Perfect Pitch and Synaesthesia

[vakulchai]

I am not really sure how those who have perfect pitch feel when they listen to a note tone. I myself don't have perfect pitch, and hope that someone can answer this question. David-Lucas Burge describe in his "Perfect Pitch Course" that it is easy to attain the perfect pitch by matching the sound with color or feeling.

By his method, isn't that mean only a synesthete can attaing perfect pitch? The condition of seeing color when listening to sound is with a synesthete, he just has only to explore his condition.

You can read about Synaesthesia here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaesthesia

[will]

By his method, isn't that mean only a synesthete can attaing perfect pitch? The condition of seeing color when listening to sound is with a synesthete, he just has only to explore his condition.

No, I think he just talks about matching colors to pitches as an example.
The way that you can tell red from blue apart is similar to how you can tell C# from D.
When distinguishing color your eyes detect different frequencies of light, whereas distingiuishing tones your ears distinguish different frequencies of sound.

[invictus]

I am synaesthesic, when i hear a note, i close my eyes, and i see the color, I especially love the color of impressionistic music, 20th century and very late romantic works, they are so nice to the eye.

BUt yes, when you play a chord, I see those colors mixed up together, so i can tell some chords, but not those super 19 note chorts, about 5 i can hear max

By matching them, you can imagine the color, because you brain remembers color much more easily than sound, so people with synaesthesia, they can remember tons of information. By remembering the pitch, match with a color of your choice, voila.

[fra ungdomsdagene]

I am not really sure how those who have perfect pitch feel when they listen to a note tone. I myself don't have perfect pitch, and hope that someone can answer this question. David-Lucas Burge describe in his "Perfect Pitch Course" that it is easy to attain the perfect pitch by matching the sound with color or feeling.

By his method, isn't that mean only a synesthete can attaing perfect pitch? The condition of seeing color when listening to sound is with a synesthete, he just has only to explore his condition.

You can read about Synaesthesia here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaesthesia

Interesting, synaesthesia is probably like all conditions cultural and if you're not a synesthete you can probably become one. It's a sort of a first the egg or the chicken dilemma and I think is a creative perception that causes or gives rise to synaesthesia and not the synaesthesia itself that gives rise to creativity. It's the involvement with a circumstance that gives rise to peculiar knowledge or skills related to that, that's why people are not born sight-readers or sight-singers but it's something they experience in their life that causes something to click inside them and develop a perception or abilities that others don't have.
So if you haven't thought about perceiving colors as you listen to sounds, now you know this is an option that could change your global perception if you give it a chance to develop inside you.

Fra

[pekko]

I've always thought c as red, f as blue and g as green (RGB ), but I don't think that I'm synaesthetic. I mean, I don't sense them as colors, but think.

Invictus: How do you see atonal music?

[stealsoul]

I'm not a pianist, I'm a guitarist but love classic musical aswell.
About perfect pitch and so; Perfect Pitch is not ear, ofcourse ear is very important, but it's not how one recognizes the note - it's the memory.  You can train your tone memory, you don't need a computer for that or so - you can do it with a friend or someone who is serious about it.  Just let someone press note or chords, name it.
And do that everyday for some time. (don't forget to write down the scores and start very very easy

I trained it with computer, I can perfectly name all the white notes in 2 octaves now.
I don't see colors, I just know which note it is.
I trained everyday minimal 1 hour at https://www.prolobe.com
(sometimes I trained 4 hours or so). Prolobe is currently down, but will be back soon in 2006. For now you can use notepoet > https://frank.anemaet.nl/software/notepoet/
It's less good, but does give you something to start with.

There are people at prolobe who have trained longer and more than me, some have perfect pitch. Altough they can not or not always follow the notes in music - they can name any notes or chords asked. There is a mailing list here> https://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/perfect_pitch/

[mig]

About David-Lucas Burge. Has anybody tried it and with what results?

[casparma]

I have bought the david lucas purge's courses and I found it just too much of theoretical rather than practical...


I think the devotion of time is mendatory for developing perfect pitch in david lucas's way...

[prometheus]

David Burge talks about how easy it is to learn with his tapes and how great it is etc etc. He doesn't tell you anything important or relevant. A common technique used in commercial oriented products.

Also Will is right.

