Double Bass Teaching intonation to "tone deaf" beginners

[David Potts]

I suppose I like teaching adults because of the interaction between minds at the same level. It brings out my best, clearest instructions and explanations. They often make faster progress than the young ones that require a differently tailored slower teaching approach. Only on very few occasions have I come across someone who struggles to hear the difference between notes let alone hear the structure of whole and half tone steps in a scale. They can have no short term memory of the pitch of a note and may have many attempts at finding it again moments later, not knowing if they are sharp or flat.

I know that some of you like the use of drones or tuners but my worry is that the student I am talking about does not seem able to copy or remember pitch, or internalise the common sounds of scales, arpeggios and intervals. They probably can't sing or hum in tune and are too embarrassed to try in lessons.

I have once met a lady neighbor who was being treated by a music therapist for the above problems. She had been severely abused earlier in life and music to her was just a meaningless jumble of sounds. Part of her treatment was to listen intently to Mozart. I wonder whether people who have been severely depressed might have had the same problems. I also wonder about perhaps growing up in a family where sounds of music or singing of any kind were not encouraged, hard to imagine in this day and age.

It has been said that no one is tone deaf if they can hear that one note is higher or lower than another?

Please share your experiences and insights.

DP

 

[sonix]

your description of your student sounds very much like me when I first started with the bass. I started learning music at 19 or so with the guitar (tabs, no ear training), then switched to double bass at 21 immediately with jazz instruction.

i think the thing that helped me the most is to think about intonation as muscle building. first the muscle does not exist at all which is hard to imagine for many musicians. so some of your assumptions of what the student could do (i.e. note memory) is just way beyond their capacity.

to get on the right direction, i looped a thirds pattern with two starting points that goes up to C above the G harmonic (or can be kept at C below G harmonic). i think for me the big deal was that I didn't see a scale as being easy at all (too much mechanical thinking). so with repetition i wasn't "getting it".

The pattern I looped goes like this:

(Maj Third, up a semitone, Maj Third, down a semitone)
C -> E -> F -> A -> Ab -> C -> Db -> F -> E -> G# -> A -> C#. then (opt. Open String) D -> Open String G -> (Low) G

(Maj Third, down a semitone, Maj Third, up a semitone)
G -> B -> Bb -> D -> Eb -> G -> F# -> A# -> C. then open strings G -> D -> (Harmonic) G

The trick here is that the pattern must move slowly between the notes to allow time to hit the note. so the student can slide his finger until intonation is reached (no need for interval recognition, importance in -feeling- correct intonation). Over time, this can be done without the piano but scales will still suck. whats important is that sounds can now be internalized.

After that I think working on scales (as a minor focus) along with etudes (Simandl for me was great.) is the next step. The key is not to think of what you consider to be "basics" (i.e. scales, intonation) but what the student considers to be basic. by that I mean pay attention to how much stress playing a scale can induce versus playing an etude out of tune. personally i always preferred playing in unison with my teacher on bass as opposed to with a piano as reference (again- difficulty in recognizing notes as opposed to sound).

 

[Don Kasper]

I suppose I like teaching adults because of the interaction between minds at the same level. It brings out my best, clearest instructions and explanations. They often make faster progress than the young ones that require a differently tailored slower teaching approach. Only on very few occasions have I come across someone who struggles to hear the difference between notes let alone hear the structure of whole and half tone steps in a scale. They can have no short term memory of the pitch of a note and may have many attempts at finding it again moments later, not knowing if they are sharp or flat.

I know that some of you like the use of drones or tuners but my worry is that the student I am talking about does not seem able to copy or remember pitch, or internalise the common sounds of scales, arpeggios and intervals. They probably can't sing or hum in tune and are too embarrassed to try in lessons.

I have once met a lady neighbor who was being treated by a music therapist for the above problems. She had been severely abused earlier in life and music to her was just a meaningless jumble of sounds. Part of her treatment was to listen intently to Mozart. I wonder whether people who have been severely depressed might have had the same problems. I also wonder about perhaps growing up in a family where sounds of music or singing of any kind were not encouraged, hard to imagine in this day and age.

It has been said that no one is tone deaf if they can hear that one note is higher or lower than another?

Please share your experiences and insights.

DP

David,
I've only had 1 student, many years ago who I believe was "tone-deaf" - he could not match or recognize pitch with either his voice or his fingers on the bass. I would guess that tone-deafness may have a neurological/physiological component, much like color-blindness.
Drones/tuners/singing will have little or no positive effect if the listener is not able to accurately compare pitches (internally) or match their voice and/or instrument to a sounding pitch.
When meeting a student for the first time, I always ask them to sing and match a pitch played on the piano - Octave displacement is OK.
Also - I have them play their open D string and the closed D on the G string (arco) as a double-stop. This usually gives me some idea of their pitch recognition abilities.
(Very) Interesting topic.
Thanks.

 

[Tom Lane]

I've only known two people, 30+ years ago, who were tone deaf. Brother and sister. They knew it. Their parents knew it. Their parents forced them to take piano lessons. They told me it was always tough going for them, but got easier as it went, and after years, they could kind of hear the melodies of pop songs. They couldn't sing anything accurately when I knew them, but their voices roughly followed the contours of the melody. Some people have perfect pitch, some people have nearly no sense of pitch and most of us are in the middle.

