You really need to meditate on each note, we have some serious bass zen going on but this is what it takes. I cannot stress enough how important this boring simple exercise is to your ear development. You’ll be singing Do Re Do Re Do Re while your bass is sounding a consistent Do Do Do Do Do – creating a drone. Now once you have that down, repeat it but only play “Do” on your bass. ![]() For example sing and play the following at 40 bpm, changing notes every 2 clicks:ĭoing it over such a long interval is important, you need to really let your ears soak in each tone. Once you feel comfortable that you can sing a scale in tune, focus on each interval. Just make it part of your practice routine, anytime you play a scale you sing it as well. Play along with your instrument as you sing these scales. This is important though, you have to be able to sing these tones in key. ![]() This is the classic Do-Re-Mi drill from grade school, if you don’t remember the notes it goes like this: Part two will take this another step farther, so make a point to work on these exercises in preparation for more. ![]() Without sounding too corny, seriously try to clear your mind and immerse yourself in the individual tones, there’s a lot of subtlety here. I like to think of them as musical meditation. These are also very plain-clothes, salt-of-the-Earth, non-flashy drills. Each one builds on the abilities learned in the last. Also transcription will become much easier and this is one of the most important steps in developing a soloing style for jazz.įor this lesson the exercises are very sequential. If you have developed your ability to hear quickly and accurately, you’ll never be lost in a tune and you can get through most obstacles in a gig on the spot. If you can tell that a bird chirping is higher than a dog barking you can learn this, we just have to work to where our ears can distinguish finer and finer pitch differences.įinally, why bother? In the gigging world the musician with the “biggest” ears wins. Remember that these are all a process of refinement. I make a point to do singing exercises regularly (and I am NOT a trained singer by any stretch of the imagination) and it gets easier over time. Over time I’ve found that these exercises have been extremely useful in my musical development. As a grounded bassist and otherwise instrumental player I don’t really relish the idea of singing a lot… that’s why I’m an instrumentalist, and why no videos are included with this lesson (believe me it’s for the better). I’ll admit that ear training is difficult for me. If you make a regular point to practice ear training it will pay off. I think this is an excuse because ear training can be abstract and difficult, do not believe this. Incredibly, I’ve heard other musician’s say “I don’t want, it means I won’t enjoy music anymore.” WHAT?!! That’s like saying you don’t want to see color because it diminishes your ability to enjoy art. This is also learnable with practice.Įar training will not diminish your ability to enjoy music. minor third, descending diatonic scale, etc. Relative pitch is equally important (and more-so for certain types of playing) and is the art of hearing the relationships between tones even if you don’t know the exact note e.g. ![]() The best analogy is to think of describing different shades of color to people. It’s not that you suddenly can call out every note in every tune rather it gives you a deeper perception of music. Learned perfect pitch is a very subtle thing. A common misconception we’ve got to dispel right away, perfect pitch is learnable, but your expectations need to be reasonable. Ear training is a broad term used to cover two aural developmental practices – perfect pitch and relative pitch. First lets cover a few points about what ear training is and isn’t and then we’ll get to the exercises. It’s a strange concept, but becoming an active and educated listener pays off in a huge way. An important part of every musician’s evolution is ear training.
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