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| The Perfect Pitch saga continues... [message #69317] |
Wed, 14 June 2006 04:10  |
Kim
Messages: 1246
Registered: October 2005
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Senior Member |
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Well, I'm slugging away on this little app, doing maybe an hour a day spread
out, hearing notes, guessing notes, pressing notes... getting about 95%
correct most of the time, though I'm still not using the full chromatic scale,
which brings me down to about 85%. I'm using C major, or the last couple
of days D major. And also using Eb minor pentatonic (ie all the black notes).
All in all though, I get these patches where it just falls into place for
a bit and I get like 50 notes correct in a row, just flying through them.
Over the last week I've really tried to speed up my response time and just
go with my gut feeling, and I'm finding it's working more and more. The instant
response brought my score down a lot when I started, but it's back up again,
and I'm quite happy with my progress.
Of course, there's plenty of relative pitch in my 95% figures contributing
to them, and sometimes the program plays the same note twice or even more
in a row, or an octave, or a semitone, or some other simple interval, so
on sheer "instant response pitch guessing without relative or other assistance"
my score wouldn't be that high, but at the same time I'm confident I'm getting
the hang of it. Often my relative pitch is thrown and I don't know what it
is, yet my gut feel gets it right mostly.
I've been reading all over the net for clues as to what to look for, and
whether indeed it is possible to develop it. There's certainly a lot of controversy
around the topic. Many claim it can't be learned, that you must be born with
it, some of whom have tried out one course or another, but flying in the
face of this are a few examples of people who claim to have developed it
late in life, or know people who have. I'm finding little evidence of people
who devloped it from any course however, so I'm just battling through with
lots of testing myself, and using my own methods to try and train my ear,
based on what I'm hearing is the experience of those who have the ability,
and I think I'm starting to hear something.
I've had a few good experiences over the past couple of days which have given
me hope. The first was that somehow Abba's Waterloo got stuck in my head
(no, that didn't give me hope) and upon slowing it down in my head an listening
to the notes I guessed the two notes of "Waterloo" were B and A. Followed
the rest of the melody "Couldn't escape if I wanted to" down past G to F#
and back to G and went "Yep, that's it. That's definately it". Checked later
and sure enough I was dead on.
I had another experience today where I heard another song in D which I also
worked out, and heard two tunes on the way back home in the car which I sensed
were in A, and could hear the notes of the riff. When I got near a keyboard
I checked and sure enough was bang on.
For a long while I've been able to work out keys by using other songs as
reference points... imagining a known song and getting a note out of that,
and comparing. Now I'm finding however that the notes just come to me...
that I can hear the quality of the note, and know what note it is. It's
a different thing. I'm remembering the notes, and differentiating between
them. It's only a vague sense at this stage, but it's there, and it's enough
to give me confidence that I should continue.
There is also a lot of controversy, as mentioned by our AA here, about whether
it's a good thing all round to even have perfect pitch at all. My feeling
on this is that, as a person who (hopefully) develops the skill at a later
stage in life, long after developing my relative pitch skills, long after
learning to play, and long after establishing my taste in music, that I'm
hoping that I can take all the old stuff I have learned with me also. I'm
hoping that, for example, I will be able to transpose a tune my old way.
I'm thinking that those born with perfect pitch come to rely on it, whereas
I am unlikely to, as I have learned to do without it already. Hence I am
picturing that I should be able to use it when appropriate, but basically
turn it off when I don't need it, or at least ignore it when something is
off key and just listen "how I used to"... though time will tell if I'm
right. In any case, I've heard a lot of different stories about such things,
and how differently some possesors of perfect pitch respond to out of key
parts, transposition, and similar such things. Some have trouble with some
things and not others. Some seem to have the best of all worlds and simply
use it when they want, and experience little in the way of negatives. I'm
hoping, seeing as how I know how to live without it already, that I can be
one of those who doesn't experience too many negatives from it...
....assuming I aquire the skill at all.
I really am starting to feel that want to aquire it just so that I can explain
to all the people I've seen post that "It can't be learned" that, in fact,
it can. I'd like to sort that one out at least.
The point is though, that notes and keys do sound different to me. Some are
more happy, and bright, where others are mellow and soft, and others still
are, well, kinda rounded. I'm hearing this, and I'm becoming increasingly
confident that my training is increasing my perception of this.
I'm going to have to do this, because I'll look like a goose if I don't.
;o)
Cheers,
Kim.
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