Re: Re: [MUSIC} Intervals (was: playing in other keys .. . and a question . . .)
Posted by: doug <doug@...>
> where I need to go. I can sing it (which I was told is the first part of
> playing
> by ear and transcribing). But I have the HARDEST time figuring out where
> what I hear should be coming from on my bass.
> db
> (Donna)
I won't go into the topic of perfect pitch, we've had yearly raging
debates on that topic on a yearly basis on this list. So let's just
assume that by hook or by crook you figure out the first note; the
question then becomes, how do I translate what I'm hearing in my head into
what's coming out of my amp?
I would suggest that intimately knowing intervals could be extremely
helpful in this area. Basically, it's the ability to hum a bass line and
recognize that the second note is two steps up from the first note, and
the third note is one step up from the second, etc. etc.
Bass Player magazine had a great exercise on this a couple of years back.
For one week, as part of your warm-ups, concentrate on 2nds. Pick a
scale, let's say C. Play C then D, D then E, E then F, up and down the
scale. The key is to sing the note names as you play. I tend to do C to
D for a while, then D to E for a while, etc. to really hammer home the
sound of the interval. (For bonus points, do this exercise with a
metronome to work on timing as well.)
The next week work on 3rds. You might be tempted to alternate between
major 3rds and minor 3rds depending on the note - I would avoid this
strategy. The goal here is not to work on proper chords within a key,
it's to work on distances between two notes and you're using the notes of
the scale for variety. So maybe this one should be two weeks - one week
memorizing the interval between a note and its minor 3rd, the next week
memorizing the interval between a note and its major 3rd.
Over subsequent weeks you work on 4ths, 5ths, 6ths, minor 7ths, and major
7ths.
If you stick with it, you'll begin to notice that as you listen to a bass
line you'll start thinking stuff like "hmm, sounds like they're playing a
root/5th/flatted 7th line over that chord." With continued practice and
experience you'll eventually get to the point that you can imagine a bass
line and sit down and play it almost verbatim (is "verbatim" appropriate
in terms of music?) the first time because you instinctively know the
distances between the notes you hear in your head.
Another thing that I've done to help me learn how to translate what I hear
in my head (the music, not the voices) is I bought a key fob at Radio
Shack that can record up to 10 seconds of "reminders." When I have a good
line pop into my head, or I hear a cool lick on the radio, I sing it into
my key fob so that later that evening when I'm practicing I can remind
myself of what I was thinking earlier in the day. Then I work it out on
the bass and note that "la" to "da" is a third, etc.
Peace,
Doug
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