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part and
memorize
the bass part; then play the song back again and sing along
with the bass, from memory.
Again, return to the start of the song. This time listen to another part—the lead
guitar, or the piano, or the saxophone. It doesn’t matter; pick a part, and follow
it from start to finish. Listen critically, and hear how this part fits with the bass and
the melody and all the other parts. Listen until you have the part memorized.
Repeat this process until you
know
all the parts of the song. Get to the point
where you can sing back any given part, without prompting. Let that song get
inside your brain; become one with the music.
Finally, listen to the entire song again and try to figure out where the chord
changes are. There might be a new chord every 4 beats, or 8, or even 16.
Figure out the time signature (probably 4/4), and then try to lay a map of the
chord changes over the form of the song.
When you’re isolat-
ing the bass line,
you might want to
turn up the bass
(and turn down the treble)
on your audio system, to
better hear the low notes.
Tip
Part 4:
Accompanying
This is how you actively listen to a song. You’re not listening for enjoyment
(you can do that separately); you’re listening to
learn—
and to remember. Once
you can recall a part exactly, from memory, you’re one step closer to figuring
out the notes behind the part, and transcribing it to paper.
Developing Superhearing
As part of your active listening, you have to be able to discern the component
parts of the music. You have to be able to hear discrete pitches and intervals,
hear different rhythms, and even hear the individual pitches within each chord.
Sound difficult? It is—which is why you need to practice.
Hearing Pitch
Lesson 1, Track 2
The first part of the music you need to hear is the pitch. You need to be able to
listen to a pitch, isolate it, and then replicate it. In plain English, that means you
need to be able to sing back any specific pitch you hear in a song. To do this,
you have to develop what is called
tonal memory
, or
pitch memory.
This is simply
the ability to recall a specific pitch, outside the context of the song or melody.
You can develop your tonal memory with this simple exercise. Take a half-full
glass of water and hit it (gently!) with the edge of a spoon. The glass will produce a
distinct pitch. Listen to the pitch, and fix it in your head. Wait until the glass
stops ringing, then wait a few seconds more, then sing or hum the note that you
heard. While you’re singing (or humming), hit the glass again; if your tonal
memory was on target, the second tone generated by the glass will be the same as
the tone you’re singing. If not, try it again—and pay more attention this time.
Repeat this exercise, adding more time between hitting the glass and singing the
note. The longer you can hold the note in your head, the better developed your
sense of tonal memory will be.
Next, try to find that pitch on your instrument. (Use whatever instrument you
like—piano, guitar, trumpet, whatever—it doesn’t matter.) Hit the glass, wait a
minute, sing the pitch, and then try to play that pitch on your instrument. Don’t
worry if you can’t find the pitch right off. You might need to poke around a few
related notes until you find the one that matches what you’re singing. That’s
natural. With practice, you’ll be able to more quickly identify individual tones.
Obviously, you want to verify the note you’re playing with the source—the
ringing glass. Play the note on your instrument while you hit the glass; if you
have the right note, they’ll be in unison.
You can extend this exercise by generating different notes with different objects.
(You can also fill the glass to different levels to produce different pitches.)
When you’re comfortable with your progress, put on a CD and pick a single
note from the melody. Repeat the exercise, this time trying to reproduce that
melody note. Restart the CD to replay the melody and check your accuracy.
158
When you hear notes or
melodies inside your head
(in your inner voice),
you’re
internalizing
the
music.
Note
Chapter 12:
Transcribing What You Hear
159
Hearing Intervals
Lesson 2, Track 11
If you can hear and reproduce a single note, what about two of them?
That’s right: The next step is to develop your tonal memory to decipher and
reproduce pitch intervals.
Before you begin your exercises, you need to develop an internal database of rel-
ative interval relationships. That means internalizing all the different intervals
within a given object—remembering what each interval sounds like.
The best way to do this is to sit down at your instrument and play each interval
until it’s burned into your brain. Play a minor second, and a major second, and a
minor third, and a major third, and so on, until you have each interval committed
to memory. Can you sing a minor third? If not, you need to study some more.
Of course, there are shortcuts you can take. If you can remember specific
snatches of melody, you can associate those melodies with particular intervals.
The following table provides some melodic shortcuts for your interval training:
Intervals Found in Popular Melodies
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