So, does anyone have any particularly useful media players that are more useful than iTunes, specifically for learning songs by ear?
My goal isn't to make ear-learning easier by bypassing the actual effort of learning songs, it's to bypass the incredibly tedious repetitive actions that quite ill-refined players such as iTunes require. I have an iPhone and i'm not going to quit using iTunes any time soon, but for the specific purpose of learning by ear it would be much less strenuous on both my back and neck, as well as my mental health, if I didn't have to bend over (I play standing up 95% of the time, and wish to keep it that way as I find it both more fun and better preparation for any kind of gigging i'll see any time soon) or move around with a bass slung over my shoulders as I try to work things out, while having to find a precise pixel to hover the mouse over, just to rewind the song to ten seconds prior, all the while having to make sure I don't accidentally nudge the mouse slightly and lose my place in the song.
Have you guys got any good hotkey-loaded players that have, for instance, multiple separate hotkeys to rewind/fast-forward 10, 20 or 30 seconds (as in, one hotkey for +/- 10 seconds, one for +/- 20, and one for +/- 30)? Any other useful functions like slowing a song down, speeding it up, or the ability to hotkey to certain customised points in a song would also be incredibly helpful.
I know that with most of what I listen to it's not really too helpful, but now that i'm attempting to step my game up a little and i'm attempting to learn some prog rock rather than thrash or classic metal, i'm finding that I need to pinpoint exact areas in songs a lot more often because of the reuse of certain passages and phrases being much less common throughout the catalogues of, say, Rush or Yes, as opposed to Megadeth or Iron Maiden. It's for this reason that I have to keep jumping to exact points in a song and would much rather be able to simply hit a key and be there each time I wanted to listen to a certain phrase or passage again.
Again, good for all of you that learned songs by ear simply by waiting until the record was done playing and starting over, but i'm simply trying to make things less tedious for myself, and i'm not having a go at anyone that has done it the hard way.
My goal isn't to make ear-learning easier by bypassing the actual effort of learning songs, it's to bypass the incredibly tedious repetitive actions that quite ill-refined players such as iTunes require. I have an iPhone and i'm not going to quit using iTunes any time soon, but for the specific purpose of learning by ear it would be much less strenuous on both my back and neck, as well as my mental health, if I didn't have to bend over (I play standing up 95% of the time, and wish to keep it that way as I find it both more fun and better preparation for any kind of gigging i'll see any time soon) or move around with a bass slung over my shoulders as I try to work things out, while having to find a precise pixel to hover the mouse over, just to rewind the song to ten seconds prior, all the while having to make sure I don't accidentally nudge the mouse slightly and lose my place in the song.
Have you guys got any good hotkey-loaded players that have, for instance, multiple separate hotkeys to rewind/fast-forward 10, 20 or 30 seconds (as in, one hotkey for +/- 10 seconds, one for +/- 20, and one for +/- 30)? Any other useful functions like slowing a song down, speeding it up, or the ability to hotkey to certain customised points in a song would also be incredibly helpful.
I know that with most of what I listen to it's not really too helpful, but now that i'm attempting to step my game up a little and i'm attempting to learn some prog rock rather than thrash or classic metal, i'm finding that I need to pinpoint exact areas in songs a lot more often because of the reuse of certain passages and phrases being much less common throughout the catalogues of, say, Rush or Yes, as opposed to Megadeth or Iron Maiden. It's for this reason that I have to keep jumping to exact points in a song and would much rather be able to simply hit a key and be there each time I wanted to listen to a certain phrase or passage again.
Again, good for all of you that learned songs by ear simply by waiting until the record was done playing and starting over, but i'm simply trying to make things less tedious for myself, and i'm not having a go at anyone that has done it the hard way.
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