Story from changing from TABS to EAR PLAYING only.

[TomiPaldanius]

Shawlie.

Sorry if I reveal here too much while you are working on the song.

Nice to see you working on this. It is not easy but once you know how to do it and learn the skill it will be the greatest skill you have as a musician.

There is many approaches learning songs. I am excited every time someone shows a song or music I've never heard before.

I cannot name chords by listening (don't have perfect pitch) but certain chord progressions are already pre programmed. I already mentioned Still Got The Blues that it has that II-V-I idea and I certainly heard that at the end of the original version.

I am not going to reveal all the info for you but lets say Still Got The Blues goes basically like this:

Dm7 - G - Cmaj7 - Fmaj7 - Bm7b5 - E - Am

When I write the chords it might feel confusing but this is a basic way moving chords in thousands of songs. And try that same from Gm7 (transcribe the chords to Gm).

At the beginning of the song the chords are pretty much inside the key but there is very used trick also when the tonality is changed from D major to D minor.

I would figure out the chords and structure first and then the melody out from chords. It is faster that way but to learn phrasing and good melody playing I also suggest recording rhythm track and play melody only and then create solo guitar version.

I hope this helped. What chords you got to the beginning part (original version)?

Originally Posted by shawlie

That now (in)famous quote, I sometimes think of it. But then I realize that if say Leonard Cohen was unable to tab out something like "Hot Type" by Michael Hedges after a a few listens, it wouldn't really lower my opinion of Cohen or his music.

But more I think of it, I've been trying to work things out by ear once in a while. The easy little melodies are a little easier, but often those even give me troubles. Knowing chords in the keys (and the more obvious progressions) helps me to figure out the general chords for things and strumming along to cetain sections of pop songs on the radio goes ok (well, by the time I have a bit of it figured out, the song is over).

To try more (melodies) I spent the Saturday trying to figure out the theme to "The House of Elliot". Loved the song when the series came out, kind of been in my head for the past 20 years (was it that long ago..?).

elliot -you tube/clarinet
elliot - original theme

I started with the slower clarinet version in F and used the real version for the second (minor) section (in D, but transposed it to F - the first section fits kind of nice in F with a bit of alternating bass style).

I found it extremely difficult. The very first few lines - this is a type of melody I've played lots of times, even probably made some up like that, but it sounded so foreign and strugled to find out what it was. And couldn't, not properly. I had the first section more or less - but only some of it was right, many other things not.

So my wife had to help me (she whistles it once or twice and works it out quickly). It was so hard to hear especially how "wide" the melody can be. Might try the second section today, see if I can work it out without help.

No idea why I can't hear it (but I can't sing it either, might help if I could) but perhaps with practice. Really didn't expect it to be so hard.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by shawlie

That now (in)famous quote, I sometimes think of it. But then I realize that if say Leonard Cohen was unable to tab out something like "Hot Type" by Michael Hedges after a a few listens, it wouldn't really lower my opinion of Cohen or his music.

But more I think of it, I've been trying to work things out by ear once in a while. The easy little melodies are a little easier, but often those even give me troubles. Knowing chords in the keys (and the more obvious progressions) helps me to figure out the general chords for things and strumming along to cetain sections of pop songs on the radio goes ok (well, by the time I have a bit of it figured out, the song is over).

To try more (melodies) I spent the Saturday trying to figure out the theme to "The House of Elliot". Loved the song when the series came out, kind of been in my head for the past 20 years (was it that long ago..?).

elliot -you tube/clarinet
elliot - original theme

I started with the slower clarinet version in F and used the real version for the second (minor) section (in D, but transposed it to F - the first section fits kind of nice in F with a bit of alternating bass style).

I found it extremely difficult. The very first few lines - this is a type of melody I've played lots of times, even probably made some up like that, but it sounded so foreign and strugled to find out what it was. And couldn't, not properly. I had the first section more or less - but only some of it was right, many other things not.

So my wife had to help me (she whistles it once or twice and works it out quickly). It was so hard to hear especially how "wide" the melody can be. Might try the second section today, see if I can work it out without help.

No idea why I can't hear it (but I can't sing it either, might help if I could) but perhaps with practice. Really didn't expect it to be so hard.

Have you tried using some assistance? I couldn't do it without this:
http://www.seventhstring.com/
- well, I probably could, but with many things it would take so long and be so frustrating I'd probably give up.
With software that lets you slow things down - as well as select and loop, change pitch (or change octave), sometimes remove vocals, etc - hearing details becomes much easier. In fact, it's very hard to go wrong, and I've very rarely encountered anything so complicated that it couldn't be disentangled with the help of that program.

