"Perfect Pitch"

I read an article a few weeks ago about tone deafness being a genetic trait. I don't know about perfect pitch but my mother couldn't carry a note in a bucket and I inherited it from her. I can hear when a guitar is out of tune only because over the years I have tuned mine so many times. I am able to learn songs by listening to them a little easier than I used to so I know that your ear can be trained to an extent. I cannot sing. I have tried and even had a friend try to coach me. I can hear that I am out of key but cannot make my voice "get the note". I think in my case it would classify as a handicap because I love music (all kinds).I always wondered why some of my friends that picked up a guitar about the same time I did, progressed so much faster than I. And it wasn't for lack of practice. Over the years my ear has gotten much better, but it is definetly due to exposure and practice. When I first started I could no more learn a song from an album than split an atom, but it comes more easily now. I am always awed by someone like Patsy Cline. The girl had an incredible voice and no clue what key she was singing in. Maybe not perfect pitch but definetly talent that she was born with.

I think you can imporve your ability to hear pitches, etc through regular ear training.
I believe, as he said, people are born with the ability to develop perfect pitch.
For example, a person may have this capability, but never touch an instrument their whole life, and not even know they posess it.

http://www.guitarsearcher.com

I didnt read everyones replys but the ones I read no one but I has bought the perfect pitch ear training coarse. Some people were right on and some quite off on what perfect pitch is.

First I saw a dateline on a ability I dont remember what it was called but it was enate. THese people with this genetic mutation had the ability to see sound in vivid rainbow like forms. It was catastrophic to some and the show went on and on about how it hindered their lives, in the end they were asked if they would give up this bizzare ability if given the chance and they all said no!!! Interesting huh.

Well like I said I bought perfect pitch by David Lucas Berge. He also teaches relative pitch which someone explained quite accurately. Perfect pitch is essentially the ability to differentiate different pitches from one another and not necessarily by sight. Burge goes through a series of methods and techniques in which we can all improve our ability to recognize pitches. By the end of the training you are suppose to develop aural recall. This is the highest echelon of perfect pitch and is essentially waking up after sleeping all night and without hearing any sound at all being able to sing or hum any given pitch. TO achieve this feat you can utilize colors to help remember different keys.

For example beethoven was quoted as referring to Bm as the black or dark key. I am sure all of you can see why it would be considered dark.

I like to think of G or Gmajor as a bright key such as eithe orange or yellow, try to connect feelings as well as colors. The more detail you have to describe a key and the more your hear it the better your recall will be. Like G major can also be throught of as spring time, rejoice, rebirth, something in that line.

Burge refers to F# as the fierce or red chord b/c of its fiery energy. This may seen very abstract however with either some strong LSD, Mescaline, or simple Peyote you too can be on your way to seeing the colors of the rainbow(im just kiddin). Yes it seems crazy DOES IT WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!YOU ASK

He (burge) suggests you can develop perfect pitch from anytime b/t 6 months and a year, and offer a 30 day money back guarentee well in 30 days you will without a doubt see some improvemnet but you wont have perfect pitch. So most people liek me gave up after a month. He has like 12 cd's with 2 different lessons per cd. He babbles on and on additionally its not just for guitarist so you have to hear about ofther instrumentalist which I didnt care for. In the begining I thought it was great however I quickly grew tired of his babbling and eventually gave it up. I do plan to continue soon, I sold my stereo to get an acoustic guitar so I cant listen to the cd's right now.

As for relative pitch thats a differnet concept all together and is slightly less abstract. I have yet to invest more money in burge I was rather dissapointed in his "master classes" however I think relative pitch is much more useful (actually quite neccesary) and easier to build than perfect pitch. I would suggest buying that since intervals are the building blocks of music. I still do feel the concept of perfect pitch is intreiging and I will continue my training as soon as I get another stereo.

