You can't even know if you have perfect pitch if you haven't trained yourself to recognize a specific pitch. The guy I work with can hear a song and tell you what key it's in - and what other songs we might mash it up with that are in the same key. He knows a song is in E because he understands what E sounds like. I'm sure there are people out there who never bothered to figure out that they could also do this with a little work.
Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Players that won't learn a note
- Thread starter themickster
- Start date
lol...no matter the task, nothing is more frustrating that being one who has skills and having to try to work with someone who has none and can't seem to understand the basics of the task.
I can't recall one...and I could trawl from literally hundreds over a fair few years.
But if by perfect pitch you mean someone like Gordon Moat then there doesn't need to be any conversation. Its done.
Last edited:
Yes but when you are in this situation, you have just to show on the instrument and the other people will be able to play it on the fly. I already crossed a guy like that and it was just a pleasure to share things between us.
Thank you for you feedback. I didn't think about the midi files. The problem is i don't use a keyboard but the software "jamorigin" to use my guitar as a guitar synth without specific synth pickup on it, and i'm not sure it's recording as midi file. I've to check that. Thanks !
Boulez had perfect pitch, Stravinsky didn’t, Boulez was the lesser composer, therefore perfect pitch makes one a lesser composer. It’s false logic. The decisions, creative tools that were in Stravinsky’s mind made him the better composer. He’d have been the better composer if he had had perfect pitch and Boulez didn’t. Beato trained his kid to have perfect pitch. In the right context it is quite useful. Singers, fiddle players of all kinds can benefit. For what I do, I’d rather have “touch.” That’s way more important.
@LBS-bass, it sounds like you're trying to assign a position to me that's about 168° away from what I was trying to say. I've read several hundred of your posts and you're almost always more perceptive than that.
What does that even mean? There's no actual musical skill located in either your physical ear or your physical eye. The center of musical ability is in the brain. When someone says they play by ear, what that really means is they can access and use their mental database of musical information. We can quickly identify a Cm7 chord because it matches information we already possess mentally, and that connects to knowing which notes will sound good with it, and where it might go next.
Ludwig Beethoven and Duke Ellington wrote large amounts of well-loved music using just their internal database of musical knowledge without ever hearing it until rehearsal (or never). Within the lifetime of people on this forum today, some people will be playing (and maybe 'listening' to) music 'by electrode' via a brain interface, no ears, eyes, fingers needed - just the brain.
.
Last edited:
Sibelius First, which became freeware after I paid $80 for it, can also import MIDI files easily. I like it a lot better than MuseScore.
Same here. People will say that I know so many songs. Truth is that there are usually only (not always) 4 or 5 bass notes played in any song. You just have to know the order. The bridge or turn may have a minor chord, Lot of songs are similar to others. Plus knowing patterns. 1,4,2,5 etc. helps. Do I know all my notes on the neck ? No, I know some, give me 5 seconds I can find every G in the neck. By using tab, patterns, and knowing some notes.
When the guitar players capo 3 frets up playing G fingering?? A# ?? No worries, I move my ‘pattern’ 3 frets up.
What that means is that I never learned to read very well because the teacher would play something, I would play it back, and the teacher would say, "that was good but you didn't look at the music," and I would say, "why would I look at the music when you just played it for me and I know how it goes?"
That's what having a fast ear is. I can read, but it's very painstaking still, because I never needed to learn it well.
It's interesting that we're having this conversation because right now I am studying some things that require me to have a lot of basic knowledge about things I've always been able to play, but haven't always been able to quickly name. It's a slow and laborious process for me right now, even though I've got tons of experience playing these notes, because I'm deconstructing these arpeggios I've always just... played without thinking about them. And adding new arpeggios and other runs that I haven't generally played, etc.
I see that there is value in all of this over the long haul - being able to understand why someone chose to play the sixth note in the scale under a dominant seven chord - but it sure seems a very circuitous route to understanding things I already can hear, and know how to make my hands do. My goal is to expand my vocabulary and add new note choices to my toolbox and I know I need exposure to these phrases in order to add them. And I need to practice them and play them a lot. I don't know that I need to understand them inside and out, but why not? I'm paying for the knowledge, so might as well take it in.
