Fixed 'Do' and perfect pitch

[ajspiano]

Hmm....

As charming as that is, I don't think it could perform either of the assigned tasks.

[j_menz]

As charming as that is, I don't think it could perform either of the assigned tasks.

I can do the forte-staccato-in-the-middle one. If I get it right, you wouldn't notice the missing bits. 

[ajspiano]

Not yet sure about how to get a good vibrato.. But i think you could use something like a guitar slide..

[j_menz]

Not yet sure about how to get a good vibrato.. But i think you could use something like a guitar slide..

Wang bars on the tuning pegs?

[ajspiano]

Wang bars on the tuning pegs?

Definitely, only you'd need on the length of the piano lid (per string) and 5 people to man each of them.. 

..for a vibrato with a width of a few cents.

[outin]

I kind of still don't get what m1469 is asking...

But I just did a little experiment. I sang notes and then reproduced them on the piano. I can sing any note to pitch, but I had no idea which note it is. So I tried instead of just singing with a random syllable to singing with sol-fa syllables. The scales go fine, but the syllables have no connection to actual note names, so I don't know on which note the scales start. If I want to do specific intervals I need to count the middle notes in my head since I cannot remember how they are supposed to sound, but I can jump into any note and still be in pitch (with my piano, which luckily was just tuned on Saturday). I then started singing the notes with the letter names. It didn't take long to be able to do some of the notes correctly. I assume if I did it every day for a while they might stick to my head. Would I then have perfect pitch?

[j_menz]

Definitely, only you'd need on the length of the piano lid (per string) and 5 people to man each of them.. 

..for a vibrato with a width of a few cents.

Nah. An electonic wang bar - with power steering!

If I want to do specific intervals I need to count the middle notes in my head since I cannot remember how they are supposed to sound, but I can jump into any note and still be in pitch (with my piano, which luckily was just tuned on Saturday).

Then why not just imagine the note of the interval and jump into it?

[chopin2015]

I was raised on Solfeggi, but only have relative pitch. I think singing "c" sounds different than "do"...maybe even more sharp in semitones to me...not really, though. It all depends on what I am hearing. If I hear my piano, I could tune to it...then sing many scales within my hearing and singing range.

I think it is possible to memorize sounds, even with just relative pitch. But, if you don't use it, you lose it. So, keep that c sharp....not too sharp though. HA! 

[ajspiano]

Would I then have perfect pitch?

Kind of..   in that its not all that practically useful until its a little more developed than that, such as that you can identify a pitch or pitches within a musical context, without reference, quickly.. and without having to listen to the context over and over to identify each individual note.

[j_menz]

Kind of..   in that its not all that practically useful until its a little more developed than that, such as that you can identify a pitch or pitches within a musical context, without reference, quickly.. and without having to listen to the context over and over to identify each individual note.

To what extent then is it simply a matter of an internalised, always ready to go, context - a learned or innate inbuilt tuning fork to which any heard pitch is then relative?

[chopin2015]

To what extent then is it simply a matter of an internalised, always ready to go, context - a learned or innate inbuilt tuning fork to which any heard pitch is then relative?

It gets confusing when you are listening to different tones though. I.e. a record played too slow and dropped in pitch...or something among those lines! You gotta learn how to sort and organize what is useful to you! :×)

[birba]

I was raised on Solfeggi, but only have relative pitch. I think singing "c" sounds different than "do"...

"a rose of any other name..."  C and do are only names for a specific sound.  How could they be different?  People are talking about solfeggio here as if it were something special.  You could solfeggiare a tune singing cdefgab and nothing would change.  Maybe all this is because in non-latin countries you name the notes differently.  You could use this method of transposing a melody singing letter names.  Which would mean you would be singing g, for example, while the actual sound might be d.  Same in the other system.  You'd be singing sol while the actual sound is re.  Confusing for someone with perfect pitch.