Regarding the theme of this thread, it's still about using your ear. The program does give visual aids, and will try to guess chords for you, but really it's just about helping you listen, in the same way that microscopes and telescopes help you see.

[JanVigne]

"Or would here be interest for live online conference? Forums are good but I like to explain ear training and the skill to learn by ear with real music. I can arrange a live conference room."



My guess would be this won't be easy to coordinate with everyone's time schedules. Good idea though.

[rick-slo]

Shawlie, stick with the F clarinet version as the key fits much better for the guitar. Some time it is fastest
to get an outline first and then sweat the details - the details pop out much easier once you get the general
flow. For this one I would figure out the chords one small part at a time -there are many repeats of the same
chord progressions naturally. For this I got F -Bb- F - C7 - F - C7 (I-IV-I-V7-I-V7) starting out. Get how many beats is each chord played.
Hum the melody over the chords to see if it fits properly. Get one part down, then move on. Unless there major
switches in the song, it usually gets easier to figure out as you go due to repeats, etc..

[dorable]

Originally Posted by JanVigne

"Or would here be interest for live online conference? Forums are good but I like to explain ear training and the skill to learn by ear with real music. I can arrange a live conference room."



My guess would be this won't be easy to coordinate with everyone's time schedules. Good idea though.

There are always options. There's (at least) one youtube instructor who occasionally uses Spreecast to host live Q&A sessions. The advantage of that is that if you miss the session for whatever reason it's archived on the site so that you can watch (or rewatch) later.

That said, yes there would be interest.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by shawlie

To try more (melodies) I spent the Saturday trying to figure out the theme to "The House of Elliot". Loved the song when the series came out, kind of been in my head for the past 20 years (was it that long ago..?).

elliot -you tube/clarinet
elliot - original theme

I started with the slower clarinet version in F and used the real version for the second (minor) section (in D, but transposed it to F - the first section fits kind of nice in F with a bit of alternating bass style).

I found it extremely difficult. The very first few lines - this is a type of melody I've played lots of times, even probably made some up like that, but it sounded so foreign and strugled to find out what it was. And couldn't, not properly. I had the first section more or less - but only some of it was right, many other things not.

So my wife had to help me (she whistles it once or twice and works it out quickly). It was so hard to hear especially how "wide" the melody can be. Might try the second section today, see if I can work it out without help.

No idea why I can't hear it (but I can't sing it either, might help if I could) but perhaps with practice. Really didn't expect it to be so hard.

An additional point:
Reasons this tune is hard:
1. Blue notes. Quite a few of the notes are not pitched dead on, but swooped up to from a half-step below, and then not settled on long enough before going to a different note entirely.
On guitar you need to bend notes to get the effect accurately; normally that's easy enough, but this tune moves fairly fast, even in the slow version; and (depending on key) the notes that need to be bent may not be as easy on guitar as on violin or clarinet.
2. Rhythm. It's in swing feel, with plenty of syncopation.
3. Tempo/ensemble. The original version is very fast. But the slow one is played in unison by several clarinet students, meaning that pitch and timing - especially on those blue notes - is not always in sync.

All these things make it hard to (a) hear correctly, (b) notate correctly, and (c) play correctly (on guitar). And that's just the melody!

Not impossible by any means, but its apparent simplicity is deceptive. (Then there's the unusual change from major to parallel minor after 10 seconds or so, and some unusual chord changes...)

[shawlie]

Tomi, Rik en Jon - thanks very much for the advice and ideas. Also the link to the program. I managed to slow down the original to about half speed in a music program - more or less still in tune, too, and it was a huge help. But hard to listen to like that (the violin is rough on the ears then) - will maybe try and see about using something else. And Jon - the bend-notes, not sure how to put them in, I just made it very simple and went to the "blue" notes themselves.

I don't want to de-rail this thread, of course - it is just lately there seems much discussion about ear vs. tab (guess there always is) and reading the posts made me really want to give it a go with something a bit more involved than standard folk tunes. So perhaps I can post what I have so far - and then if I need help, I can begin another thread once I have more (so to keep this one more on a general discussion - more to the story of the original poster).

And hope you will forgive the irony of posting a page of tab here...

