Playing by ear.

I've decided to pick up the bass again and learn songs. I had a look at Dman's site to learn some simple songs to start out with. The first one that popped up was "When I'm 64" by the Beatles. I watched a little bit of the video and decided to see if I can do it by ear before watching the rest, for fun. I worked a little bit of it out and then decided to watch Dman's video on the song and realized I got quite a bit wrong! I was wondering how do you go about working out a song by ear and does it get more accurate/better over time?

There have been quite a few threads on this. One member even wanted to start a "program" to learn by ear, but that ended quickly.
It does get more accurate, but it takes time. It's more difficult on the bass than on a guitar or keyboard because of the low frequencies.

It gets better over time. Practice is especially important.

(although I have to note that I'm better at playing by ear on piano than on bass)

I can only learn reggae songs by ear because of how clear the bass is...

It gets easier. That's how I learned to play in the beginning.

Thanks guys! I guess I'll just keep working on it. I'm trying to learn Radiohead's "no surprises" by ear. The bassline seems easy enough. I'm also working on "When I'm 64" with Dman's lesson. I guess I'll just move through the lesson tree.