One more thing, I am a very compuslive person who is a hard worker and I didn't feel like the progres was worthwhile to continue the lessons so to anyone who thinks they can just half-a*s this is severvely wrong. If it is possible to achieve perfect pitch which I think it is however it would take probally a year or two or consistant pracitce that is mundane to say the best. It your going to learn relative or perfect pitch get lessons from an instructor they are pricy but much more beneficial than teaching yourslef.


Good luck,

sorry if I was cruel on your Burgenmeighster,

Thomyorke575

Christoph, have you seen taht guy's other movie "Requiem for a Dream?" That is the scariest film I have ever seen, so disturbing and awful, and you kinda think that you don't really see the fun of drug addiction.
BTW, the next Batman movie is being directed by him; that will be seriously cool, bringing Batman back to his dark roots that Joel Schumacher completely f***ed up.

No, I haven't seen it. What's the director's name?

Oh god . . . they're making another Batman movie??? Why??? Batman has to be the lamest superhero. He doesn't even have any powers. He's just a rich guy who can afford a lot of gadgets.


So Bardsley, are you into independent films?

Originally posted by Christoph

So Bardsley, are you into independent films?

LOL! I'm sure you meant that seriously, but it's like "So, do you like foreign movies" ;).
Well, I do like them when I see them (unless I don't". i admit to generally not being bothered to see a lot of big studio movies, so I guess I lean towards independant films, though people always sound like wankers when they say that sort of thing, don't you think?
Did you see the original Tim Burton Batman? That's one of my favourite movies of all time! (I was young, but I still have fond memories)
I like the gkuys with no powers, I am also a fan of Phantom comics, though I haven't bought one in many years.

Originally posted by Bardsley
LOL! I'm sure you meant that seriously, but it's like "So, do you like foreign movies" ;).

:confused: What? Anyway . . .

I'm sure I saw the original Batman. I just don't remember anything about it . . . but maybe that's a good thing. I just can't get over the fact that he's nothing more than an ordinary doofus with a few gadgets, not to mention that whole Robin thing.

I DO think that Tim Burton is a bit overrated as a director. His best effort was probably Sleepy Hollow. His "recreation" of the Planet of the Apes was utter tripe. It had no soul.

Yesterday, I bought the french mag "science et vie" which is the reference for searchers and scientists in France. Well, they had an article about perfect pitch (we call it the Absolute ear in french). And they said that the research about it was finding some things, like 40% if the musicians who were musically trained before 6 had it, and it decreased a lot for each year after that, to reach 5% after 9.
Anyways, they said that some countries (it was mostly asiatic ones) had a speech based on pitches (like if you said something in A it would mean happy, while the same word in D would be sad... pretty cool huh?) well, those countries people all developed a perfect pitch-like ear... So it means it's something that can be developed by anyone, the only thing is to do it before 6... Bummer...

People who talk about likeing foreign films here are often makinga bit of a joke about liking french movies with lots of sex scenes, which is why I laughed. Planet of the Apes was a complete POS.
Hey, lalimacefolle, I guess that kind of backs me up... MWA HA HA HA! I mean, interesting....

You know, when I lived in the US, the big thing I was asked was "do you go to those beaches where girls go around topless?" well, yeah, that's the way we do it in the south of France... So it's not that big a deal around here, we get used to it when we turn 6 or so...

So everything revolvews around the magical age of 6, does it?

I think anything can be done given an individual of a decent level of intelligence and an amazing amount of desire. The thing is lets say you do have or develop perfect picth that doesnt mean you'll be a better musician you would most likely be a much better musician if you spent the equal amount of time developing relative pitch. I think the term "perfect pitch" means something else to each one of us and I fail to think that anyone of us would be a much more accomplished musican given the time to develop it. Intervals are the building blocks of melodys not the ability to identify a given pitch. The one who can identify a given interval(or all of them) will be much more "gifted" in regards to writing music.

When people refer to Beethoven they refer to his perfect pitch. I think we are overlooking the fact he most likely had an excellent relative pitch as well.