Synaesthesia is a neurological anormality. The brain mixes the input from the senses with each other resulting in ear input being interpreted as eye input. Or any other sense mixing up. It may result into creative views on art. Just like Van Gogh neurological disorder(which particular one is still being discussed) probably resulted in his unusual use of colour. Note that he didn't have synaesthesia but he suffered from seizures and hallicunations. Just like Scriabin by the way, who was also probably not an synaesthesia.

[casparma]

so...

what is the best way to self teach perfect pitch?

[stealsoul]

I don't know any other mehods that work except than this one:

Train at www.prolobe.com (it's up in 2006 soon I hope), for now you can use https://frank.anemaet.nl/software/notepoet/  it's much more primitive and won
t give you full PP, but it'll show you how it's done.

I don't know if it works for everybody, but it works for me.
I can name notes and so - but I don't have this see-colors thing that is talked about in the posts above this one.

[stealsoul]

So, can anybody tell me something about this synestesia color see-ing?
What is it? Does anybody have it?
Is it the same as memory trained perfect pitch with prolobe/notepoet/modlobe?

[mattm]

I recently got the David Lucas Burge course and I like it.  He does explain that you can assoicate the pitches with colors if you'd like.  He says that F# is twangy and kind of sticks out much the same way the color bright red sticks out to a motorist when looking at stop lights, wrong way signs etc.  He goes on to claim that pitch 'colors' are actually easier to perceive and learn than visual colors.  It's just that most people learned visual colors from a very early age and did not learn pitch colors at an early age.  It seems there is no real shortcut in learning it though (are there any shortcuts in learning anything worthwhile ?) and Burge just convinces you for about 6-7 lessons that you can and do have the ability to learn it and that it's easy; but eventually you just kinda sit down at the keyboard and start listening to notes and trying to identify them over and over.

Anyhow I'm gonna keep at it.  The course claims that the skill will develop at around a year or so more or less.  The universities teach relative pitch, which may be more useful than perfect pitch, but both are ideal.

[mattm]

(double post - sorry  )

[invictus]

So, can anybody tell me something about this synestesia color see-ing?
What is it? Does anybody have it?
Is it the same as memory trained perfect pitch with prolobe/notepoet/modlobe?

Well you seem to see nothing, I have posted above by

I am synaesthesic, when i hear a note, i close my eyes, and i see the color, I especially love the color of impressionistic music, 20th century and very late romantic works, they are so nice to the eye.

BUt yes, when you play a chord, I see those colors mixed up together, so i can tell some chords, but not those super 19 note chorts, about 5 i can hear max

By matching them, you can imagine the color, because you brain remembers color much more easily than sound, so people with synaesthesia, they can remember tons of information. By remembering the pitch, match with a color of your choice, voila.

[perfect_pitch]

Colours?? I have Perfect Pitch, but I don't have this synaesthesia stuff.

When I hear music, I just hear the notes... but at the same time, I can match certain keys with various moods. For example, most really romantic and beautiful pieces will usually be in Ab Bb or Eb.

Stern and serious pieces will usually be in G minor or C# minor

stuff like that.

[mattm]

yea, i guess for people who dont' have synaesthesia the term 'color' can be misleading.  it's not that you see an actual color, it's just that seems to be the best term to describe it, and people can relate.  i mean, when you see the color red you don't go oh, that 'color' occupies the frequenices 1000 khz - 15000 khz in the visual spectrum, or something like that.  No, you just call it red because you know what red looks like, and that's the word we use for it.  The tones are kinda like that too.  They're frequencies that you can recognize like visual frequencies.  They're not necessarily 'colors' but that's kinda an easy way to describe how someone might begin to discriminate them.

play the lowest key on your keyboard, and think of that as black, and then the highest keys, and think of those as white, and you'll kinda get the idea.

synaesthesia is different though were people do see colors.  I dont' have it, to my knowledge, but I imagine its kinda like eating wasabi.  When I say wasabi some of you probably automatically think of that pasty light green and can maybe think of some other sensations as well  . 

[mattm]

-

[nanabush]

I have perfect pitch, and I am far from having any sort of synaesthesia.  I can't explain it, I just know the notes...  I can tell the difference between C and C#, but don't associate colors with the notes.  I may associate a color to a piece in that key, but a single note does not introduce a color in my mind.