[chopin2015]

"a rose of any other name..."  C and do are only names for a specific sound.  How could they be different?  People are talking about solfeggio here as if it were something special.  You could solfeggiare a tune singing cdefgab and nothing would change.  Maybe all this is because in non-latin countries you name the notes differently.  You could use this method of transposing a melody singing letter names.  Which would mean you would be singing g, for example, while the actual sound might be d.  Same in the other system.  You'd be singing sol while the actual sound is re.  Confusing for someone with perfect pitch.

Someone with perfect pitch would simply notice difference because they indeed have a specific calculation for what they are supposed to be hearing all the time! Who knows? Lol

(How do you sing "H"?)

[ajspiano]

To what extent then is it simply a matter of an internalised, always ready to go, context - a learned or innate inbuilt tuning fork to which any heard pitch is then relative?

I'm not really sure..  

I'm coming from having learnt relative pitch skills to a high level before really developing any absolute pitch skills, so when ever it gets applied in a practical sense I default to relative for the majority of tasks...  as soon as I have a reference I tend to use it, rather than identifying each tone in its own right.

However, when actively learning perfect pitch I was forced to focus on things that lead me to believe that it could just as well be done with a purely absolute, zero outside context type approach to every sound.. though I'm not sure how musical that is? whether if you could do that you would.. because music is so much about the relationships between tones anyway..

[ajspiano]

Maybe all this is because in non-latin countries you name the notes differently.  You could use this method of transposing a melody singing letter names.  Which would mean you would be singing g, for example, while the actual sound might be d.  Same in the other system.  You'd be singing sol while the actual sound is re.

..except where you consider "re" to be D, I consider "re" to be the 2nd degree of any major scale.. and not in any way a defined name of a pitch.

[birba]

Someone with perfect pitch would simply notice difference because they indeed have a specific calculation for what they are supposed to be hearing all the time! Who knows? Lol

(How do you sing "H"?)

that's exactly right.  Isn't h a b in germany?  A si in italy?

[birba]

..except where you consider "re" to be D, I consider "re" to be the 2nd degree of any major scale.. and not in any way a defined name of a pitch.

These sylables were adopted to use in this transposing solfeggio.  Other then that, though, re is simply d.

[birba]

I think the dense wombat has finally understood what this whole thread is about.  YEA!

[outin]

Then why not just imagine the note of the interval and jump into it?

Because I cannot remember which note is the note of the interval. I really am bad with such things. Give me a D and tell me to go a 5th. I just can't remember which note that would be, I have to count...that's the part I would need to learn to remember as well as all the individual note names that I would need to attach to the sounds. I only learned G and C today and I doubt I will remember them this evening. But if I repeated the exercise often enough I would probably remember...But knowing me I would get bored with it before learning...

I think the only benefit this would be in playing would be to help do jumps correctly. It might compensate for my bad kinestetic and visual skills. In general it would probably do little to help my memory problems since it is not so much the keys that I forget, but the arm movements and which finger to use.

[birba]

Because I cannot remember which note is the note of the interval. I really am bad with such things. Give me a D and tell me to go a 5th. I just can't remember which note that would be, I have to count...that's the part I would need to learn to remember as well as all the individual note names that I would need to attach to the sounds. I only learned G and C today and I doubt I will remember them this evening. But if I repeated the exercise often enough I would probably remember...But knowing me I would get bored with it before learning...

I think the only benefit this would be in playing would be to help do jumps correctly. It might compensate for my bad kinestetic and visual skills. In general it would probably do little to help my memory problems since it is not so much the keys that I forget, but the arm movements and which finger to use.

it won't help your playing one bit.  Argerich claims she doesn't have perfect pitch.

[ajspiano]

These sylables were adopted to use in this transposing solfeggio.  Other then that, though, re is simply d.

Yes that is true..  its a matter of perspective though isn't it. Just as it is nuts for you to accept that Re can mean anything other than D, its equally as strange for someone only exposed to the movable system to consider the syllables to be used in the manner with which you are used to..

Who knows whats with all this bother about "do" anyway..  wasnt it "Ut" originally..? and god knows why its called fixed Do..  I mean the DO is no more fixed than the Re..  The necessity to say its fixed implies that it can be moveable, which is totally contradictory to the original meaning.

[chopin2015]

Transposing is an element to development.