It was confusing to work out the melody and a simple bit of arrangement at the same time in two different keys. I mostly stayed with the one in F - but based it on the one in D (which added confusion). I have the first part in D also a bit figured out with a Shubb on the 2nd fret, not covering the low E (dropped D, no streches).

In D I have (like Rik pointed out):
D, G, (C#7), D, A7, D, A7 (the C#7 is kind of a step up to the D - based on the version I worked out in F).
Then: Dm, Gm, Dm, Bb, Dm, E(7), A(7) Think the chords are ok, not sure about the Bb and E7.

Then it seems to have a decending progression in the bass, but maybe some are inversions of chords, but the melody there is going to take time...

The tab I worked out is the one in F (section 1 and 2 of the real version). The first part is simple, but the second part is wishful-thinking, I'm afraid, not sure I'd ever be able to actually play it (and probably needs thought-out differently if it's correct at all, that is - might need chord shapes higher up the neck - it's mostly just melody now). But a simple version is here:
House of Elliot in F

Edit: I couldn't get things like triplets to work in the program, so parts of it are maybe not correctly written the way it is now, but hop it makes sense.

Again - I really appreciate the advice, and hope to work on it more using that advice. The thread was a nice way to get me trying something like this - hope to maybe make a complete version and will post it in another thread in this "Play" section.

What I did learn - learning from tab is 100 times easier (well, for me)... but it took no effort to memorize this (cause it took so long to work out) and I don't think I'll forget it for a long while.

[jersey]

Here's the Tommy Emmanuel interview with the quote. It's linked to the precise time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nIENUNSBts&t=32m57s

I started a thread a while ago to discuss this issue, and now that I've thought about it some more, I agree with Tommy. If you want to go to the next level as a musician, you have to hone your ear without tab.

However that does not mean that tab is useless.

[mr. beaumont]

Ridiculousness. Learn by any and all means. Yes, a musician's ear can often be their best asset...but you must train your ear. And that takes time...

"Any all or nothing approach is crap."
--me

[rick-slo]

Shawlie, good job on the tab you linked to but here is the way to express the timing:

[TomiPaldanius]

Shawlie (and others). I have to say that I have pretty much different approach to ear training and how it should be done. I don't say is there right or wrong way to do it but I don't see a reason to tab out songs. I see a reason understanding them. Anyhow I must be very much minority here.

What I would like to see more than tabs is to hear you playing. Recording is the best way to really know where you are at. There is no excuses. You do it how you do it at that moment. You can hear if student hasn't done his homework. You can hear if student has reasonable sense of melody, you can hear if student has developed set of pre learned technique patterns etc. It's all there in actual playing.

I had a look at the song this morning and recorded it for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TGMQqPVGbc

It is important to find the "meat" from songs. When I heard Tommy Emmanuel playing Mozart Variations my basic university student attitude was that it was wrong. That was not the way it is written. Later I understood that anyone can take their personal approach to the songs. I was looking how he played it instead of feeling it. Music is all about emotion.

I would not waste time in life to nothing else than developing the skill from ground up to the point that I can play any song and learn it fast. I did not have any idea how to get there first but that is now my only goal as a teacher to my students also.

Tommy Emmanuel told me about his improvisation and said he don't know what scale he is playing or is it mixolydian mode or something. Same with Larry Carlton for example. They hear music.

Same with this musical example. I hear phrases, basslines, rhythm...

It is like something says to you "Hey Tommy I love your playing alot and you do it extremely well". Can you repeat that sentence after hearing it once and phrase it same way it was said to you? I think you can because you learned a language. But if someone says to you same thing in Polish or other language you don't first understand what the person said and it will be very hard to pronounce the sentence same way aswell. If you have developed musical ear, you can almost get there but it will be impossible to remember.

I really hope you get my point here.

[rick-slo]

There are different approaches to advancement and it would be misleading to present what was demonstrated as mainly the result of some ear training method. It's a combination of technic and ear. It would be hard to sort out how much was do to one or the other in the results. A good ear is nice but will take you only so far without technical ability since even though you may hear it in your mind you can't effectively put it into action with your fingers.

[Paikon]

Originally Posted by TomiPaldanius

It is important to find the "meat" from songs. When I heard Tommy Emmanuel playing Mozart Variations my basic university student attitude was that it was wrong. That was not the way it is written. Later I understood that anyone can take their personal approach to the songs. I was looking how he played it instead of feeling it. Music is all about emotion.

Music Is all about emotion but imagine a string quartet playing different notes from what its written.

