I can identify an e-flat

[Derek]

In the last couple of days I have found that I can identify e-flat whenever I hear it, and I can also sing one whenever I want. Very strange...I'd never experienced this before.  I think it is due to practicing sight reading with a large piece of cardboard over the keyboard so i can't see it...my ears are forced to "see" where pitches are, so i'm singling them out.  It is kind of annoying but I expect i will eventually be able to identify all pitches this way and then it will meld seamlessly with relative pitch and everything will be fine!

[orlandopiano]

In the last couple of days I have found that I can identify e-flat whenever I hear it, and I can also sing one whenever I want. Very strange...I'd never experienced this before.  I think it is due to practicing sight reading with a large piece of cardboard over the keyboard so i can't see it...my ears are forced to "see" where pitches are, so i'm singling them out.  It is kind of annoying but I expect i will eventually be able to identify all pitches this way and then it will meld seamlessly with relative pitch and everything will be fine!

That's great. But I dont think it will meld into perfect pitch. Is that what you meant? I think there is a difference between perfect pitch and a certain level of pitch memory. The latter will allow you to recognize certain pitches (possibly because they remind you of the first note of a piece), but is not 100% accurate and sometimes will not work if you hear it in other timbres. Can you recognize an E flat played by a clarinet, or a guitar? Do you ever think you are hearing an E flat, only to test it out and discover it's an E or an F?

I subscribe to the theory that perfect pitch cannot be learned over time. At least not the 100% accurate perfect pitch that I am referring to.

You already have relative pitch? I'd take that paired with a good sense of functional harmony over perfect pitch anyday.

[bella musica]

Some friends of mine who are also good musicians (like right now they are studying at schools like Eastman and Peabody) and I were discussing perfect pitch once and it was really interesting.

I have perfect pitch but sometimes my head will automatically transpose a piece up or down a half-step so that my brain doesn't have to think in double sharps and what not.  Also, I don't know about any of you, but I learned solfege at a young age, so I always think the 'do re mi' syllables in my head instead of 'C D E' etc. 

My friend who plays violin has perfect pitch, but only within the range of a violin.

Another friend who plays piano has perfect pitch, but she has to picture it in her head as if she were watching herself play it on the piano.

It's so amazing how different everyone is!  Makes life fun... mostly... 

[Derek]

Yeah...I don't find it all that valuable to me as a player or creator of music...its just interesting that it is happening without any concerted effort on my part to learn it.

[nightingale11]

I'm too lazy to set up the page...but serach for C.C.Chang on google and download his book......and read it....there is a part on how you acquire truly perfect pitch and maintain it. Perfect pitch must be learn....it's so important...it's the most important key in composing and etc. You learn it by mental play which is described in the book. the thing that makes it so important in composing is that since composing is a creativity process -- you retrieve information from previously heard music -- you can associate keys from the heard music to the key on the piano. you can prove this by trying to compose on a bad piano and compare it when you compose on a large grand.

[nightingale11]

Another friend who plays piano has perfect pitch, but she has to picture it in her head as if she were watching herself play it on the piano.

It's so amazing how different everyone is!  Makes life fun... mostly...

yeah that's mental play and that takes long time to learn. That's one of the most important parts in piano playing...and in music at all. It's the key in memorizing,composing, perfect pitch,relative pitch,perfect peformances.

[Derek]

I'm too lazy to set up the page...but serach for C.C.Chang on google and download his book......and read it....there is a part on how you acquire truly perfect pitch and maintain it. Perfect pitch must be learn....it's so important...it's the most important key in composing and etc. You learn it by mental play which is described in the book. the thing that makes it so important in composing is that since composing is a creativity process -- you retrieve information from previously heard music -- you can associate keys from the heard music to the key on the piano. you can prove this by trying to compose on a bad piano and compare it when you compose on a large grand.

Hmm I'm not so sure absolute pitch is that important for composing---unless I have an odd form of it which only comes into play when I compose...that might be true I guess. who knows...it doesn't matter

as for comparing using an old crappy upright with a new powerful grand...I think there one is simply having a more intense response to a fuller, louder, beautiful and better tuned tone.  I don't see this as having much to do with the presence or absence of absolute pitch, personally.

[netzow]

Posted by: Derek
In the last couple of days I have found that I can identify e-flat whenever I hear it, and I can also sing one whenever I want. Very strange...I'd never experienced this before.  I think it is due to practicing sight reading with a large piece of cardboard over the keyboard so i can't see it...my ears are forced to "see" where pitches are, so i'm singling them out.  It is kind of annoying but I expect i will eventually be able to identify all pitches this way and then it will meld seamlessly with relative pitch and everything will be fine!

That's funny I can do the same thing with an A. I'm  not sure what good it does me I do use that sort of thing when trying to figure out what key a piece I hear is in, I'm not sure what good that does me either.

[alwaystheangel]

Perfect pitch would be so nice.
1. I could always play in tune on my saxophone
2. I can then improvise
3. Leading me to beecome better in jazz and classical (which I will be stydying in the fall
4. Making me hate people with perfect pitch less
5. Therfore making me a happier person

I think I have that E flat note thing too, but my note is G

[nightingale11]

Hmm I'm not so sure absolute pitch is that important for composing---unless I have an odd form of it which only comes into play when I compose...that might be true I guess. who knows...it doesn't matter

as for comparing using an old crappy upright with a new powerful grand...I think there one is simply having a more intense response to a fuller, louder, beautiful and better tuned tone.  I don't see this as having much to do with the presence or absence of absolute pitch, personally.

