Just got back frum ear training. My teacher is really nice! Lessons are only a half hour but she had to get a bunch of books. we started by trying to figure out where i am in terms of knowledge.

She asked me if i knew about intervals and i told her not a clue. Then when when we were doing that she started referring to major and minor and i got confused. But it turns out i knew what she was talking about i just didnt know they were called that.

Basically i will finally learn theory! i have been without theory since starting the bass. I was given a book that told what notes are where and how to read notes from the lines. and i was on my own from there.

so she told me to study intervals and 'find songs that will help you remember what they sound like' We just did majors today but next time we do minors and melody playback- She would play something on the piano and i would try and play it back on the bass.

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"Of course it's hard to see the sun when you're covering your eyes"

I'm late to the party... 

I've been playing the violin on and off for almost 25 years.

Brittany, now that you've started class, I hope you have lots of fun. Also, good luck! I hope you learn how to read music. I'm a music geek, but it would be totally awesome to me to be able to read the bass clef. I'm sad to say I don't remember the last time I played a scale on the violin, and right now I'm playing in some weird key signatures...I think six sharps.

And I took two semesters' worth of ear training at college - we had to compare intervals, write down the music we heard, play chords on the piano, hum things back to the professor, things like that. I still remember the songs we learned to teach us certain intervals. "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" is a fifth, the NBC theme is a sixth, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is an octave...

Paula, I'm not sure I understand what you mean about everyone being born with perfect pitch; could you explain your theory again?

I do know how to read music! lol but i aint good at reading treble clef. And it's interesting that you mention those songs because thats exactly what we were doing! She only gave me a few and told me to go home and find songs for the other ones but im so sick right now i havent even thought about anything more than "how do you get the taste of benalyn to go away?!" haha

lol do you think i could cheat and have you tell me some of the songs for the intervals? please She gave me twinkle twinkle for fifth and amazing grace for forth(i am trying to find a better one because i've never actually listened to it) and seventh sounds 'off' or like a train, and eighth is over the rainbow.

 I think what Paula meant is perfect pitch is more like a skill you develop and some are merely faster learners than others but everyone is capable, right?
 

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"Of course it's hard to see the sun when you're covering your eyes"

Perfect pitch depends on what the count is.  If it's 2/0, throw a curve high and outside, try to catch the outside corner.  0/3, throw a fastball right down the pipe, there'll be no swing.  1/3 or 2/3, throw high and in inside the strike zone.  1/2 or 2/2, try a fork ball.

If the count is 3/4, 4/4 or 12/8 ask what key you're supposed to be in and take a solo.

Okay, it's so late it's early.  Sorry for the bad humour.

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But I know I'm going to do it again!
Oh Yeah!
Robbie

...huh?...@.@???................................OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Roflmao! it took me a long time to get that haha sorry im sick and my minds a little fuzzy...

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"Of course it's hard to see the sun when you're covering your eyes"

Well, when you can read treble and bass clef equally well, then move on to alto clef. I know the basic premise (it sounds like a seventh below treble clef) but it's hard for me to read.

As for perfect pitch, I don't think it's necessarily a skill you can develop. There's such thing as absolute pitch, which in most people's opinions, is impossible to learn. That's when you hear a note and tell what note it is automatically.

Then there's relative pitch, which I think is possible to develop even though I don't want to think so. (That's because I have it and want to think I was born with it and I'm special, heh.) That's what some people seem to think is when you hear a note and can find another note from comparing the intervals. But to me that's divided into two versions: the kind where someone plays a note, tells you what note it is, and you can figure out any other note as comparing it to that other note. Or, what I have, an A440 running through my head, where I can compare any note to said A440 running through my head. Does that maybe mean I have absolute pitch because I hear the note in my head?

The bridge of "Over the Rainbow" is a third ("Someday I'll wish upon a star...") My elementary school fire alarm was a minor second - yuck ;) The piece I'm listening to on hold just played an A. I'll get back to you on more intervals another time.

EDITED TO ADD: I just did some research and it appears that having ABSOLUTE pitch now means you NEED NO EXTERNAL REFERENCE NOTE and having RELATIVE PITCH means you NEED AN EXTERNAL REFERENCE NOTE. So what I have is now called ABSOLUTE PITCH. Which makes me feel better about myself ;) And I agree with Paula that it is possible to learn what is now called RELATIVE PITCH.

welcome rusty nation!

that is the basic 'jist' (who came up with that word?!?) of "pitch". i could be absolutley, completely wrong, but the way i was taught is that the term 'perfect pitch' only means that one can distinguish a pitch as higher/lower than another.

so what you related about absolute, and relative would be spot on.

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it's not so bad.

**before you get mad at someone, walk a mile in their shoes. Because then you will be a mile away, and you will have their shoes**

Paula, in converse to what you were taught, I was taught that "perfect pitch" was that someone could play you a note and you could identify it without any help, or that someone could tell you to produce a specific note and you could do so. I'm assuming that the idea of someone learning to be able to distinguish a pitch as being higher or lower than another as 'perfect pitch' is just a new way of thinking that's come about in the last few years.

(I'm jealous that you're in a high school orchestra; my high school didn't have one.)

 

Another Cool music thread!!!!

First off...Brittany, you chose an awesome instrument...I minored in music performance on Bass. 

One of the difficult parts about bass is that the physical spacing/distance between the intervals is so much larger than any of the other string instruments...That means you have soo much more space to be out of tune. What size bass are you playing on right now?  the other interesting thing about bass and I suppose the modern bass is that it is tuned in 4ths where the violin, viola and cello are tuned in fifths.  I'm sure that this tuning came about for various reasons in the merging of three string basses, five string basses, period instruments, etc... and some bass players do actually tune in fifths.  I suspect they (the bass world) settled on 4ths due to spacing between intervals in the lower registers but I'm sure there is more to it than just spacing.