In terms of perfect pitch, I believe the secret is it's mathematical complexity. A phenomenon. You could base it off what other "perfect pitch" people consider a perfect tone. Then see what that actually applies to. Music or soecifically piano? I have experienced sound to feel different in the night. Guitars tuning on their own to the piano. Sound moves on its own... so it constantly changes. How can perfect pitch exist without relative pitch?  

[outin]

Transposing is an element to development.

In terms of perfect pitch, I believe the secret is it's mathematical complexity. A phenomenon. You could base it off what other "perfect pitch" people consider a perfect tone. Then see what that actually applies to. Music or soecifically piano? I have experienced sound to feel different in the night. Guitars tuning on their own to the piano. Sound moves on its own... so it constantly changes. How can perfect pitch exist without relative pitch?  

Now it's not only m1469 that got me lost 

[birba]

Yes that is true..  its a matter of perspective though isn't it. Just as it is nuts for you to accept that Re can mean anything other than D, its equally as strange for someone only exposed to the movable system to consider the syllables to be used in the manner with which you are used to..

Who knows whats with all this bother about "do" anyway..  wasnt it "Ut" originally..? and god knows why its called fixed Do..  I mean the DO is no more fixed than the Re..  The necessity to say its fixed implies that it can be moveable, which totally contradictory to the original meanings

Whoa! Wait a minute.  You mean there are people who know ONLY the "moveable" do?!  Guess i didn't get the meaning of this thread after all...

[chopin2015]

Whoa! Wait a minute.  You mean there are people who know ONLY the "moveable" do?!  Guess i didn't get the meaning of this thread after all...

Now I'm confused, too.

[birba]

Actually, the idea is beginning to sound interesting.  It opens up endless possibilities.  I think.

[ajspiano]

Whoa! Wait a minute.  You mean there are people who know ONLY the "moveable" do?!  Guess i didn't get the meaning of this thread after all...

Yes ofcourse.. they used to publish it in the sheetmusic of songs to make them easier to sing without being able to sight sing directly from notation.

It'd be bloody confusing if everyone had to figure out what was what between the two different systems.

Fixed solfa is to my experience not used at all here in australia..  (of-course I could be wrong) but the majority of students here who are familiar with do re mi etc, would consider it to be a moveable system, and have no idea that elsewhere in the world those syllables correspond to specific notes always.

[chopin2015]

Do you think Beethoven had perfect pitch? I mean, I know his hearing was later painful but he wrote freely, still!

[ajspiano]

here you go birba.. make sense of this.

[birba]

What the h...?!
I think i get it, though.  They just haven't put the vowels after r and s and m, etc.  You know what, though, this would be great in teaching a chorus that know nothing about notes.  Yes, i'm beginning to see great possibilities in this method.

[jknott]

isn't this just a linguistic difference?  In languages that use do etc to name the notes (Romance languages such as French, Italian) there's "fixed do".  In languages that have letter names (English, German) we use do etc as a relative pitch system.  It's not surprising you don't have moveable do in a language where you use those words as note names - it would be very confusing! Perhaps you should use A, B. C etc to create a relative pitch system!

[Bob]

Do people who have been raised in a fixed 'Do' system, where C is always 'Do,' and who *ALSO* have perfect pitch, always hear a given pitch in context of a scale? 

I'm only movable do here.  (I don't see the point of fixed.  You could just use the letter names, except the solfege was probably around before the letter name.)

I've heard people who learned fixed do are a little more likely to have perfect pitch.

I could see someone hearing pitches in a scale, yes.

But I don't think people with perfect pitch are always hearing/using relative pitch. Perfect pitch being color.  Relative pitch being more function.  No relative pitch, no "function color" or "interval color."  A G is a G.  Sol is sol.  (Although Sol to me with relative pitch is Sol.  It wants to move [to do or la]).

[oxy60]

What the h...?!
I think i get it, though.  They just haven't put the vowels after r and s and m, etc.  You know what, though, this would be great in teaching a chorus that know nothing about notes.  Yes, i'm beginning to see great possibilities in this method.

