@Prof_Thunder Ian,
I took the small black plate off the back of my bass this evening. It had been glued on, at least twice, judging by the colours of the residue, but came off easily with a bit of fingernail prising. This revealed four large countersunk screw heads. I now think the neck is both screwed and glued. For now, I scraped the worst of the glue off the plate and reattached it with just the strap button. Maybe when I next change the strings, I’ll see if I can get the neck off. That could be a long time off.
The ear training proceeds, but any small improvement seems to be swamped by large day-to-day variation. Since starting these tests I’ve become conscious of the endless stream of air traffic overhead - the airport is nearby but under normal conditions my mind has learnt to tune out the background noise.
In fact, there are several factors that affect results:
- air traffic and other external noise
- how tired or alert I am
- how carefully I try
- getting into a bad run
- poor performance at extreme upper range
- poor performance at extreme lower range
- long gaps in testing
- playback equipment
Oddly, headphones don’t seem to offer much advantage, but in any case I am reluctant to develop a dependency on them.
I am still doing many tests verbally: ‘that feels like a straining jump, so it’s probably an octave’, ‘that feels comfortable, so it’s probably a fifth’. Occasionally, I relax and go with feel, or first impressions, but this only lasts until I get something wrong, then something in my thinking tries to second guess my feelings and a bad run ensues. I can get 22 correct responses in a row, then start flailing around as if I had just started learning again.
A private conversation today prompted me to have a go (slightly out of sequence) at the Rhythm Maestro module of Grade 4. I’m finding this easy so far, as might be expected for an old bass player.
I completed the first lesson with just a note to remind myself of the English terms semibreve, minim, crotchet and quaver. (I remember being delighted that my old music text book went at least as far as the hemidemisemiquaver. I think it also had the breve, a two-bar note.)
I ran through the second lesson without error, and have just the seven example songs to analyse. It’s getting late, so I’ll get around to them another day, before tackling lesson 3.
I’m finding this form of ear training (rhythm) so much easier than ear training with pitch intervals. It makes a nice change. Actually, the experience is utterly different.
However, in general, I feel sorry for anyone learning rhythm, or music in general, this way. I’ve picked it up by playing with others or with recordings - copying what I heard without any kind of analysis. I can’t imagine how the innocent learner sees all this material, but from laments in the forum I sense some see a daunting mass of knowledge that must be captured before venturing forth. While not against theory, I am sure the truth is quite different.
1 Like
‘Hemidemisemiquaver’ could be a nice song title 
I agree. The three-part Rhythm Maestro series is a lot of fun. I am relieved to say that I can hear and identify everything correctly (didn’t try the real-life examples yet either), notating rhythms with ties might be a sightly bigger challenge for me.
Actually, this is so much fun that I ordered Justin’s rhythm reading, a second book on rhythm reading from a local bookstore 
1 Like
Yes, it could be one of those counting songs like Ten Green Bottles or On the First Day of Christmas.
On the first day of Christmas
My true love sang to me
A quaver in a trochee
…
A hemidemisemihemidemisemihemidemisemiquaver in a trochee
etc.
Take it away @brianlarsen !
Hehe, I don’t really go for those ‘counting songs’, with the exception maybe of Tsen Brider, which I partly like because of the guitar and I have just enough German to make out the Yiddish.
I’d have to swot up on a lot of theory to write a song based on musical notation, although it could be fun, trying to raise an eyebrow or a laugh with a dirty ditty- perhaps along the lines of an orchestral performance? 
Swelling in the band’s crescendo
Kevin’s crotchet came too soon
Sally quivered with a shiver
and semi-quavered as he crooned…
I’ll get my coat 
2 Likes
The air traffic into Sydney airport this morning has been near continuous, and there is a man cutting concrete just across the road, so I am not too concerned that my latest ear test (77%) is poor compared to the run of recent results. Even wearing noise-cancelling earphones it is hard to focus today.