When you play alone or with support of musicians who play the harmony then you have " freedom of expression " like Paco on Aranjuez concerto but classical musicians must express themselves through specific notes and thats the beauty of it....if they don't play the specific notes its not classical its jazz or something else.

[TomiPaldanius]

I totally agree that there is different ways to success. One obvious one I've learned from the greats is that try to get rid of tabs and other written notation as much and as fast as possible.

Originally Posted by rick-slo

There are different approaches to advancement and it would be misleading to present what was demonstrated as mainly the result of some ear training method. It's a combination of technic and ear. It would be hard to sort out how much was do to one or the other in the results. A good ear is nice but will take you only so far without technical ability since even though you may hear it in your mind you can't effectively put it into action with your fingers.

[JonPR]

Originally Posted by shawlie

Tomi, Rik en Jon - thanks very much for the advice and ideas. Also the link to the program. I managed to slow down the original to about half speed in a music program - more or less still in tune, too, and it was a huge help. But hard to listen to like that (the violin is rough on the ears then) - will maybe try and see about using something else. And Jon - the bend-notes, not sure how to put them in, I just made it very simple and went to the "blue" notes themselves.

This shows some standard ways of showing bends, in both tab and notation:
http://www.frankgambale.com/guitar_notation_legend.pdf
Notice there are differences depending on whether the first note has an appreciable time value (16th, 8th, 1/4), or whether it's a negligible grace note (very quick bend).

Originally Posted by shawlie

I don't want to de-rail this thread, of course - it is just lately there seems much discussion about ear vs. tab (guess there always is) and reading the posts made me really want to give it a go with something a bit more involved than standard folk tunes. So perhaps I can post what I have so far - and then if I need help, I can begin another thread once I have more (so to keep this one more on a general discussion - more to the story of the original poster).

Good idea.

Originally Posted by shawlie

And hope you will forgive the irony of posting a page of tab here...

It was confusing to work out the melody and a simple bit of arrangement at the same time in two different keys. I mostly stayed with the one in F - but based it on the one in D (which added confusion). I have the first part in D also a bit figured out with a Shubb on the 2nd fret, not covering the low E (dropped D, no streches).

In D I have (like Rik pointed out):
D, G, (C#7), D, A7, D, A7 (the C#7 is kind of a step up to the D - based on the version I worked out in F).
Then: Dm, Gm, Dm, Bb, Dm, E(7), A(7) Think the chords are ok, not sure about the Bb and E7.

Then it seems to have a decending progression in the bass, but maybe some are inversions of chords, but the melody there is going to take time...

The tab I worked out is the one in F (section 1 and 2 of the real version). The first part is simple, but the second part is wishful-thinking, I'm afraid, not sure I'd ever be able to actually play it (and probably needs thought-out differently if it's correct at all, that is - might need chord shapes higher up the neck - it's mostly just melody now). But a simple version is here:
House of Elliot in F

That looks like a good arrangement - the bass line works well.
(And your notation is correct, while rick-slo's has the wrong enharmonics D# instead of Eb - not his fault, I guess, just his inferior software .)

Couple of points:
In the original, the note on beat 3 in bar 1 is the 6th, D in this key (not C); it's a quick grace note approaching the Eb above.
The C in the clarinet arrangement sounds fine (and may even be what the composer intended!), it's just not what the violin plays in the original.

The "E7" in bar 3 should be Bdim7. It's like a rootless E7, of course, but Bdim7 is a standard transitional chord between Bb and F in this kind of tune.
In the original the whole bar is just the IV chord, no transitional dim7. My suspicion is that the City Lit tutor wrote his own arrangement of the tune, with the odd sneaky reharmonisation to suit the jazzy style (and slower tempo) - which naturally means you're also at liberty to adapt it as you like for a guitar version . (Personally I probably wouldn't choose key of F...)

Originally Posted by shawlie

Edit: I couldn't get things like triplets to work in the program, so parts of it are maybe not correctly written the way it is now, but hop it makes sense.

Yes - these are all notation issues, of course, not listening ones!
Your ear seems to be working well, it's that program you need to improve on .

Originally Posted by shawlie

What I did learn - learning from tab is 100 times easier (well, for me)... but it took no effort to memorize this (cause it took so long to work out) and I don't think I'll forget it for a long while.

Exactly! Doing it by ear will get quicker, but it always has that feeling of putting you right inside the music, as it were, feeling like you really own it when you come out the other side. (Or maybe it owns you... )