Speaking from a singer's point of view one must have some sort of perfect pitch. Arias from serious composers test the limits of one's vocal range and an error, even of a half step during the unaccompanied section will put one into the danger zone. A keyboard or pitch pipe is not always available when there is time to practice (while stuck in traffic).

Gregorian (in which I did solo) is more forgiving. And you know when the notes are right because they ring a certain way in the hall. However I didn't start without a cue.

The ability do that will fade over time. I doubt that today I could find the starting note.

[j_menz]

Speaking from a singer's point of view one must have some sort of perfect pitch. Arias from serious composers test the limits of one's vocal range and an error, even of a half step during the unaccompanied section will put one into the danger zone.

I've seen singers start in such circumstances, get a ghostly look, and then stop and say "I started too high/low".

I wonder, though, if it's so much the sound as the feel (something largely missing for instrumentalists).

[birba]

Yes, the vocal chords never lie.
Well, i guess that depends on what they're saying...

[outin]

I've seen singers start in such circumstances, get a ghostly look, and then stop and say "I started too high/low".

I wonder, though, if it's so much the sound as the feel (something largely missing for instrumentalists).

I'd say it's both. Sometimes I hear the sound before in my head, but cannot quite get my vocal chords to make the exact sound so I need to adjust. I know it's wrong even before hearing the end result. But I think I always make the sound first in my head before singing it. It's just so fast and automatic that I don't pay attention to it.

[oxy60]

I'd say it's both. Sometimes I hear the sound before in my head, but cannot quite get my vocal chords to make the exact sound so I need to adjust. I know it's wrong even before hearing the end result. But I think I always make the sound first in my head before singing it. It's just so fast and automatic that I don't pay attention to it.

You need to warm up everyday. Sing through every note in your register with every combination of vowels and consonants. And those vowel placements are critical because that determines pitch.

When I was studying I lived in Los Angeles and could practice while stuck in traffic jams.

[keypeg]

I had only movable Do for decades.  Some primary teacher taught it and that's all I ever learned.  Ajs, Ti Do, when you learn it that way, is not the same as B,C or F#,G (in G major).  The distance between Ti Do and Mi Fa is closer than a semitone.  It makes you feel the movement more, especially in the absence of harmony.  String players use it to.  It's one of the tunings.  I didn't know I had learned this and actually thought I was doing something wrong until it was explained to me.  Essentially you are living in a modal world, where your context are the major and natural minor scale.  The natural minor is perceived as that same scale but starting two notes below.  It doesn't work that well for modern music.

About a decade ago I learned to recognize pitches as pitches.  Previously G was the pitch that I sang as Do in G major, Mi in E major, Sol in C major etc.  It's like recognizing the butcher, your neighbour, they guy in the front pew on Sundays, but never realizing it's always Jack who has his own personality.  G is G.  Wow. 

A member in my family has "perfect pitch" though I'd call it "pitch recognition".  It is like the rest of us know that an object is red or yellow.  In the colour analogy, those colours also have shades.  He will know that a pitch is B, and that in the context of A = 440 that B is a tad sharp.  This world is the opposite of mine.

I have been told that singing pitch names in Solfege (fixed Do) would give me both worlds, but I don't know why that would be so. 

[outin]

You need to warm up everyday. Sing through every note in your register with every combination of vowels and consonants. And those vowel placements are critical because that determines pitch.

Well I don't really, since I am not a singer...But I don't really see why I would need to warm up to get the pitch right except when going very high or low where it's physically difficult?

[oxy60]

Well I don't really, since I am not a singer...But I don't really see why I would need to warm up to get the pitch right except when going very high or low where it's physically difficult?

Only if you want to quote your pitch correctly. What do sing to demonstrate the pitch?

[outin]

Only if you want to quote your pitch correctly. What do sing to demonstrate the pitch?

??

EDIT: I think I got it now, even though the sentence would not pass a grammar test
You are talking about the different placing of vowels? I'm not English speaking so I don't know the names you would use. The 3 types of vowels are placed differently and sound different. So yes, if one is using one type and then change to a different one the adjustment of pitch may require "warming up".