I think it would be an interesting experiment to see if a tone deaf person - someone who can't tell if one pitch played on the piano is higher than another - could learn to play the bass. Having them focus on matching pitches on the bass to a note played on another instrument or an open string on the bass might be just the "sensitivity training" they need. Then again, it might be wiser for them to start with piano or a fretted BG until their pitch improves and then try picking up the bass.

 

[groooooove]

it's not that they can't hear it, its that they're not used to listening for such detail.

just like learning how to press down on the string, hearing intonation is a skill they need to develop. sometimes it can be as simple as explaining to them they need to listen closely. i've had good results teaching students to slide up to a note from below while playing against my note, asking them to stop when they hear that the notes are identical. if you're playing the note, be sure you play into the students bass with yours so they really feel the beats as they get closer to being in tune.

it also doesn't help that bass notes are so low it can be hard to hear accurately for untrained ears.

 

[damonsmith]

It is actually a bit easier since you can usually get them to concentrate on their hand position for a longer time. A "good ear" can really slow the process by making things sound right while forming a ton of bad habits!

I'd push them to really get a good left hand shape and geography of the neck and have them play LOTS of early Simandl (even if you are using another method). Then work with singing and drones.
These students give the luxury of setting up the hands before tuning!

The actual music, not the fingering, of the early Simandl exercises work miracles for intonation.

 

[SVT4001]

it's not that they can't hear it, its that they're not used to listening for such detail...hearing intonation is a skill they need to develop....

This has long been my belief. Many who struggle with this issue simply don't know what it is that they are listening for. I experienced this first hand in my youth. I could not discern the difference between timbre and pitch, because I didn't know what either of them were. All I knew was that the same note played on a guitar string and blown on a pitch pipe sounded different to me, as different as night and day. It was very frustrating, but I feel the experience has been invaluable to me as a teacher.

Great topic Mr. Potts, and great contributions by all!

Joe

 

[Huy Nguyen]

IME, i used to struggle alot with intonation when moving in 2nds or up/down a scale linearly. If you work more with triads there is a clear physical sensation as the harmony can actually be heard easier and sometimes it can also be felt. I've been wondering why people don't focus more on teaching arps for these multitudes of reasons. Establish the reference points of chord tones in a chord and let the students experience the differences.

 

[David Potts]

As musicians we live in a world of constant sights, sounds, smells,tastes and touches that clamor for our attention. Of all the incoming signals constantly being received and processed by our five senses how can there be such a small "missing link" as "tone deafness"? A person can live and function extremely well in every other respect and yet be dyslectic, color blind or "tone deaf". Our hearing snaps into focus with sounds of discernable pitch or music; and even more into focus as musicians when we are creating these sounds. It is hard to believe that an otherwise normally functioning brain might not ascribe a musical value to our sounds. Is "pitch-insensitive" a better description of "tone deaf"?

As a music examiner one of the simple aural tests I am asked to perform with beginning music students is to play two notes on a piano, one after the other, and ask "which note is higher?'' or lower. I have asked these questions thousands of times without finding a failure so find it hard to believe that someone can be truly "tone deaf".

I have just purchased a book by Tucker Rhoda, "Complete Technique for Double Bass, Volume 1" (Carl Fischer) that I have loaned out before I fully digested its intent and contents. The student (now on vacation) has the ongoing pitch discernment problems that started this thread. The first pages deal with very few notes over and over again in one position, with different repetitions and bowing patterns. I will be interested to see if the constant repetition of simple aural and visual information will give the student more confidence in their intonation as they switch their attention from hand to hand. They have reached a stage where they can play the D Major scale quite well in tune the first time but not the second or more times. There is no short term memory evident if I immediately ask them to play the octave D or A, the 5th above tonic open D.

Don Kasper, I will take on board the singing approach more. And hdiddy, the broken chords.

I am still intrigued.

DP

 

[Reiska]

Is there music existing that really touches your student or has some kind of heavy memory mark in his / her mind? I`m not an expert, but I would start from that.

 

[David Potts]

Thanks, Reiska. Yes, the tune is Autumn Leaves. For the first time with me they opened their mouth and tried to sing, while apologizing profusely.

 

[Don Kasper]

