Figuring out the time length between notes
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- KVRian
- 797 posts since 23 Apr, 2009
Knowing where the beat is, like 1-2-3-4, and counting it in your head, gives you the "grid" in which you can mentally place the notes you hear. That's how I do it anyways.akstylish wrote:How do musicians do it by ear? Is there a term for the ability?
Did you not have music lessons in primary school? It's gotta be the first thing I learned to do! Ahh the days of "taa-ti-ti-taa-taa" and recorders (plastic wind instrument type).. You could call it Rhythm Comprehension, if you like.
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- KVRist
- 441 posts since 30 Apr, 2007
There is nothing particularly complicated about the rhythms in those examples. They are just really fast. You would take it measure by measure and count it out, subdividing each beat. Any aspect of playing by ear is going to be more difficult if the song is really fast, unless you can play it repeatedly or slow it down.
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- KVRer
- Topic Starter
- 20 posts since 8 Feb, 2009
Gotcha. One more question.
Fast forward to around 4:03. The melody is pleasing but pretty erratic(at least to my ears) and there's no metronome. Is this possible to transcribe by ear as well?
edit: might as well ask a somewhat off-topic question. Right before the aforementioned part, there's a slowdown. How, if possible, do you find the changing bpm's?
Fast forward to around 4:03. The melody is pleasing but pretty erratic(at least to my ears) and there's no metronome. Is this possible to transcribe by ear as well?
edit: might as well ask a somewhat off-topic question. Right before the aforementioned part, there's a slowdown. How, if possible, do you find the changing bpm's?
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- KVRAF
- 1595 posts since 17 Nov, 2007 from Seattle, WA
Arghhh my ears!
In the example you gave just now where there was a slowdown, + all the rhythmic drop out after 4:00, meter ceased to be important. Particularly since it was being played in semi-bluesy, improv fashion with piano. So in that case, it was all about context, IMO.
As for getting better at tracking note timings, what I have found myself gravitating towards is 1/8th notes. I use 8ths as my go-to reference, meaning I figure out timings relative to 8ths, instead of independently. In my experience, a disproportionately huge slice of modern rhythmic elements (be it percussive or melodic) tend to land on 8ths, and far less often on 16ths. Meanwhile, clean 1/4 note timings are super easy to identify, and don't need much of any attention, while 16ths and beyond get much harder to count off or intuit. Thus, the 8th becomes the most reasonable yardstick to pay the most attention to.
Past say 140 bpm, 8ths start to get a little difficult, so with your first examples it might not help that much. Fortunately, with glitch cutting, or fast runs, it usually sticks to 1/16ths. The only frequent exception I can think of is the commonly swung 8th in D&B and house and stuff like that.
Meanwhile, give a little time to acquaint with the dotted 8th note(aka 3/16th), as that will be the most commonly occurring monkey-wrench. It's *extremely* commonly used for rhythmic interest, it's the go-to timing. In my experience, if there's a note that doesn't seem to be landing cleanly on an 1/8, chances are the reason is that there's some 1/8d additive rhythm happening. Occasionally it's only a consistent 1/16 offset, and a straight up pattern of 16ths is mostly easy to pick out. But if there's confusion, my first bets tend to point to the 1/8d.
I guess that was a tad abstract in a way, but to my mind it makes a ton of sense. I hope it helps somehow.
In the example you gave just now where there was a slowdown, + all the rhythmic drop out after 4:00, meter ceased to be important. Particularly since it was being played in semi-bluesy, improv fashion with piano. So in that case, it was all about context, IMO.
As for getting better at tracking note timings, what I have found myself gravitating towards is 1/8th notes. I use 8ths as my go-to reference, meaning I figure out timings relative to 8ths, instead of independently. In my experience, a disproportionately huge slice of modern rhythmic elements (be it percussive or melodic) tend to land on 8ths, and far less often on 16ths. Meanwhile, clean 1/4 note timings are super easy to identify, and don't need much of any attention, while 16ths and beyond get much harder to count off or intuit. Thus, the 8th becomes the most reasonable yardstick to pay the most attention to.
Past say 140 bpm, 8ths start to get a little difficult, so with your first examples it might not help that much. Fortunately, with glitch cutting, or fast runs, it usually sticks to 1/16ths. The only frequent exception I can think of is the commonly swung 8th in D&B and house and stuff like that.
Meanwhile, give a little time to acquaint with the dotted 8th note(aka 3/16th), as that will be the most commonly occurring monkey-wrench. It's *extremely* commonly used for rhythmic interest, it's the go-to timing. In my experience, if there's a note that doesn't seem to be landing cleanly on an 1/8, chances are the reason is that there's some 1/8d additive rhythm happening. Occasionally it's only a consistent 1/16 offset, and a straight up pattern of 16ths is mostly easy to pick out. But if there's confusion, my first bets tend to point to the 1/8d.
I guess that was a tad abstract in a way, but to my mind it makes a ton of sense. I hope it helps somehow.
Last edited by MOK19 on Thu Dec 31, 2009 7:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- KVRAF
- 1595 posts since 17 Nov, 2007 from Seattle, WA
Regarding changing bpms: if it was played by hand, then don't bother trying to find it. Just find the start value, and the end value. If it was done with a DAW(like this one I assume), it's probably a linear slope interpolated by the computer. Thus the only values important to the composing person is the start bpm, end bpm, and when it begins to change bpm, and ceases to change bpm. The computer does the rest. You'd end up measuring the BPM like you would otherwise, but of course you can only do it once tempo changes aren't occurring.