This is all from a person who did purchase the "perfect pitch ear training course" so before you invest the $150 on it take my advice to heart, DONT!!!!!!! I would recommend relative pitch though or the combination of the two, just not strictly perfect pitch alone, unless if you want to spend agonizing amounts of time to develop a ear training quality that may not even have the ability to be developed.

Good luck,

Thomyorke575

Originally posted by lalimacefolle
Anyways, they said that some countries (it was mostly asiatic ones) had a speech based on pitches (like if you said something in A it would mean happy, while the same word in D would be sad... pretty cool huh?)

Ya . . . that's entirely true. There are even words for everyday items, that when pronounced in a different tone, can mean something insulting. LOL . . .

well, here's a real story. In a journalism class, while attending school in the US, when my english wasn't so good, a friend asked me what I did over the week end. Well, I answered "I went to the bitch" meaning the Beach... I wasn't aware there were to 'EE' sounds. So, to me, pitch was the same as peach etc... He's still giving me a hard time with that line...

:) LOL . . .

I had a similar thing (although probably not as funny) happen to me when I was learning Spanish. I knew enough to make sentences, but couldn't distinguish between all of the sounds.

I think I was at a gas station and told the guy "Te voy a pegar" (I'll punch you) instead of "Te voy a pagar" (I'll pay ....). Fortunately, he didn't take offence and had a good laugh.

I guess there's a big difference between the "ehhh" and the "ahhh" sound.

99.9% of the music I love was created by people WITHOUT perfect pitch. Heres an analogy....A baseball player has "perfect pitch", the ability to strike out any player....unfortunately he is unable to grasp the concept of team sports and is fired. My point being everyone I've met with true perfect pitch wasn't much of a musician, as the term musician applied being someone who functions as a musician. If I want to here somthing played exactly as written or recorded, I turn my CD player on,...I can't stand pretensios people claiming to have some gift that seems to me to be a burden.

Most of the guitarists we listen too aren't really musicians too... Sorry to bring that up, but when you see monsters like Yehudi Menuhin, Winton Marsalis, Yo yo ma, or Bobby Mc Ferrin, the knowledge, deep understanding of musical interaction, improvisation, dang... I wouldn't mention any guitarists I love in the same breath as any of those above monsters... The only ones maybe would be Jim Hall and John Mc Laughlin... (by the way, all of those musicians have some kind of perfect pitch...)

Well, that's because you aren't really familiar with the classical world. Menuhin has improvised with Ravi Shankar, with Stéphane Grapelli, Yo yo has played Jazz, with Mc Ferrin by the way (their album, Hush is gigantic). And improvisation, even though it arrives late in a classical musicians training, is covered. Not all of them succeed, but just like not every guitar player can play be-bop lines...

I agree with what you say, but it's sometimes easier to say that the classical trained guys can't play the blues and that's something we can do better than them...Because if they could also do that, what would be left for us right? Shawn and Allan express themselves on the instrument, but Shawn is classically trained on the piano, and Allan is coming from Mars, so he must have perfect pitch among other things (like extra muscles in his hands) :D

By the way, when you listen to great players, they do not reproduce something. That's what their musicianship is about. Trying to express what the composer wanted them to play. Otherwise, computers could play good classical music.

What has more musicianship? Expressing yourself through something you write on the spot, or expressing yourself on something that leave no latitude for improvisation? Open debate, but cool one.

I know, and when they try, they suck... I was just messing with you.
I do think though that rock and blues guitarists need to open up to new forms of music. There are monsters out there, that would laugh when they see that we are in awe of the mass of knowledge Satch masters (that's just an example)

Yeah, composition students in fourth year at university have generally got as much theory down pat as any of those "amazing" guitarists like Satch or Vai. It doesn't necessarily mean anything, but it can be funny the way people are so in awe of those guys knowledge of theory when university students have it too.