That is great that you are working on ear training.  If you are working on intervals, it sounds like you are developing "relative" pitch which is extremely important to any musician.  With relative pitch, you are determining the distance between two notes such as 3rds, 4th's, 5ths, etc... minor 3rds.. which also helps in developing chord structure in classical and modern music.  Sadly, I'm am a little out of practice identifying intervals, but the earlier you develop it, the better your musicianship skills will develop.

Sorry for the long rant.  I'm just excited to see other bass players out there.  I went to a Victor Wooten concert last night and am still pumped up.

OMFB!!! Guess what happened to me today!! - The music teacher who taught me to play bass a few years ago- Patrick Moore, he is my favorite teacher cuz he was so enthusiastic and really supportive of playing bass.  I havent ever met someone who encouraged me as much as him, he left to live in Calgary to be with his grandkids, but he drove up to Bawlf to see everybody! One student, a friend of a friend of mine (lol tales of the cryptkeeper episodes are flying back to me) cried when she saw him, thats how great a guy he is, so we got to talk it was really cool. But ya that made my day.

 

hey Kayakbear! that's awsome that you know so much about the bass, a lot of that flew right over my head lol, but ya i think my stand-up is 3/4 maybe... and my acoustic one i have no idea but it is a micheal kelly dragonfly and its so pretty *tear* i love my bass like Gir (Invader Zim) loves his piggy.  (lol i wonder how many people are gunna read that and be like huhÉ

ERG! this really bugs me when your keyboard starts to do this - ÉÉÉǨÈ:À anytime you press like a question mark or quotation marks...Does anyone know how to get rid of thisÉÉÉ 

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"Of course it's hard to see the sun when you're covering your eyes"

Brittany! thats so cool about seeing your old teacher. im lucky, my fav elementary school teacher comes to my highschool on thursdays as an assistant, and a student teacher from my freshman year has replaced the middle school teacher (who was less than spectacular) and i see her all the time 'cause i 'tutor' orchestra students there. she's great!

rusty, im thinking that 'new thought' theory is probably correct, i beleive its because people were referring to 'perfect' pitch as a innate talent, that some had, and some didnt. the problem with that theory was/is that no one comes from utero saying '440 is an A!'. tee hee.

now, i could be totally wrong because i generally fail at music theory, but thats how it was recently explained to me.

high school orchestra rocks... we're like band geeks but 934785635896983624986 times cooler.

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it's not so bad.

**before you get mad at someone, walk a mile in their shoes. Because then you will be a mile away, and you will have their shoes**

A Micheal Kelly Dragonfly bass!!!  They have really cool inlays on the the neck. Do you have fret less or fretted?  I had a firefly bass for a short time when I was trying to find the right acoustic sound for some music.  Micheal Kelly finds some really nice quilted maple for their instruments.  I ended up building an electric/semi acoustic bass to do what I wanted so I no longer have the firefly.

You should post pictures of your basses on the "Fiddle Diddle" thread.   

How long have you been playing bass??

O.K., so I have to ask...... Invader Zim??  I am one of the Huh's???

I believe Double Bassist and possibly the ISB (international society of bassists) publish articles on ear training/intonation etc.. in their quarterly journals.  Some bookstores carry Double Bassist (usually the ones that carry Strad)

We may have to open up the Bass thread so everyone can get together and discuss all the Basics....

Are there any other bass players on the OKP??????

lol, YES!! Another bass player, i found one!! I have the 5 string fretted, the inlay is pearl and albany apparently. i thought about the firefly, but the dragonfly was just so pretty *tear* It sounds AMAZING when i recorded a few songs with the band im in the person doing the recording (well seasoned knowledgable guy) said my bass had a wonderful sound to it. The techy at the local music store showed me how to adjust the bow of the neck, but i still dont trust myself lol.

I will try to take some pictures of my basses soon, we'll see how my weekend turns out for me.

 I have been playing bass since the beggining of grade 9 and am now half way through grade 11(not long, 2 1/2 yrs) I havent had an actual 'bass teacher' i was given a book that told me all the notes and some sheet music 

 i really wanted bass lessons but the music store no longer offers them so they suggested ear trainging and its going good, yesterday we practices intervals but she mixed em all up and i had to say if it was going up or down whether it was major or minor and if was a 2nd, 3rd, 4th ect to octave. I only got two wrong out of like 11-12. And the ones i got wrong were only a half step off!

lol we should start a thread called the Bassist Support Group lol, Giutare hero 3, there are sayings on the loading screen and one said "You seem to be having trouble with your bass amp, i can gear you." I almost cried lol it was right after we recorded and in the final ting, you cant hardly hear me. *tear*

(sorry that was so long!!)

[Edited to Add]: Oh and the Invader Zim thing lol - the best cartoon you will ever watch lol! it is one of those things that needs to be seen to be understood heres a sample...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWu-50HbhgQ

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"Of course it's hard to see the sun when you're covering your eyes"

Im looking into getting a bass eventually to follow up my guitar, so this has all been really interesting!

But im mainly posting to say that invader zim is the greatest thing since...ever

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When the first caveman drove in from the drags
Didn’t know what would go with the bacon and the eggs
Must have met a genius, got it in his head
Plug the toaster in the wall, buy a bag of bread
Make toast.
YEAH, TOAST!

VOLO!!!  Where ya bin b'y?

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In the social order, I accept the bottom rung, until the wine is pouring and the Lord commands a song!