Ear training

[basskit_case]

I am a bass newbie and would like to train myself to recognise pitch.

There are loads of pitch training links on-line. but I wonder if you guys could recommend any approach/technique that you have used.

[Bilbo]

If you can tell the difference between a dog barking and bird singing you are not tone deaf. It is actually a very rare condition.

Learning pitches is not that important. What you need to learn is relative pitch i.e. the differences between notes. The best way to do this is by doing scales and chord arpeggio exercises. There are method books out there about this kind of thing but, in my experience, they are only asking you to do what you should be doing anyway which is playing with your ears not just your hands.

[ezbass]

Yeah Bilbo is right, it's all about being able to recognise intervals. I did some interval recognition exercises years ago where you picked a well known interval in a song, i.e. the theme from Jaws = a semitone, somewhere over the rainbow = octave, etc. Hope that makes sense. But just playing a lot will get you recognising intervals and will get you anticipating where the next note is likely to be.

[RhysP]

Gary Willis' "Ultimate ear training for bass & guitar" is the book you want to get.

Edited August 20, 2009 by RhysP

[GonzoBass]

More on interval recognition-
[url="http://www.musicalintervalstutor.info/listenpg.html"]HERE[/url]

[MacDaddy]

[quote name='bilbo230763' post='575129' date='Aug 20 2009, 09:23 AM']If you can tell the difference between a dog barking and bird singing you are not tone deaf. It is actually a very rare condition..[/quote]

it's called amusia.

[Oscar South]

I'd recommend 2 activities:

1. To learn to learn notes, intervals, phrases etc. on your instrument simply work songs out on your bass by ear. Its slow going at first, but it gets easier quickly.

2. To learn to hear chords, voicings, cadences, keys etc. in music generally, get 'The Jazz Theory Book' by Mark Levine and work through chapters 1-5 on a keyboard. You don't need any previous keyboard ability or even enough facility to play the examples, just read through the text and try out playing the scales, chords etc. to get a feel for how they sound. You'll start hearing them all over the place in music you listen to very quickly and as a side effect you'll learn to play piano a little and pick up a lot of theory knowledge, I practically learned all I can play by working from this book and you can hear it in my playing (expecially the chapter on melodic minor harmony, heh), I've got a video up on the recordings page if you want to see.

I wouldn't personally recommend pitch training exercises or method books, most are too far removed from the actual music to be of any practical help and they'll add nothing other to your playing either.

Edited August 21, 2009 by Oscar South