After nearly two weeks of listening to seven- and twelve-semitone intervals, I see my progress is slow, so rather than jumping to more challenging tests, I will persist at this level until my results are reliably over 90%.
This process has been interesting. The key question is not how good your ear is, but how much better you can make it, and what methods work. I feel I am beginning to have decent answers to those questions.
EDIT two hours later: Illustrating just how much ambient noise affects results: I just did another run, with much less external noise, and scored 95%, my highest yet. I actually identified 96 intervals correctly, but pressed the wrong button on one test.
There’s nothing much to add about my ongoing ear training; I’m logging my results in the chart above and I’m satisfied with the progress so far. Faster progress would be welcome, of course, but I’m in no hurry.
Today, I started playing with a Sonicake Sonicbar Rockstage that my brother lent me recently. It’s one of five little multi-effects units that Sonicake make in this compact format.
(Link removed because ‘rules’).
So far, I like it! It seems easier to play with than the effects in Cakewalk. I don’t know why that should be - probably because of its simplicity (only nine knobs to control four effects). I’m thinking that if I can find settings combinations that give me a small selection of clean, distorted and spacey sounds, then I might try to copy them in Cakewalk, so I can keep them for when I return the unit to my brother. I don’t think I want to buy my own; I’d rather not have the extra hardware clutter where I play.
Wow, I dig all your effort and dedication with ear training. I haven’t been putting in quite the same effort with that. In the past week one thing I found that actually has helped me recognizing intervals has been trying to learn to sing. I got an idea from Justin’s lessons on how to not suck at singing, the tip about trying to sing “ahhh” a note on your guitar and trying to match the pitch. Then I found that if you look at tabs for a song on Ultimate-Guitar, the official ones also have a vocals tab… so then I figured I could “ahhh” sing and match the pitch of my guitar while playing the melody present in the vocals tab… then try to sing the actual words. Doing this takes a lot of repetition over the same short sentences of melody, and it’s easy to recognize the intervals present when you’re dealing with maybe 3-4 notes at a time and internalizing the tonality changes both with your guitar and voice at the same time.
I haven’t done such a stringent test of my ear training results as you have, but I am definitely better at singing the tone changes between different intervals and I have a suspicion that relates to being able to hear them as well it will continue in an upward trajectory.
Learning to sing is a totally new thing for me and quite tough because my range is on the very very low bass end. I’ve started with a few Johnny Cash tunes.
For example, in “Ring of Fire”, when he sings “I fell in-to a burning ring of fire”
The tabs look like:
Instead of playing it on one string, I play it on two - because the intervals are easier for me to understand that way from learning the major scale positions, and because I don’t need to worry about sliding my hand to the right note with timing (while looking at tabs) as quick as I can do on multiple strings.
In this case other than the notes at fret 5 and 7, the 9 would be fret 4 on string 4, 12 would be fret 7 on string 4, etc.
From there I know “I - fell” is a major third, “Fell - in” is a Perfect 5th, “A-burn” is down a major 2nd (full tone), etc. Doing that over and over trying to work on my voice seems to help recognize them a bit better, at least that’s my theory.
1 Like
Ryan, thanks for dropping in. One reason I am sharing all this data is that when I was looking around for guidance on how to improve my ear, there was a dearth of real information: some people seemed to suggest it could just happen by an act of will, and very few people seemed to acknowledge the level of difficulty I was having.
I completely agree with you on the subject of singing as a way to learning intervals and pitches. I now sometimes find myself unconsciously humming the two pitches in the interval tests I’m doing, and it definitely helps. Also, I think there must be lots of cognitive connections between all pitch-related activities: playing, singing and hearing. Even in my early days of messing about with busking songs on an acoustic, I found that at least trying to sing helped my playing. My vocal range is also low, which makes trying to emulate high pitches a bit of a strain, and this will probably ultimately limit my song choices.
Yeah, I would play that Johnny Cash line on two strings too, for the same reasons. And as you say, a little musical knowledge seems to help you reach the right pitch.