Just believe me ok. whne you learn perfect pitch by mental play you will be playing music more than you did before. perfect pitch is critical for mental play because it gets you a sound/association foundation. Mental play increases you music memory and that is needed for composing...and imporves your memory--> IQ...and much more.This is how the all great composers/performers become what they were.

[firebolt145]

I have perfect pitch, it's not THAT important for composing, though it helps sometimes. I learnt it when I was about 9 years old.

I almost lost it about a year ago, when I stopped practicing. I've regained it now.

[sinspawnammes]

The school bell in my high school is tuned to E-flat, so I can recognize that pitch immediately.

[sevencircles]

there is really no such thing as perfect pitch.

The 12 tones of the western scale is just a fraction of the microtones used in exotic music.

A handfull of people in the world can recognise thousands of pitches though (a couple of them are blind)

[demented cow]

Does anybody know whether musicians playing in symphony orchestras without normal perfect pitch would nevertheless have no trouble identifying an A when they hear it? I ask because they would hear an A played in tuning before every practice session?

FWIW I have a weird thing similar to what Derek said: I think I can identify Eb chords because the Emperor and the Eroica start with them, but no idea with other chords, even in pieces I am playing regularly.

[Derek]

fascinating.  Welp just as an update... I am still hearing the bad e-flat in my recordings and on my piano but I have managed to calm down about it and "let go" of each e-flat I hear rather than "grab onto" it and get mad at having grabbed onto it. Haha if that makes sense.  I think I'm over it now is what I am saying.  I still can't wait to get my piano tuned however!

[nightingale11]

 

[Derek]

Though this odd occurrence has happened with me, e-flat, frustration, and a bad note,I for the life of me can't see any way in which perfect pitch would make me any better of a musician.

[sevencircles]

It depends on what you mean with perfect pitch...Why should you learn a thousands other sounds when It's suffiencent to learn perfect pitch within the keyboard.
I believe the time when you finally acquire is the moment when the sub-consious brain ''understands'' the system. That's why you have to be very systematic and create as many associations to each key as possible and know clearly where each pitch belong. This means that it is most wise to start learning all the keys at once because if you don't it will take unnecesarily long time to learn it.

I agree to some extent but my point was that the western scales are pretty limited.

Some modern composers like Ligeti use a lot microtones however and many people that memorized the 12 tones from the western scale gets really confused with that and have to face the fact that their perfect pitch wasn´t so perfect after all.

[nightingale11]

Some modern composers like Ligeti use a lot microtones however and many people that memorized the 12 tones from the western scale gets really confused with that and have to face the fact that their perfect pitch wasn´t so perfect after all.

?? I don't really understands the point here. What's the point to now more than needed? You can compose unlimited music within that scale.

[sevencircles]

?? I don't really understands the point here. What's the point to now more than needed? You can compose unlimited music within that scale.

Many people would consider the western scale to limited.

Ligeti propably did for instance.

[Derek]

I'll also never understand these assertions I've heard about the Western scale not being as good or varied or whatever as Eastern scales. 

When I listen to Eastern music, I hear all the same freakin' intervals I hear in Western music. The only difference is they seem to sound "brighter" or purer---which of course means you can't modulate easily.  But I was listening to a piece by Chitti Babu on the way to a Boogie Woogie concert with my dad and I noticed that Chitti Babu focuses on a "minor seventh" like in blues, a lot.  Whether they have 7 tones in their scale doesn't matter...the interval, and its feeling, was precisely the same.  They even played with a swing beat sometimes.  Nobody can ever tell me there isn't a common basis to all the world's music...I just can't accept that.  I've heard music from all over the globe and much of it moves me and even in similar ways.

The only reason I think I like Western music the best however is just because of how incredibly grandiose it can be, with organs or symphonies and piano concertos or what not. We really did something with the word GLORY in our music!!!

[sevencircles]

When I listen to Eastern music, I hear all the same freakin' intervals I hear in Western music.

What music did you listen too?

You propably didn´t listen to music that features microtone scales then.

The rhythm is often also more interesting in African and Indian music

[pianochild]

i can sing any note? cant everyone, i can identify all notes within bass clef c and treble clef top c. If you point to a note on the piano but dont play it i can sing it, you have to sing the bass line of a stave for grade 8.

[Derek]

What music did you listen too?

You propably didn´t listen to music that features microtone scales then.

The rhythm is often also more interesting in African and Indian music

I listen to Ravi Shankar, Chitti Babu & Disciples, and several old LPs of some other random things. I know the microtones are there, but I see those more as emebellishments. The real melodic focal points of all the world's music have a similar sound to them. I have yet to hear a piece of music from another culture which is so alien that I "don't understand it" as so many people seem to assert of Western listeners.

You're definitely right about rhythm that is for certain! Western rhythm is notoriously uncreative. Until the 20th century, and jazz, of course.

[c18cont]

I LIKE the part about maintaining.........,

I had perfect, or absolute pitch all my productive years, and never failed, when healthy and  acute. I pitched performing groups with it by mouth many times, and set pitch on a single instrument, for others to tune to..

But NOW, I am elderly, and never use it; I miss about a third of the time when attempting just "out of the blue", and am more easily misled by noise in the area...Perhaps it indeed, does require a certain maintenance...!!!

My Regards,  John Cont