding the original post and comments. The OP was given a suggestion that he revert to the basic technique of pitch matching. He then compared that to being told to learn how to read by writing blogs every day. That analogy is absurd and inaccurate. A correct analogy would be learning to read by learning the alphabet, and then systematically studying the phonetic structure of the language.

I spent ten years teaching Russian to people with no prior knowledge of the language. I worked with a small group of students six hours a day, five days a week, and I never had a student who didn't need several months to get a basic handle on the sounds of the Russian language. And they were all motivated. So, yes, I think I am qualified to be a bit judgmental about the amount of effort required to master a skill like this.

You were teaching people who could speak to speak Russian, they weren't people who needed to learn to speak.
I could sing along to a song all day, be in and out of the correct pitch and never know. When I record my vocals I think I sounded in key, at least I can get a take that has nothing that sounds nasty to me, but then I run pitch correction software on it, and everything warbles into something from a sci-fi movie! If I can't hear whether or not my voice is even in key or not I can't practice singing in key because I don't know! That's the point!

Let me explain - If I play a riff so much that I'm familiar with it, and then I play it and I hit the wrong note, I hear that I played a wrong note - so I know I'm not tone deaf, and I can hear that I played too high or too low. If you are not tone deaf, you are able to learn relative pitch, however I have 0 natural relative pitch, while most people appear to have at least some - just as some people have some ability to kick a ball at a goal and score, without training (while some are naturally amazing players and a very few miss the ball and fall over every time). Most people who pick up an instrument are people with a decent natural level of relative pitch, rather than people who start from almost nothing because it is much harder and takes a lot more perseverance (because I cannot match notes I have to find lots of ways around the fact), and so most likely the people who you have taught have SOME level of ability to KNOW when their voice is in key with the note, or if the note they play on the bass is the same note as the note that you just played, even if they aren't able to do much more than that. I want to be able to reach that basic level.

Let's use a closer analogy - new bassist "I want to know how to play bass!"
Teacher "Okay, play A# on the first fret on the third string, it's very basic, then open it to play A"
new bassist "So, do I put my finger on the metal things or in the middle? They're the frets right? How do I hold this?"

The student here is wanting something far more basic than the teacher expects, but if he was to respond "you clearly have decided that you can't and you don't want to put the effort in" - I put it to you, good sir, that you either don't understand what I'm asking here and brush it off as my laziness (though why would I come here and ask for help from musicians if I didn't want help with this?), you're unable to grasp what I'm asking, well, that's fine but there is no need to respond in that way - as a teacher, you should look at the needs of the student, not write that student off because you don't know how to respond to them.


The advice you gave is something that is good, once I can tell whether or not my notes are correct. I sing along to everything, and I assume I'm in key because I don't sound off to myself, but I honestly cannot tell if I am or not. I need to acquire that ability in order to use the exercise that you suggested.

There is a possibility that you suffer from Invalid Link Removed But I wouldn't assume it; you would have to be tested. Try the links and see what you find out. If you're not "tone deaf," then you should probably find a patient music teacher, or an app that allows you to practice. I like Functional Ear Training

I'll look that app up, thanks! I used to think that I must be tone deaf and looked into congenital amusia - I thankfully am not tone deaf, but I feel like I am! I can hear the difference between tones, I know when a pitch changes up or down (but not by what interval), I just don't have the ability to match the same note played on two different instruments, not even in the same octave! That said, if I play drones, the same note across octaves, I can hear that every note is the same across the octaves, as I'm playing it. If I was to listen to a succession of notes in other octaves and try to recognise which one was the same note an active higher/lower, I can't do so. I can check if a guitar is in tune by hitting the 5th fret and then the higher strong open and hearing if it is right, but I cannot tune a guitar using that as reference. I have tried and I have broken so many strings in the process

 

[FuzzFacetious]

There's a video on youtube that you can tune your bass to (try searching "bass guitar tune e standard" or something along those lines). Try loosening your strings up a bit and then tuning by ear to match the bass guitar in the video. Then you can plug in your tuner and see how close you were. I found this really helped me hear that slight wobble of the two notes when your close to being in tune but not quite dead on. When the wobble sounds slower, it means your are closer to the note than when it sounds faster. Give it a shot and see if your can hear that wobble, it means your close.

Then next time you're jamming and the guitarist plays a note, you should be able to slide up the neck to find it just like you were tuning. Not sure if this will help or not, but it helped me out a tonne when practicing playing by ear.

Best of luck and be patient, that's #1!

That sounds like a great method, thanks!
The wobble thing - it is good to have something tangible to listen for, I think I have kind of noticed that, but not really known what it was, so thanks, I will try to take notice of it and see how it helps

i have been there and gotten better at it
i couldn't tell one note from another as in i'd sing a different note but think am singing the one am playing and so on
but i eventually trained my self to slowly learn to play music by ear, whatever that i can

learn to sing a major scale to begin with, take it slow. match one note at a time and start there
once you can sing a major scale, take some basic ear training exercises like
functional ear training app for android phones
musictheory.net interval training (my teacher anthony wellington asked me to attempt 50 questions a day, i did it for long enough for me to master all 12 up and down in exercise mode at least)

This is what I was saying to the first guy - How do you know if you're singing the right notes when you begin?

I've just downloaded that app, I've seen you and a few other people mention it so I look forward to trying it tonight!

