This is Katie Thiroux with discoverdoublebass.com
and here's a short lesson on building your ears and building ear training
you may not think that you have a beautiful voice or professional
voice but that has nothing to do with playing music and making music
but what we all have is a brain and for me the brain is really the central that's my
main instrument it doesn't matter if I learn to play trumpet the technique is going to be
different right but the same information that's in my head is going to come out or if I played
saxophone or trombone but thank goodness we all play the bass because it is the best instrument
so I want to help you train your ears if you feel like you have a difficult time hearing
music or hearing chord patterns the first thing that really helps is sing something
something very simple and see if you could play it on the bass and I guarantee you can it may
take a couple tries you can give yourself a key centre I'm going to do something in C or
so I'm going to sing a couple of notes so I'm going to try and play it
okay so I kind of thought about it first and it was okay because I still had a split in my brain
everything that you play from now on I want you to sing at the exact
moment that you're playing so from now on you're playing what you sing
not singing what you're playing so it happens very very quickly and I I know that's kind of
like a rhetorical kind of statement but rather than you playing something and then kind of
processing it process it here first and it'll happen very fast so now if I sing it and play
it at the same time it makes it so much easier because before I kind of had to think in my
head well I think I was singing the sixth bass that was on I heard this note too much thinking
and especially as a bass player when you're playing gigs and you know loads of chords are
going by you got to be able to think quickly so I would definitely try this sing a couple
phrases so it gets to the point where you can play exactly what you're singing at the same time
that was just some some random mess there but just to show you that it wasn't rehearsed or anything
and this really really helps your ears so you can do it first I would start with yourself start with
your own voice sing a phrase play it on the bass but sing it and play it at the exact same time
and then that really helps when you're starting to transcribe music you hear a solo you know
solo transcription or a bass line and then it becomes you're taking away an extra step of kind
of analyzing it even harmonically or theoretically you take away that one little step and it becomes
easier to put it onto the bass and as bass players another thing that will really help your ears we
have these four strings and it's a huge reference point it's a huge reference point in my life I
don't have perfect pitch at all I have relative pitch I'm pretty sure because of these four notes
so the next thing I want you to do is when you're listening to music when you're away from your
instrument and you kind of you're listening you go wow I wish I knew what key this song was in
and I'm not talking about songs that are that have like tons of changes or maybe are not in a key but
take for example just a blues and you might hear a blues and you go I just don't know what key that
is start to listen for clues even I was listening to I'm pretty sure Oscar Peterson play a blues
first medley in E Flat I think and I remember is because I heard some open G strings so it starts
um it starts in E Flat it's E flat blues
and I remember listening to Ray Brown and I kept hearing open strings and so
it kind of directed me to kind of hear that that's not quite a root but it
was the third and it led me to realize it was in the key of E flat so really
challenge yourself when you're listening to music try and figure out what key it is
another thing you can do as a bass player to start building your ears is singing
those integral parts of the chords that tell us what the chord is so play the root on the bass
um so take a C Blues for example the first chord C7 can you sing the third
and can you sing the rest of the chord so
the flat seven you know the defining parts of the chord or could you sing
can you play the flat seventh and think about what the root is
all these other things that may not seem important as a bass player but
you're playing all these notes right if you're playing a blues
so it totally helps your ears and it I mean it honestly can't hurt at all
I hope you enjoyed this short lesson on ear training and just helping build
your ears if you'd like to learn more go to discoverdoublebass.com or click the link below