Just as an anecdote - when I used to play bass, I would often be quite hoarse at the end of a gig, and not really know why, because I didn’t even do back-up vocals. It was because I used to sing my own bass lines to myself as I was playing. I was so into it that it became an all-round experience: singing, playing and moving on stage.
You may not be quite as diligent as I’ve been on ear training but oh man! you’ve worked hard on so many other aspects of guitar - and your results are truly remarkable.
1 Like
Thanks Mark! I’ve definitely put in some obsession over it as well. It does kind of seem like there’s not too much concrete information on what works and what doesn’t for different types of people and how they got there - just that it’s important. I’ve been using a couple apps called Function Ear Trainer and Complete Ear Training - the former focused on identifying notes in various octaves and the latter on intervals. I only use them for a few minutes a day, though. Definitely not as fun as guitar.
That’s interesting, I’ve noticed I move my lips to what I’m playing on guitar sometimes but I don’t think I verbalize anything unless it’s cries of pain when trying to flub my way through free bird.
As for the vocal range, apparently the most common type of male voice is baritone - A2 to A4, while the lowest vocal range (bass) is typically between E2 to E4. I haven’t been officially tested or anything but based on my experimentation with the guitar I can easily hold a note about a whole step below the E2 and could probably only reach about a C#4 at my highest without straining. It’s a bit work in progress for sure. When I talk to people in person I often have to repeat myself, at first I thought because I was mumbling but came to realize it was because I’m talking too low.
Yes, you clearly are a fellow obsessive! When reading your LL, I’ve often thought, I don’t think I can work that hard on guitar!
I’ll look at those apps you mention, because I’ve always found it good practice to attack problems from multiple angles at once.
So it seems we have the same vocal range. I’ve also had a history of having to repeat myself frequently. It’s partly that I just talk quietly too.
I’ve been learning that I can push the top end of my vocal range up just by experimenting with position and tenseness and breathing and whatever else seems to make a difference. It’s all new to me. I don’t think I’ll ever be interested enough to seek some proper voice training, but there is clearly some unused capacity to be exploited.
I’ve downloaded and quickly tried the two ear training apps that @theryanbamford suggested:
(Links removed because ‘rules’).
They could prove to offer useful breaks from my stricter regimen. A change is as good as a rest. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Another arrow in the quiver. A cliche for every occasion. And so on.
I think I’ll split my time 80, 10, 10, see how it goes, and reassess in a week or two.
1 Like
Awesome! Let us know how those work out at all. Functional Ear trainer is pretty interesting - I’m at a point where I can hear a random note from a C scale in any octave and know which note it is at around 85% accuracy, which is a big improvement from having trouble with just half the scale in one octave. It’s weird how it works out, you can hear the note and tell like how much tension is in the frequency or something and become quite accurate at telling how far it needs to go to either resolve up or down to the tonic.
I sense only minor progress, over the last four to six weeks, in the quality of play in my current repertoire of material:
- Heaven - Talking Heads
- Greensleeves
- Happy Birthday
- Free Fallin’ - Tom Petty
And to be honest, I haven’t given much time to other material I’d intended to work on:
- One - U2
- The One I Love - REM
I didn’t get too far with the Complete Ear Training app before it started asking for money. I was not yet in any position to estimate whether it was worth it, or whether I would like it. I’m averse to setting up yet another online account at the best of times, and this app had just not done enough to win me over.
I fared slightly better with Functional Ear Training, but now I’m stuck. I’m at a certain point in the Intro Game section and am not scoring well enough to progress. As time goes by, I am losing interest bit by bit. Gamification is a two-edged sword.
Something I’ve noticed across both apps and the website I’m using: variation in the timbres of the tones can be confusing at times. Moreover, in the website I feel the velocity (in MIDI terms) of notes is inconsistent, and this sometimes has the effect of reducing or enhancing the feeling of tension between two notes. Such effects impair performance, yet I recognise that it’s kind of useless to have a good ear with only perfect tones. The same goes for background noise - you’ve got to be able to cope with it. It’s like machine learning: a bit of noise (literally, in this case) gives more robust results.