A handy method for learning intervals is to pick out instantly recognizable examples and use them as templates for the sounds you are trying to play. For a minor third, think of the opening two chords to Deep Purple's Smoke On The Water. The next time you hear that same sequence of two notes, play a minor third. Start at the bottom of your fretboard (minor second E to F, Major second E to F#, minor third E to G and so on) and figure out what interval sample will act as a reminder for that. Work your way up the neck until you hit the octave. It may be easier to play the same intervals on different strings. Remember, the distance between the notes is what you are measuring, not so much the pitch of the notes themselves. Any two fret interval is a major second, whether it's A to B, F to G or B to C#. Designate each one with something you'll remember, even if it's meaningless to everyone else (the point of this exercise is for you). Could even be something dumb like a joke song some kid at school sang. All music can be broken down into a series of two note intervals. Identifying them correctly is the key to learning how to play them by ear. Don't give up because at first this will seem tedious, boring and aggravating, but in the end it pays off. Best to you and I hope this helps.

That's great actually - I occasionally play some kind of interval across high notes and say "oh that sounds like the notes on XXX song" and then play it in other positions until I find where I think the song might be played, usually only if I have a similar tone too (clean, distorted or whatever it is). I will try to do this more, that sounds like a handy tip. Cheers!

 

[tbasstreble11]

There's a video on youtube that you can tune your bass to (try searching "bass guitar tune e standard" or something along those lines). Try loosening your strings up a bit and then tuning by ear to match the bass guitar in the video. Then you can plug in your tuner and see how close you were. I found this really helped me hear that slight wobble of the two notes when your close to being in tune but not quite dead on. When the wobble sounds slower, it means your are closer to the note than when it sounds faster. Give it a shot and see if your can hear that wobble, it means your close.

Then next time you're jamming and the guitarist plays a note, you should be able to slide up the neck to find it just like you were tuning.

That's something that just dawned on me - how on earth do you tune your instrument if you can't discern the pitch of the notes? You must use an electronic tuner - I would recommend tuning your low E first using the tuner, and learn to tune the rest of the strings (from that correctly tuned E) without a tuner, only using your ears. You must listen closely, and intently, and you'll hear the wavelengths wobbling faster and slower as you turn the tuning pegs. You'll get that, and that will be a good start.

 

[Joedog]

Over the decades, I've learned a TON of songs by ear by playing along w/the recordings. That helped train my ears. But what REALLY made me good at picking things up fast was going to a lot of open jams, eventually getting the BP slots w/the host bands, and trying to pick up on new songs the jammers and guest bands threw at us......week after week, year after year. It took time, but ended up working quite well. No magic wands that I am aware of, just........practice, practice, practice!

 

[joebar]

Try to learn the bass line to Ice Ice Baby

under pressure

 

[Ric5]

How can one train their ear to match notes and play by ear? I can't do this at all.


Back in the day when I was having lessons, I don't think my teacher, who had a naturally good ear for tone, understood... I guess it was trying to explain colourblindness to an art teacher when he A ) never heard of colourblindness and B ) hardly listens to what you say [mad but crazily talented elderly Irish man] - when I asked him to play notes and let me match them, he would play a note and I would play up and down the frets to match the note and as soon as I played the right note, despite not having yet been sure that I had played the right note, he would go "right!" though I had no idea... That was a waste of time.

I've also posted this question on another forum before and someone suggested "sing along to the notes and you'll soon get it" - but I can't match my voice or ANYTHING to the right note, I mean, on the odd occasion with LOTS of repetitive playing of one note, I can play it as long as the instrument is the same, the tone is the same and it's on the same octave, but I can't just go "oh this is the right note!" or "this is completely off!" (except where it's way off, but there it's obvious)...

If I play a song tuned down three semitones and then in standard I can hear that I'm playing a higher version of the song, but I can't hear that it's specifically three semitones higher.


How can I practice to improve these issues with hearing notes?

Try this ...

every day try to play along by ear with songs on youtube

The more you do it the better you get.

 

[lz4005]

I can check if a guitar is in tune by hitting the 5th fret and then the higher strong open and hearing if it is right, but I cannot tune a guitar using that as reference. I have tried and I have broken so many strings in the process

If that's true and you've been playing for longer than a week you should give up.

Trying to play music is something you are not going to be able to do. Find a different hobby.

 

[FuzzFacetious]

I've played in lots of bands and recorded countless songs - not being able to play by ear doesn't mean you can't play guitar or bass. Not a lot of people have even been aware of the fact that I wasn't playing by ear - I could see what they were playing by knowing the tuning of their instruments, seeing what they were playing and knowing what I can play with that. It also doesn't mean you can't do vocals - rapping and screamo only loosely rely on pitch awareness.

I am, however, looking to advance, so if you don't have anything to add, please don't make such negative comments.

 

[quickfix]

Lots of great advice in this thread to help someone develop natural ability.
Keep singing along and/or playing your bass while listening to recordings.
But, either you can play by ear, or you can't. You should be able to pick up on any song within the first measure, or two. If you actually have to watch the other musicians hands during a song in order to play, and can't pick up the song when their hands aren't visible (or your eyes are closed), then you can't play by ear. It's not in you.

Keep doing what you're doing. Improve upon the techniques and methods you now employ.
They seem to be working well with the bands you've played in, and the recordings you've made.