Ear Training

[stewblack]

13 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

Can't you play them then?

on the bass? I could but would that work the same as singing? 

[Woodinblack]

49 minutes ago, stewblack said:

on the bass? I could but would that work the same as singing? 

Why not? You are training your ear, not your voice.

[TKenrick]

17 hours ago, funkle said:

I meant to say, I did the first ear training exercise 20 mins a day for about 6 months, and it worked. 

The second exercise is relatively straightforward after the first. 

The real challenge of the first ear training exercise is getting it above one note. I started two notes simultaneously, but did not persist that well with it, I ended up doing other things. Many Banacos students have made it much further, 7-8 not untypical I think and I have heard tell on the Banacos FB group of ?11. 

I really struggle once it gets to two or more notes in spite of having worked on the one note exercises on and off for years. Legend has is that Mike Stern (probably Banacos' most famous long-term student) could do 10 notes; there's a story about him at a Miles Davis rehearsal when Marcus Miller was playing 10-note cluster voicings at the piano and Stern was naming all the pitches by ear... Miles promptly took away all his charts!

[funkle]

33 minutes ago, TKenrick said:

I really struggle once it gets to two or more notes in spite of having worked on the one note exercises on and off for years. Legend has is that Mike Stern (probably Banacos' most famous long-term student) could do 10 notes; there's a story about him at a Miles Davis rehearsal when Marcus Miller was playing 10-note cluster voicings at the piano and Stern was naming all the pitches by ear... Miles promptly took away all his charts!

I have a feeling that playing a polyphonic instrument makes a big difference here. I have only relatively recently started a little piano (helping my daughter with her lessons), and notice that increasing familiarity seems to make a difference to my ear.

Little as I want to say it, I think bass players are at a disadvantage, and probably need to learn some piano, or perhaps guitar. 

[Stub Mandrel]

2 hours ago, funkle said:

Little as I want to say it, I think bass players are at a disadvantage,

Polyphobic?

[funkle]

47 minutes ago, Stub Mandrel said:

Polyphobic?

Multiple notes played at the same time. 

Or, if your word wasn’t a typo, then fear of multiple notes being played at the same time, lol

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, funkle said:

Multiple notes played at the same time. 

Or, if your word wasn’t a typo, then fear of multiple notes being played at the same time, lol

😁

 

[funkle]

lol, yes.

[Guest]

Play a tune of three notes on the piano several times in a row, then lift your hand half a foot above the keyboard and play the tune again, moving your fingers through empty space. In the silence, listen to the tune playing in your mind. 

Now pick another set of three notes. Etc.

Repeat for half a decade 😬

[Guest]

10 hours ago, TKenrick said:

I really struggle once it gets to two or more notes in spite of having worked on the one note exercises on and off for years. Legend has is that Mike Stern (probably Banacos' most famous long-term student) could do 10 notes; there's a story about him at a Miles Davis rehearsal when Marcus Miller was playing 10-note cluster voicings at the piano and Stern was naming all the pitches by ear... Miles promptly took away all his charts!

It’s solved by getting a piano/keyboard. I couldn’t hear and distinguish more complex chords fully until I got a piano and starting playing with triads and inversions, then moving on to more complex chords. Once you’ve heard a Dm9 to G13 (only one note changes, and that’s just C to B) in its main inversions you start to hear each chord cluster almost as a single sound. Only by playing a basic chord and then adding each extension one at a time, and then two, three etc do you get to commit those sounds to memory. The more complex the chord sounds, the more extensions it’s likely to contain. Then there are the basic piano player’s chord rules - e.g. any kind of extended chord will be very unlikely to contain a 5th, or a 7alt chord rarely contains all the extensions in the altered scale (b9/#9/#11/b13). I’m a rubbish piano player but even being able to bang out some chord changes and familiarity with chords and voicings makes all the difference.

When I had the time and energy to do transcriptions I always included chords because to me it helped explain the line in context, and expanded my knowledge of harmony. 

[funkle]

And there we have it...as I thought!