Last edited:
Yep, this. Most of it is predictable and you can pretty much guess where just about any song is going. I'll have it after the first verse-chorus run through and while you're playing it the first time I'll be listening and playing syncopated lines because I'm waiting half a beat to make sure I know what you're doing.
I'm not mad at you or anything, it just seemed like you're assigning willful ignorance to people like myself who might have different reasons for not knowing the same things you know. If I misread that, please accept my apologies.
I am a quick study because if I've heard a relatively popular song I'll be able to work out the changes via hearing the intervals on the fly.
Then, if there is a 'difficult' passage, only need to know when the change is and the chord as a helper.
Itsikely to at the 9 measure etc
Then you are back to hearing the popular sequence/progression.
Everyone can hear 3 up or down. Diminshed or augmented are a bit harder but by a process of quick thinking elimination, its easy because you know it isnt a 3rd, 4th or 5th.
If we are going backcountry, I'd prefer a chart but if the guy has called it pdq, i might not have time to dial it up so I'm on ears.
You also might want to know if the song is in a major, what your related chords are going to be. Same with minor.
To play bass lines, you might get away with roots but not for a solo or flying up and down the neck to make it interesting..within the context of the song etc.
So..all these are quick wins 90% of the time in popular songs that are called cold, ime.
Then, if there is a 'difficult' passage, only need to know when the change is and the chord as a helper.
Itsikely to at the 9 measure etc
Then you are back to hearing the popular sequence/progression.
Everyone can hear 3 up or down. Diminshed or augmented are a bit harder but by a process of quick thinking elimination, its easy because you know it isnt a 3rd, 4th or 5th.
If we are going backcountry, I'd prefer a chart but if the guy has called it pdq, i might not have time to dial it up so I'm on ears.
You also might want to know if the song is in a major, what your related chords are going to be. Same with minor.
To play bass lines, you might get away with roots but not for a solo or flying up and down the neck to make it interesting..within the context of the song etc.
So..all these are quick wins 90% of the time in popular songs that are called cold, ime.
Chord tones, yes. Usually. But if we're talking about covering popular songs, there are PLENTY of songs I play that hit dozens of notes (if we're counting octaves, which I am). If you want to play those songs faithfully, then just knowing the chord progression isn't enough. Sure, someone can introduce their own version of the song by adding their own arppegios and runs, and I do that on some songs too, but I really enjoy learning and playing the actual bass parts of a song. YMMV
How faithfully is faithfully? So many rhythmic interpretations an experienced player can toss off without much thought. Do you need every ghost note? I'm saying no. But the bones of most songs are not hard to predict, and if you know what the drums are doing you can nail it without much study.
I'll give three examples. Crazy little thing, gimme three steps, and china grove. All have signature parts, that I play all over the neck, and if you only play the chord tones and your own made-up runs, they're not gonna sound right. Learning the actual runs is paramount to doing a good job on songs like that. IMO
I think this here is a good example of why you should, as a band, agree up front the level of reproduction you want to do.
I'm currently binging on Iron Maiden, and one thing I can say is: they don't reproduce every note faithfully. Janice Gers plays very different solos compared to what Adrian Smith recorded. And Adrian's with the band, but Janick gets some of those solos anyway.
However, the tune-specific harmony leads etc will be reproduced live - sometimes with a third guitar line not initially recorded, cos they now have three guitarists on stage.
Another example I like to give, is the guitarist in my last band managed to play Louie Louie wrong. That's simply inexcusable. But he listened for five seconds and figured everything else is a repeat. I don't miss that band...
Spot-on! Give me someone with HS band experience (irrespective of instrument) and we'll go far. As it stands, I have to write-out these over simplified charts as we're operating on 4 different levels...but not anymore. We dissolved the project last week just to rid ourselves of 2 under-performers. You're either helping or a hindrance...there's no middle ground.
Riis
