Ear Training

[neoism]

I have been playing Bass about 5-6 months approx. and i almost practice 1 hour a day, without a miss

what i usually do when i hear the song is that i try to catch up with the bass line of that song. But in 90% of cases i'd have picked wrong notes.

And it's quite disappointing and frustrating. And i desperately want to improve !!

any suggestions for the ear training?

[baloo]

i had the same problem too. ive been playing for a year and a half now and the way i beat that was everyday id take time to repitively play all the major notes (E, F G A B etc etc) on it it and try to match my voice to it. matching your voice with it to me, helps not only your ears with the repitiveness but also with i guess internal pitch, your body gets a feel for that note(s). just set aside some time while you practice and youll get better also, just sing somethin random (a note, it really helps i you have a piano/KB around) and try to match the bass with that tone. and pick a slow bassline song or a very repitive one and pick parts out and try to match to that. itll take quite a few stopping and relistening but it helped me

hope this helps

[neoism]

thanks baloo

i shall try that !

[Retrosaurus Rex]

How are you listening to the tune you're learning? A lot of commercial speakers have a resonance at their lowest frequency... it wreaks havoc if you're trying to mix on speakers like that, and it occurs to me that it could confuse the ear as to the actual note as well...

[countfrogula]

There is software called ear master 5, it is pretty decent. Last time I tried it I found it very difficult to do. hat was a while ago though and I am more experienced now so maybe I'd have better luck, not sure. Anyways, maybe worth downloading the demo and checking it out.

http://www.emediamusic.com/earmaster.html

[pableezee]

I have been playing Bass about 5-6 months approx. and i almost practice 1 hour a day, without a miss

what i usually do when i hear the song is that i try to catch up with the bass line of that song. But in 90% of cases i'd have picked wrong notes.

And it's quite disappointing and frustrating. And i desperately want to improve !!

any suggestions for the ear training?

Even if your speakers have no bass, you should be able to hear the bass. how?

lets make a difference between bass roots and bass lines:

• Bass Roots are present whether there's a bass or not, they are the anchor that holds harmony together. Even a single melody note can outline a very clear bass root.
  
• Basslines are built based on the bass roots
  

As a teacher I would advice you to get familiar with the bass roots first, that's the most important ear training you have to do right now. Once this becomes instinctive you can move on and identify types of chords, progressions and more complex structures. If you're really looking for a software "Earope" does the trick and its easy to use!

Best of luck!

http://www.youtube.com/user/pablodellabella/videos

http://www.pablodellabella.com

[James Austin]

My bass instructor says to try this little exercise: play the notes on the bread-and-butter scales but let them ring out, and try to listen for the exact point when they cease to be audible. Do that several times for each. Another thing I believed helped me is vocal coaching: an instructor will sing a note and you're asked to identify it. I don't know how useful that is, but my bass instructor said I was bizarrely good at playing by ear, and years of vocal coaching alongside double bass lessons (where I was also asked to identify the notes as played on a piano) was his explanation.

Edited December 10, 2013 by James Austin

[TapperMike]

First....Tune your instrument.

 

Play the root of a scale in a range you can sing it.  Sing the note and play the note so you can tune your voice to the instrument.  Go through one octave of the scale first playing then playing and singing.

 

Next

Play the note and stop.  Try to hold the note in your head. Then sing the note without playing it. While you are holding the note with your voice play the note with your instrument.  This will be a little rough at first. The big thing is to hold a note in your mind. With practice this will become easier.

 

Try the same thing with basic primary arpeggios. If you can try to play the chord and sing one of the notes of the chord.

 

Finally try to sing and play scalar sequences. 1-2-3, 2-3-4, 3-4-5 etc.

Don't try this with every scale every day.  Focus on a particular key for two to four days until you get comfortable with it then move to a different key.

[Rudi]

Working stuff out from a recording is a good way to improve. You are doing that already.

 

Dont try too hard to figure notes out as you play along.

Instead repeatedly listen to the part you want to get , get it into your head and then turn it off.

 

In silence, try to find the notes guided by memory. If you still dont get it. Repeat the procedure. I used to do this a lot, and became proficient at ear learning.

 

I was better than I am now. I hardly do this at all anymore, and get frustrated sometimes when I try (like you are finding).

[Glenn Allen]

I used to have a hard time picking out notes on bass, too.  I'd try playing along with my favorite songs, but they went by too fast and I knew some of the notes weren't quite right.

 

I have since studied ear training in college and have relative pitch, BUT, more than my ear, I quickly pick songs up in seconds because I understand what makes the bass lines tick.  If I hear a fast arpeggio, and I know the song is in G and the bassist is playing an A, I can know with some certainty that the arpeggio I just heard was an A minor, not major. and if I thought I detected another note in the arpeggio, I could try the note "G" because it is the often used 7th note of an A minor scale.  

 

When Unwise Bill mentioned "be guided by harmony," this is likely what he was referring to.  This comes by understanding what basic notes make up the major, minor, dominant, minor7 arpeggios (and scales) and also learning the major an minor pentatonic (and the blues scale, which is the major/minor pentatonic with the b5 thrown in).  when you have these under your fingers and get used to the way they sound, the next step is to learn how the Nashville numbering system works. It's a basic framework that explains how chord progressions work together (understanding a bit of songwriting is helpful too).

 

 Let's say you're at the bridge of this song in the key of G.  Chances are likely that the bridge uses an E minor.  E minor is called the relative minor of G.  Every major key has a relative minor, its the 6th musical step of a scale.  if you are in a major key and you arrive at a chord change where the 6th step is the root, 99% of the time it will be a minor chord.  We refer to this as the vi- chord (the six minor chord).  

 

Similarly, at the end of the song, the second to last chord will probably be either a C major or - more likely- a D major or D7.  This is because in western music, 

 

This is oversimplifying, but essentially I can eliminate a bunch of the notes that probably won't be in the bassline and there are some common patterns that will be used more often than not.

 

You should also know that ear trining is like muscle training, you can fatigue if you're at it for too long in one sitting (you may feel an itching sensation in your inner ear canal or just feel irritable but not be sure why).  As Unwise Bill said, take a break.

 

If any of this is confusing, I'd gladly explain it in better detail in a way that is basic and simple and easily applied to the bass.

[Brad Barnett]

You can use an interval trainer online to help improve your ears.  I know how frustrating it can be cause I have been there.  It took a lot of practice, writing and theory training before I was able to hear something and play it on bass or guitar.  I'd recommend learning theory.  It may not seem like it would help, but it the single most important thing that helped me get the ear I have today.