David,

Have you ever had a student try the following?:
Play their open G string as a drone, and have them sing the notes of an ascending G major scale against the G drone? Have them try it VERY slowly, Chant-like, fixing/adjusting each interval before moving to the next note. This is a very simple but necessary skill for us players of non-fixed pitch instruments. If they are not able to sing the whole scale, maybe just the D a P5th above or even an Octave or Unison just to have them experience intonation (either "good" or "bad", viscerally - this helps narrow their focus to just a single interval (while expanding their awareness of just how precise the pitch needs to be, and conversely, how a very small deviation can lead to "out of tuneness".)
I believe that in order to play in tune, the ear must be able to first anticipate, identify, then accept or reject the resulting interval as true or false. Being able to do this with the voice might be the first step towards being able to correct the pitch once the fingers become involved. I like removing the mechanical aspect of the fingers in the beginning, as they introduce a second layer of variables that can complicate the hearing of pitch, though I understand that the goal is to be able to have the fingers "listen" as well as the ears.
I don't know how somebody could learn to play in tune without being able to vocalize simple, good pitch. This is a problem I have with people practicing (only) with drones - they are missing an important step by bypassing their voice, (the original, "Go Anywhere", Inner-Drone), which is all they will have once the mechanical drone is turned off. (Yes, Droneists, using a drone can help with your hand position and subsequent pitch, in relation to the drone (IF your ears are good), but this process does not develop your Inner-Drone, IMHO).
Also, I'm usually looking for ways to practice and teach that isolate and narrow the focus of the problem or area of study to its smallest particle. In my experience, students are (usually) attempting to practice too many things at once, i.e., practicing intonation by practicing arpeggios, which can lead to repeating an out of tune arpeggio over and over, which is simply teaching the brain, ears and fingers to accept, learn and replicate poor intonation.
This is an intriguing topic.
I will stay Tuned.
(sorry).
Don Kasper

 

[sonix]

I feel like singing did not help me at all. i took a singing course and learned to sing Blue Skies which was fun, but singing did not help me develop interval recognition nor was it ever enjoyable for me.

For me the "aha" moment for intonation happened when I started to get a feeling in my chest from listening back to my practice recordings. once i reached thumb position (after going through simandl book 1 on my own), i took a different approach which is to listen to a classical piece many times until the notes are in my head before starting to read it. I often checked intonation on the higher positions by playing the same phrase an octave lower (since the lower notes are familiar).

it also doesn't help that I come from a non-musical family and grew up on middle eastern music. so major scales are more exotic to me than minor.

to get that feeling in the chest, i think you really have to open up yourself to listening without critique (from oneself or others). its kind of the part of the brain that has to do with free flow of ideas. if the student is already apologizing profusely, i doubt you will actually see any progress this way. these types of hang ups are really tough to get rid of.

 

[Huy Nguyen]

Sonix brings up a good point. Sometimes I get a lot out of recording myself and playing back to hear the mistakes in intonation. I would think that doing this with someone to tell me where it's wrong may help a lot. When we're beginners, we lack the ability to discriminate. It's even worse while playing. Once the awareness is there, the correction can sometimes be automatic.

 

[damonsmith]

Singing a great tool at the right time. However, great singers are not great bass players, great bass players are great bass players. Playing the double bass is profoundly physical. Fine tuning an imprecise left hand does incredible damage to your overall playing. It may get a "right" note in a moment, but will likely limit your tempos, your ability to interact with your fellow musicians and cause many other problems.
We don't play only with muscle memory, of course the ear is always involved but we need the body and the hand to "split the workload" since our ears need to multi-task in performance.

 

[David Potts]

I made the mistake of googling "tone deaf" !!!!!!!!

 

[Ed Fuqua]

I feel like singing did not help me at all. i took a singing course and learned to sing Blue Skies which was fun, but singing did not help me develop interval recognition nor was it ever enjoyable for me.

@sonix - I don't know who suggested that to you, but whenever I talking about singing in relation to ear training that's not what I'm talking about. ASIDE: And that's sort of my problem with academic classes for this, you can get through ear training and sight singing with grades of 68 to 72 and still progress. It's not about hearing 72% of the music, its' about hearing 100%. Anyway, I know I've posted my teacher's methodology a few times, lemme know if you want me to try to dig it back up. Suffice it to say, unless you can sing it accurately (not beautifully, accurately) you're not really hearing it.

 

[damonsmith]

Singing is probably the very best tool for fine-tuning and getting to 100%. The important thing to say is that it isn't step one in terms of learning the instrument and building solid positions - and can severely interfere with that process if stressed too early. Once you have the physical mechanics down singing is really what gets to you nail tricky shifts and many other issues.

 

[Ed Fuqua]

You're certainly welcome to your own opinion and your experience is your experience. To me, having a good sense of expectation of pitch from the beginning is only going to help nailing a positional approach.

That might make a nice little experiment, have an instrument interface with a computer so that what you hear is the same pitch, no matter where you play it on the instrument and see how quickly simply using the geography of the fingerboard gets you in the neighborhood of "in tune"....

 

[damonsmith]

You're certainly welcome to your own opinion and your experience is your experience. To me, having a good sense of expectation of pitch from the beginning is only going to help nailing a positional approach.

That might make a nice little experiment, have an instrument interface with a computer so that what you hear is the same pitch, no matter where you play it on the instrument and see how quickly simply using the geography of the fingerboard gets you in the neighborhood of "in tune"....

It isn't an either or, it is just that fine tuning a solid position is a more lasting approach than getting a note in tune "any old way" out of the gate. Anyone who thinks getting their hand right is all it takes is not correct - same goes for thinking that all it takes is being able to sing what you play.
What I do think is that one order is better than the other and building a solid position is the by far the best step one. Being able to play in tune with your hand any old way is a really, really tough habit to break and will cause a lot of trouble down the road in terms of up tempo playing and other situations.