Ear Training for bass players - what level are you at?

[Caz]

I'm curious to hear what level of ear training other bassists are at and find or would find useful for their playing?

 

I'm generally fine with intervals and have spent a fair bit of time working on pitch with singing/hearing intervals. I've spent some time but less time with scales - mostly just over time I've come to recognise the most common diatonic scales, blues and pentatonic scales etc. For chord progressions, I'd like to improve at recognising more chord progressions, especially if a tune starts not on the 1... say it starts on the 4 chord instead of the 1 chord... I'd like to be able to hear 'this is a IVmaj7, VIm7, Imaj7, V7 chord progression' without too much working it out on the instrument... is this something most others out here can do? What's the general level for players here and how does it help you with your playing?

 

Thanks and hope you're all having a nice day.

 

Caroline

[TheLowDown]

I'm pretty low down actually. When I do ear training for intervals, I keep it in the key of C so that I have some consistent baseline. The idea being that when I've learnt to hear the 'character' of the interval within the key then I can much more easily generalise it to any key. Still a long way off yet, but it's always best to work at one's long term weaknesses.

For chord progressions I'm a lot better.

 

I've tried singing pitches with the idea that I can internalise those sounds, but unfortunately I find it very difficult to differentiate croaks that are wildly off pitch. So that was the end of that.

[itu]

I think that the only thing that helped me while studying music was to play, read, and listen. Sometimes I still get confused when the progression gets complicated to my ear, but then I just have to get back and listen, maybe transcribe, too.

 

If you own few different instruments, or a computer with decent SW, please produce different chords and listen to them. Remember to not only start from the root (1,3,5,7), but turn them (5,7,1,3 etc.) to find the tones and their functions from the harmonic content.

[Caz]

On 15/08/2022 at 15:23, TheLowDown said:

I'm pretty low down actually. When I do ear training for intervals, I keep it in the key of C so that I have some consistent baseline. The idea being that when I've learnt to hear the 'character' of the interval within the key then I can much more easily generalise it to any key. Still a long way off yet, but it's always best to work at one's long term weaknesses.

For chord progressions I'm a lot better.

 

I've tried singing pitches with the idea that I can internalise those sounds, but unfortunately I find it very difficult to differentiate croaks that are wildly off pitch. So that was the end of that.

Thanks for your reply, that's really interesting to hear - why are you a lot better with chord progressions than intervals? Do you come to recognise them after learning a lot of music over the years? I would have thought it'd be intervals then chord progressions in terms of levels of difficulty.

 

Just looking to hear from other bassists really, I have come to bass after studying drums and being able to read bass clef already so I have been able to get out gigging from the beginning on bass but I think there are ear-training steps that I need to catch up on that can't be fast-tracked. I'm wondering what the general level of ability is for most bassists. I have been transcribing loads of pop tunes (LOADS! My pop repertoire list is nearly at 300). Cycle of fifths chord progressions tend to be familiar, and of course blues - some things I just recognise the sound of. But I would have thought by now with the pop stuff I'd be able to listen to the radio and name mostly diatonic chord progressions on pop tunes. How/when in your development did this part come? I've been playing bass for 3 years now.

 

I've been avoiding ear training apps in favour of singing intervals/scales over a drone and checking with a tuner - I really like this, it's interactive and more musical than sitting with an app. I'd be willing to give apps a try if it'd help with the chord progressions side of things, or maybe I just need more time with playing and learning lots of music.. not sure!

 

Caroline

[TheLowDown]

4 hours ago, Caz said:

why are you a lot better with chord progressions than intervals? Do you come to recognise them after learning a lot of music over the years? I would have thought it'd be intervals then chord progressions in terms of levels of difficulty.

I think it's because there are are twice as many intervals to identify in the tests that I do. I'm testing myself on all intervals between unison and octave, whereas I'm only testing myself on 6 common chord progressions. Some intervals are instantly identifiable, such as diminished 5th, whereas some can prove more difficult. I'm also supplementing this with ear training on the bass, fretted and fretless.

 

I think you're going about it the right way by transcribing and other things. Keep it up 👍

 

 

Edited August 17, 2022 by TheLowDown