[timothy42b]

Well I don't really, since I am not a singer...But I don't really see why I would need to warm up to get the pitch right except when going very high or low where it's physically difficult?

Two reasons.

One is just familiarity.  (and one way of getting close to perfect pitch is to have a set of songs in different keys, and use them as an anchor)

Another is that for some people part of pitch perception is the difficulty reaching a high or low note.  Different notes may take different levels of effort to sing, and it's best to be warmed up.

I get up every morning at 0530 and as part of my morning ritual (shave, brush teeth, shower, eliminate, etc.) I do half an hour of trombone practice.  The very first thing I do is buzz a middle Bb, and while maintaining the buzz slowly place the trombone onto the mouth and let the note speak.  If I've buzzed high or low, the horn will tell me immediately;  but I'm rarely far off if at all.  I don't have perfect pitch, but in the context of playing a note I've played hundreds of thousands of times, with the familiar instrument in my hands, I'm always going to be close.

One of the instrumentalists with the Boston Symphony said he passed his dictation classes in music school by bringing his instrument.  Just holding it brought enough memory associations he had no trouble identifying pitches.   

[outin]

Two reasons.

One is just familiarity.  (and one way of getting close to perfect pitch is to have a set of songs in different keys, and use them as an anchor)

Another is that for some people part of pitch perception is the difficulty reaching a high or low note.  Different notes may take different levels of effort to sing, and it's best to be warmed up.

 

I guess since I kind of sing something most of the time (either in my head or aloud when I am alone and these days I cannot help singing my piano pieces) I am always "warmed up" when it comes to pitch.

[oxy60]

??

EDIT: I think I got it now, even though the sentence would not pass a grammar test
You are talking about the different placing of vowels? I'm not English speaking so I don't know the names you would use. The 3 types of vowels are placed differently and sound different. So yes, if one is using one type and then change to a different one the adjustment of pitch may require "warming up".

My question is much more simple. If I needed a starting pitch from you, how will you give it? Will you hum, will you sing a note and what will you pronounce to sing the note? Me, ba, to, oo...?

[outin]

My question is much more simple. If I needed a starting pitch from you, how will you give it? Will you hum, will you sing a note and what will you pronounce to sing the note? Me, ba, to, oo...?

La probably, that seems the most natural...

[j_menz]

I get up every morning at 0530 and as part of my morning ritual ...I do half an hour of trombone practice.     

Next time you see your neighbours, give them a sympathy hug from me.

[birba]

And to think i've been living these ...years without ever having come across this "moveable" do system once!  You certainly can't say pianostreet.com isn't an educational tool...

[timothy42b]

Next time you see your neighbours, give them a sympathy hug from me.

My closest neighbor has a dog that barks all day.  We have agreed to ignore each other's noise.

When I lived in a small farm town in Germany, I sincerely believed my morning practice (there it was 0506 AM due to my commute) was not a problem.  Our house had foot thick masonry walls.

However, one Saturday in the summer the town assembled a band in the garden under my bedroom window at 0500.  They played one march and departed.  Message received! 

[j_menz]

My closest neighbor has a dog that barks all day.  We have agreed to ignore each other's noise.

When I lived in a small farm town in Germany, I sincerely believed my morning practice (there it was 0506 AM due to my commute) was not a problem.  Our house had foot thick masonry walls.

However, one Saturday in the summer the town assembled a band in the garden under my bedroom window at 0500.  They played one march and departed.  Message received! 

 

I like their style.

[ajspiano]

Some primary teacher taught it and that's all I ever learned.  Ajs, Ti Do, when you learn it that way, is not the same as B,C or F#,G (in G major).  The distance between Ti Do and Mi Fa is closer than a semitone.

Given that I've never studied this can you (or someone else) clarify why this is?

My gut feeling is because B-C or F#-G (for example) may refer to an equal temperament tuning, where as in a movable do singing situation you have the option to adjust the exact pitch of the note based on the key you are in? So B, may be a perfect B or it may be a bit sharp or a bit flat (comparatively to equal temp) depending on which scale degree it is acting as?

..which is a skill that all string players employ, since there instruments are not stuck with a rigid tuning. Hence why you mention them?