Under my current ear training regimen I’ve approximately halved my error rate in four weeks (24% to 12%). I expect this exponential decay pattern to continue ad infinitum, which will be good. Then I remember that I’m still only doing the simplest test I could devise, and there’s a mountain yet to climb - aaaaaahhh, I’m feeling a touch of frühjahrsmüdigkeit (my new word).
I have continued to enjoy playing with the Sonicake RockStage. It seems to make finding sounds easy. The real physical controls help too.
I have had a week-long drop-off in ear training performance. This setback has come as quite a shock, as I’d learnt to expect slow improvement, not decline. I may have got complacent, or I may have been over-confident and rushed things a bit, or its the dreaded frühjahrsmüdigkeit. 
Whatever the cause, I have returned to a slower way of doing things, and hope to see a return to form.
Sorry, I’m a bit late to your learning log. It’s instructive - a good thing in my book, as there is something there for a lot of us to learn from.
If middle C is the top of your range (it’s mine too although I think I’m managing to push it a bit without getting a sore throat) and you have 2 octaves below it, then I’d say for all practical reasons you are a bass. If you can get down a bit lower, say to the Bb, A or even Ab, then you are getting into Basso Profundo territory - not many of us about.
1 Like
Thanks for your thoughts, Simon. My preconception of what a bass sounds like was probably something like Paul Robeson singing Swing Low Sweet Chariot. But I think he may have been basso profundo.
I just had another go and found I could hold a B1, but there’s no real volume or projection to it.
By the way, I read quite a bit of your LL earlier this week and was impressed with the quantity of detail you capture. I think, for those who are inclined to go into things in depth, this is a good resource.
EDIT: I later realised I was thinking, not so much of your LL, but of your very detailed notes here, for example: "Always Remember" - an original song by Simon Calverley (aka simon_plays_bass) - #5 by simon_plays_bass
I’m trying to make my own LL something that will provide an unequivocal picture of where I am up to. I like being able to refer back and see solid evidence of progress, otherwise I tend to dismiss it and feel like I’m not getting anywhere. I thought that as I grew older I would mellow and become less driven, but it doesn’t appear to have happened yet.
1 Like
I thought I ought to mention that last night I started a big new project - learning the guitar and bass parts to Marquee Moon by Television. I bought this album when it was released and I still have it. Listening to it for the first few times, I felt I was hearing something completely new - no flashy virtuosity, just amazingly interesting interplay between the instruments, and a whole much greater than all the parts. This, the title song, combined a new-wave edginess with great feel in a way that just transports the listener for well over ten minutes.
The song has parts of varying difficulty, and I’m happily playing around with some of the easiest at the moment. Where am I learning this stuff? A free highly-detailed eight-video course on YouTube. I am unsure of the etiquette regarding non-Justinian online teaching resources, so I won’t provide a link. DM me if you want more.
I am so far on the day four video, having just learnt Richard Lloyd’s first solo and the nice chords Tom Verlaine played under it.
I will readily admit that I’ve been pretty disconcerted by the fall in ear training that occurred this week. I don’t know whether it has anything to do with the coincidence that I started experimenting with two other ear training apps, but I do wonder whether it was due to me growing accustomed to other tests and consequently forgetting the sound of my usual ones. Hard to say, but as a bit of a test today I ran an intensive session of 600 tone intervals, and sure enough, my scores started to get better again, reaching 93.
So then I thought I would push on and try the next most challenging test, mixing 4ths, 5ths and octaves. I anticipated a lower score, but I actually scored 97, my best yet. What I’m particularly happy about is that the newly introduced 4ths sound so different from what I’m used to that there is no doubt about what they are. This is what I’d hoped would happen. I scored no errors on 4ths at all.
1 Like