We’ve covered a lot of different material in the Bass Tone series: after 9 articles and 6 podcast episodes, it’s about time to stop and check whether your ears have kept up! We’ve had a few quizzes along the way, but this week it’s time to add a final test on bass effects, and re-check your knowledge on the previous three topics.

The first quiz is all about the sounds of the fretless, introduced in “The Upright Bass” and “Fretless Electric”. You’ll need to distinguish between fretted, upright and fretless electric bass guitar sounds to succeed:

Next up we’ll take a listen to different playing techniques, as introduced in Playing Techniques, Part 1 and Part 2, and the corresponding podcast episode. Do you remember all about slaps, pops, slides, pull-offs, and hammer-ons? Time to find out!

Click to read the rest…

We’ve been cooking up a special treat for you this Halloween!

Think you know your spooky tunes? Test your ears with this Halloween-edition music identification quiz!

There are 10 questions to test you on 11 different haunting melodies – a different selection every time! At the end you’ll have a chance to review any you got wrong.

On a mobile device? Open in a new window

Now don’t forget to let us know your score in the comments below!

For information on a free eBook giveaway, big discounts on ear training apps and all that’s to come in 2011, you can skip ahead.

Site launch

We kicked off the year introducing the site and (in the inaugural post) outlining our mission:

We delved into what ear training is and isn’t, and our authors began exploring different topics in ear training, from pitch and harmony, to tempo, frequencies, and the different ways you can effectively develop your ears.

Our first quiz was launched, to help you know where to start with ear training and identify areas you might like to improve. To close our first week we held a launch event in London, where a bunch of musicians and music researchers got some hands-on practice with our tutorials and ear training tools.

Series

A big part of what we’ve been up to over the course of the year is developing six ear training series, each in a different area of ear training. You can find out more on our Series page – and with nearly 40 articles by 5 different authors you’re sure to find something to catch your interest!

Articles

Aside from our series, we’ve published dozens of articles on different topics in ear training. We’ve just introduced a new Topics system to help you more easily find information on the areas which interest you Click to read the rest…