Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Tom51 Jul 11 2017, 01:04 PM

Really fascinating. What do you thing about that?

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jul 11 2017, 07:56 PM

Well, nearly everything gets a pinch harder to learn as we get older and our neurons are in place and get stubborn about reorganizing. "impossible" is a bit too absolutist for me, I'd say it's "very very very hard" to learn perfect pitch as an adult. But I wouldn't say "impossible". Nor would I say it's impossible to learn guitar as an adult, we have several students here who didn't start playing until well in to adulthood. LAURENT comes to mind and he's become quite a fine player and started from scratch as an adult.

Do children have a neurological advantage in terms of learning? SURE!!! It's built in to us so that we can adapt to whatever language is being spoken around us. Learning anything when you are in the "sponge" stage of development is easier. But take heart, the brain can always learn new skills, even if you have to push your way through it a bit. It just takes a defiant refusal to accept defeat

I was diagnosed with severe dyslexia as a child and several guitar teachers told my parents that I was simply "Unteachable" and to find something else for me to focus on. I didn't want to hear that so I just didn't listen. Instead, I went about learning how to teach myself. I listened to music I liked and tried to find the notes on the guitar that matched, this trained my ear. I Cut bits out of guitar magazines to learn scales. I did whatever I could. 10 years in, I was able to take classical guitar lessons in college. But before that time it would have been a little useless. I had to learn how to learn as my brain was just different. Everyone has something to overcome, adulthood, dyslexia, something. It's just about persistence. As is pretty much everything in life

Todd

Posted by: Darius Wave Jul 11 2017, 09:47 PM

I think perfect pitch is a gift we get or not. We can develope our pitch detection as musicians even if we don't have the gift but...the people I know that have perfect pitch...has always had it and that's a little different

Posted by: Mertay Jul 12 2017, 12:02 AM

We learned the alternate method in college. You have to memorise intervals.Once you get an A or any note, then from there you can find the others. It takes years to get fast at it but its doable.

Posted by: Arpeggio Jul 16 2017, 01:29 PM

Children have billions more brain cells than adults, waiting in reserve to be used or not. If you use them you keep them if you don't you lose them.

Countries where the language uses more different pitches (such as Chinese) tend to be better with perfect pitch than more monotone languages.

Internal references. I use this too. To get closer to perfect pitch I try to get the answer as soon as possible within one second so that I don't have a chance to work it out.

I won't spend more than 10 minutes working on perfect pitch for the same reason 100 meter sprinters actually slow down at 90 metres, except for the brain. After 10 minutes of this "mental full throttle" I will start to get them wrong and get worse.

Posted by: Mertay Jul 16 2017, 03:17 PM

There is so much one can do at home, aiming for perfect pitch-like hearing isn't a realistic goal for many. For me it was an intense 4 year school period and after graduating it decreased a lot over time.

But such educations intent isn't about having a cool ability but to be used for composing or musicianship. Together with harmony-theory, its not something radical for one to not have perfect-pitch composing a song on paper without an instrument in his/her hands.

Posted by: fzalfa Jul 16 2017, 07:31 PM

people with perfect pitch are boring..... when you play with them, your guitar is always out of tune about a 10th..... boring

Cheers

Laurent

Posted by: Kristofer Dahl Jul 16 2017, 07:58 PM

I still haven't found a good reason to have perfect pitch, unless you can't afford a tuner.

Relative pitch is what matters - and it can be achieved at any age!

Posted by: AK Rich Jul 16 2017, 08:33 PM

+1 Perfect pitch just doesn't matter much in my view. I think the vast majority of our musical heroes did not have perfect pitch and many of them couldn't read music either. I think often times it is the imperfections that make some music so good.

Posted by: Mertay Jul 16 2017, 09:12 PM

My teacher was perfect-pitch and he was from Azerbaijan. The native music there and Turkey involves heavy micro-tonality.

The people who has perfect-pitch and complain about micro adjustment are just being a jerk simple as that

Posted by: Todd Simpson Jul 17 2017, 03:05 AM

Good point about microtonality Many forms of Music in middle east especially, and parts of asia, use microtonal scales and then the instruments bend the microtones further, sometimes hitting the next tone, sometimes not and on purpose. Music built on blues/major/minor scales has a lot more give and take to it.
You can get a lot out of having relative pitch when playing most styles of rock/pop/punk/metal/blues/etc. It's when you start getting in to microtonal instruments and compositions, perfect pitch can come in really handy I don't have perfect pitch myself but I've always had a good sense of harmony/melody as I learned to play by ear. Playing by ear sure does help one developing the ear imho. You sorta have to develop your ear or you can't get very far

Posted by: Kristofer Dahl Jul 17 2017, 10:54 AM

It's not that you can "get away" with "only" relative pitch - relative pitch is actually superior than perfect pitch. What matters in music harmony wise, is the creative use of intervals - and for that perfect pitch does not help at all.

Posted by: Rammikin Jul 17 2017, 01:25 PM

Well yeah. The answer to the question posed in the video: "If perfect pitch can be taught, why don't music schools teach it?" is simple: because there is no benefit to having it. It's an entertaining parlor trick, but it's not a particularly useful skill for a musician.

Posted by: Mertay Jul 17 2017, 02:25 PM

Well, they do hear/identify complicated chords better but again thats also do-able for non-perfect pitch.

On entry exams here the standard is 4 note chords, they press a chord and wants the student to sing the notes from lowest to highest. After college education he/she is expected to give the note names/write them down (dictation in english?) realtivly easy.

Not sure about 4 but I'm sure anyone with basic education and enough excersise can do 3 if he/she can play intermediate level guitar.

One with perfect pitch (still needs practice) can go to 8 or 10, so think (modern) classical music or advanced jazz they can follow or analyze the music much easier.This brings ease and speed for composing, I do consider this as an advantage but its not about making any better music than other. Hell, if one works harmony well they don't even need to hear the music they compose

Posted by: SirJamsalot Aug 13 2017, 11:13 PM

I think having perfect pitch would drive me nuts. Can you imagine the irritation you would encounter listening to some of the classics that were recorded 2% faster onto vinyl in order to fit one more song?

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/records-that-are-speeded-up-or-slower-off-pitch-is-there-a-list.401085/

Ignorance is bliss

Posted by: Todd Simpson Aug 14 2017, 04:40 PM

There's that thankfully, relative pitch is a very handy thing when playing music and a bit easier to learn than perfect pitch. Thankfully

Todd