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Posted by: AdamB Apr 13 2012, 03:43 PM

Hi,

I have been doing ear training of late, I'm trying to find someone who has taught themselves perfect pitch. I have read a lot of articles on the web about it, and it seems a lot of people think it can't be learnt. I wanted to find out if there is anyone here who can say that they have learnt it (in that they didn't posses perfect pitch abilities when they were a child but learnt it as an adult). I basically want some indication of whether I can learn it.

You see, I am trying to learn it myself, I'm just listening to loops of a piano playing C over and over and trying to sing C every day to memorize how it sounds, but so far it's not going well, I'm not seeing much improvement.

Also, some more info - I've been doing a lot of relative pitch exercises, if I use a relative pitch tool on the computer (like at musicthoery.net), I score > 90% every time, and have hit 100% before. I find that easy as anything now, however; I cannot tell pitches apart when listening to real music. If I stick a track on with a strong melody line, I find it impossible to name the intervals that are being played. Why is this? What can I do about it?

Any thoughts?

Posted by: dark dude Apr 13 2012, 03:54 PM

Can't help with the perfect pitch part, sorry.

I've read that transcribing songs, rather than training relative pitch directly, will be more helpful. I'd just sing the melody in small pieces, and use my relative pitch training to slowly work it out.

Also, do you have any new uploads on your channel? I remember some stuff you posted way back on here - was curious.

Posted by: Nihilist1 Apr 13 2012, 04:01 PM

I cannot help you deduce the possibility of perfect pitch, but if you are having trouble, try the Functional Ear Trainer, it is free:

http://www.miles.be/

When you are actually trying to train by transcribing music, singing(you can hum as well) the parts you are attempting to learn will help you more than anything else.

Posted by: Ben Higgins Apr 13 2012, 04:19 PM

I always found that it's easier to determine a pitch if you have a few reference points of songs that you know are in a certain key. I used to use Iron Maiden songs in the key of E a lot for this. I used to store the sound of the riffs like The Wicker Man in my head and then ask myself is it higher or lower than this ? I've got a pretty good idea of E in my head, thanks to that one song and I can quickly figure out another key or interval change from that point.

Posted by: PosterBoy Apr 13 2012, 05:12 PM

I can recognise chord shapes pretty well by ear

So listening to a song I can work out the progression in terms of I V ii etc and then listening to the notes of the chords played I could identify a 1st position D or an open G (as long as a capo isn't being used)

Posted by: Gabriel Leopardi Apr 13 2012, 06:34 PM

I don't know how the perfect pitch can be achieved, I have never tried it, but as the other guys said you can train your ears transcribing songs or using some software that has been created for that.

Posted by: SirJamsalot Apr 13 2012, 10:46 PM

Perfect pitch means you can sing A440 hz without a reference pitch to help you. My understanding is that it was much more common in early times, and very rare in modern times.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_pitch

Relative pitch is more along the lines of being able to stay in key if you have a reference point to begin with.

I'm guessing it's possible to train if you know your own voice well enough. By a certain age, you're voice has a natural intonation / that if you can determine what that is, and replicate it consistently, then that could serve as your reference point to find perfect pitch. But I haven't done the research to know either way.

Relative pitch I think is achievable, but as with all things, some people are better at some things just starting off ~ some call it natural ability.

Chris

Posted by: Todd Simpson Apr 13 2012, 11:08 PM

Perfect pitch is actually a fairly controversial topic as you may have noticed. Some feel it's a myth, others seem to be able to pull it off with no problem though it's quite rare. It has a lot to do with whats call 'Tonal Memory" or essentially memorizing a given tone/note the way you would memorize a picture. If you want to try to work on your tonal memory, try this link.

[url="http://www.good-ear.com/servlet/EarTrainer?chap=7&menu=3"]http://www.good-ear.com/servlet/EarTrainer?chap=7&menu=3/url]

It will play a tone and have you try to guess which one it is. When you can determine the notes without missing any, repeatedly, your in good shape Keep in mind some people work for years and can't quite get it but it's worth working on.

Having a pal play piano or guitar notes and letting you guess is about the same thing.

Todd

Posted by: AdamB Apr 14 2012, 06:55 AM

Thanks for the replies guys,

Well I've been using that good ears site for a while - I find the problem with regards to learning perfect pitch using it is that I ALWAYS get the first notes I try to guess wrong. However, when I happen to accidentally get one right, I then have a reference pitch, and then get them all right from that point on because I have good melodic relative pitch. It's a real pain because it doesn't feel like I'm training perfect pitch - I'm not figuring it out based on the tone, I'm still listening to the differences between tones, and I can't figure out how to turn that off so I can just use the single tones. The only way I can figure is to do it very, very slowly (so by each guess, I've forgotten the note before), so doing one guess every 15 mins or something. Very slow going, though.

I also find the problem with using those programs is that what I learn doesn't seem to get applied to real music, as soon as there is harmony (or even just melody which isn't just really straight forward, like I was listening to Hand On Heart by steve vai and trying to figure that out, as the beginning melodic line is quite slow I though it would be relativly easy, but because the notes are being bent etc. I find it impossibly hard), then my brain just kind of goes blank, even with relative pitches (if I find out what the first note of the song is, in theory I'd of thought with my relative pitch being good that would work for me, but it doesn't).

I think what I'm going to have to do is transcribe songs by ear like some have suggested, it seems like the only way to get this kind of aural perception, I'm really hoping it works, I want to get to a stage eventually that I can just transcribe without a guitar.

Posted by: Alex Feather Apr 14 2012, 07:02 AM

QUOTE (AdamB @ Apr 13 2012, 02:43 PM)

Posted by: Ben Higgins Apr 14 2012, 10:23 AM

I totally believe perfect pitch is attainable. Why not ? Our brain is the best computer in the world and it never fails to astound us with showing us new capabilities that we used to think were impossible.

Anyone who can determine a dog bark to a bird's chirp can differentiate between a lower pitch and a high pitch. Anyone who can do that can develop their ear and they have the potential to develop perfect pitch. It's like anything.. practise. Nobody is born with the ability to speak foreign languages.. they learn it.

Sir Jamsalot is quite right in his descriptions of relative pitch and perfect pitch. However, if you make use of relative pitch then you're already doing really well. That's a platform to get you to perfect pitch.

I would add that perfect pitch in itself isn't necessary, just being somewhere close by about a semitone is pretty damn good and useful enough to figure out a guitar riff without even picking up a guitar. You can do that with relative pitch too

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Apr 14 2012, 10:26 AM

Man, I recommend David Lucas Burge's Perfect Pitch and Relative pitch courses. I only tried the Relative pitch one and it worked out pretty well.

Posted by: derper Apr 16 2012, 04:43 AM

I eventually taught myself to tune to E, because I would just remember this song (http://www.ourstage.com/tracks/BATDLGSLOCLU-yo-mommas-ready) I wrote/was playing frequently at that time. Though I would never I have "perfect pitch", this skill certainly wasn't with me in earlier years of playing, and it's also time tested....still works to this day. I try it nearly every time I put on strings!! I'm sure, with effort, I could eventually learn other "tricks" for other keys, or I could currently develop off of my ear for "E". So, I would argue that based on my experience, that it could in fact be learned. Again, I am not "perfect", but can tune to "E" VERY closely, every time....so pretty close!

Posted by: Cosmin Lupu Apr 16 2012, 12:52 PM

Interesting ideas Gabe I honestly never thought on achieving perfect pitch as being such an important aspect. I know people having perfect pitch down in their pocket and when there's something not tuned as it should be, the poor dudes are so stressed out