Playing By Ear: The Benefits of Ear Training for Bassists
Imagine you have five minutes before you hit the stage and your band leader pulls you all aside. He tells you that he’s got a scratchy throat and is lowering the key of the opening song by a whole step. You know the song by memory in the original key and have no chord charts. Here are your options:
- Panic and sweat profusely.
- Keep calm and adapt to the new key.
What would you do?!
There are many benefits of having a good musical ear. When developed, situations like the above will be easy to tackle. Let’s take a look at some other examples.
The Benefits of Ear Training for Bassists
- Music Theory Becomes Easier to Understand
- Being Able to Anticipate
- Making a Quick Recovery After a Mistake
- Adapting to Unexpected Key Changes
Music Theory Becomes Easier to Understand
Have you ever seen a word written down over and over again, only to hear someone say it out loud for the first time and realize you’ve been mispronouncing it? You were probably surprised and thought, “Oh, so that’s how you pronounce that word! I’ve been saying it wrong all this time.”
Seeing a word and hearing how it’s pronounced are two necessary pieces to the puzzle when learning a language. Like English, music is also a language. With a bit of ear training you’ll have those same “ah-ha!” moments in your practice time as well. By building this bridge between music theory and the human ear you’ll not only understand the what, but the how and why notes, intervals, and chords function and sound the way they do, giving you a new level of insight into the organization of music.
As a bass player, this will enhance your ability to make logical choices when constructing your own basslines. In my band, for example, our guitarist/vocalist writes all of our songs. Once he’s written a song he’ll send our drummer and I a demo so we can play along and learn it.
Sometimes he’ll track a bassline, and sometimes he’ll leave the bass out. Since chord charts aren’t provided, that means the audio file is the only way I’m able to learn the song. Without music theory and ear training it would take me forever to learn or craft a solid bassline.
The fusion of music theory knowledge and a good ear allows me to:
- Take a more analytical and creative approach when writing my own part.
- Transcribe prewritten basslines faster.
Being Able to Anticipate
“Being able to anticipate? Great! Um… what exactly are we anticipating?”
Let’s break this down into several sections: chord progressions and sight reading/improvisation.
Chord Progressions
Before we dive in, let’s define what this is. According to Musical U, a chord progression is simply “a sequence of chords played one after another.”
Whether you’re playing jazz or metal (or anything in between), take time to research and understand some common chord progressions. Twelve bar blues, ii V I, and I IV V are a few examples.
Knowing how to play these in any given key will get you far, but knowing what they sound like will give you an even deeper understanding of the context of the tune and how to navigate successfully from start to finish.
Being able to anticipate will also help you reposition your hands correctly to get from Point A to Point B without fumbling over the fretboard.
Sight Reading and Improvisation
For the longest time I wondered why my private trombone instructor told me to “hear the note in my head before I play it” when reading a new piece of music. As a middle schooler, I had no clue what he meant.
Years later I realized the value in this! Being able to hear the note before it’s played will give you confidence in your playing and help you learn songs quicker. Plus, if you’re in a jam session and it’s your turn to improvise a solo, you’ll have a better grasp on which notes will sound good based on your musical surroundings.
Making a Quick Recovery After a Mistake
Let’s face it: messing up sucks, especially during a live set. Regardless of the degree of the mistake, we as musicians tend to be our own harshest critic.
But when this happens, do you fall apart? Are you frantically trying to make eye contact with your bandmates, or playing random notes and hoping you land on the right one?
Or, are you able to keep the groove flowing and get back on track within seconds?
As Victor Wooten puts it: “you are never more than a half step away.” So if you land on a sour note, by moving either up or down one fret you’ll end up on a “right note.” As a bass player, this may not always lead you to the root- you might end up on the third or fifth of the chord. If this is the case, it’s up to you at this point to use your ears, identify intervals, and adjust accordingly.
Adapting to Unexpected Key Changes
Think back to the example mentioned in the intro. In some musical environments, curve balls like this can happen in a heartbeat.
During my time playing for my church’s worship band, there was one Sunday service where our acoustic guitarist played the intro by himself during the final song of our set. The song was in A major but he accidentally started playing in G major. I knew when the piano and the orchestra came in on the chorus (playing in the original key of A), it was a recipe for disaster!
Luckily I was able to transpose on the spot using my ear- it wasn’t perfect by any means, but it got the job done.
At this point you may be asking yourself “Wow, this sounds great! But how do I actually develop a good ear?” Check out this article to discover the ear training method that works best for you. If you want to put your ear to the test, check out this online tool.
So there you have it! I hope you’ll find these tips useful and applicable in your musical adventures.
