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Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

moderndescartes.com

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Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#91

Post by crowcroft »

rybosome wrote: post #19

I suppose I have perfect pitch, in that I can more often than not: * aurally identify key signatures * aurally identify chords * sing a given note on command It wasn't until I was into my early twenties that I could do this. For me, the single biggest stepping stone was building the connection between what I could hear in my head from a song that I remember clearly with the underlying music theory. Specifically, buil…

This is the way. Most people don't have 'absolute perfect pitch' but, almost anyone can train themselves to have relative pitch, which can mostly give the same result. That is when you are given a good starting point to refer from, you can then work out where something is relative to that starting point.

That's why tuning forks and pitch pipes exist. You need a source of truth to ground things in, and then you can train yourself to hear the relative distance between notes from there.

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#92

Post by tzs »

Careful what you wish for.

• Live music is often slightly out of tune. If the piano at a small club where you are playing a one night gig is slightly low your band is probably going to tune to that piano. I've read of vocalists with perfect pitch saying that this drove them nuts.

• Perfect pitch often drifts as you age. I've read of people who had to stop listening to music when they got into their 50s or 60s because their perfect pitch was now off and everything sounded wrong to them.

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#93

Post by trgn »

dhosek wrote: post #87

The thing that really accelerated my pitch learning was choral singing (in particular, with a serious classically-oriented choir at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago). If you’re singing the notes, they really get internalized. At the peak of my skills, I was able to compose a fully harmonized melody on a walk and then play it on piano when I got home.

I'm middle aged and looking for a new hobby, and for this reason alone I might take up singing, to be able to play by ear much more easily on my instrument (iso by trial and error, I get there eventually but it's not effortless).

I'm held back by a sense of embarrassment when singing. I feel weird singing by myself (always have), let alone with others around. I don't have this same embarrassment making mistakes when playing an instrument. Any tips on how to help with that?

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#94

Post by bowsamic »

tzs wrote: post #92

Careful what you wish for. • Live music is often slightly out of tune. If the piano at a small club where you are playing a one night gig is slightly low your band is probably going to tune to that piano. I've read of vocalists with perfect pitch saying that this drove them nuts. • Perfect pitch often drifts as you age. I've read of people who had to stop listening to music when they got into their 50s or 60s because…

Yeah I've also heard that it's more of an annoyance than it's worth, in fact I'm not really sure of anyone who has said it's a benefit in any way. It's just not really an aspect of music that people usually enjoy anyway. Naturally, music is engineered more to be relatively pitched rather than absolute

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#95

Post by whstl »

w-m wrote: post #81
jsphweid wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post isn't compelling to me. > a completely useless skill It's probably an overrated skill depending on the musical task, but to say it's completely useless is really ignorant. Nearly anyone who studies music at the university level or above would find this statement ("completely useless") to be wildly incorrect. > Random chance would be 8.3%. A random human won't sing off the cuff with their tonal center magica…

This criticism isn't compelling to me. The smiling emoji at the end of the first paragraph indicates that these statements were made somewhat in jest, or perhaps exaggerated. Of course some uses can be found for absolute pitch. I saw one a couple weeks back, when Jacob Collier was tuning the audience choir to lead into "Somebody to Love" played on the piano. But, hadn't he had absolute pitch, he might just have picke…

It's just an anecdote, but: I remember playing in a band with an amateur musician friend who told me had perfect pitch, and it was "very annoying", according to him, when we transposed songs to fit our voices. They just "sounded wrong" to him. He would make beginner mistakes since he relied on pitch memory rather than listening to us to know what to play/sing.

I have no idea how it works in general, but it seems like it was a problem for at least this one guy.

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#96

Post by yaur »

dberst wrote: post #29
rybosome wrote: post #19

I suppose I have perfect pitch, in that I can more often than not: * aurally identify key signatures * aurally identify chords * sing a given note on command It wasn't until I was into my early twenties that I could do this. For me, the single biggest stepping stone was building the connection between what I could hear in my head from a song that I remember clearly with the underlying music theory. Specifically, buil…

I'd be happy to see any "songs all in the same key" type playlists if anyone wants to share one I'm a programmer interested in music visualization and it would be handy to have a few of these

Not a playlist per se, but https://www.hooktheory.com/cheat-sheet/key-popularity

Has popular songs for each key and mode

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#97

Post by tzs »

OT: what ever happened to AB repeat?

I remember that most of my CD players, and my MP3 players, and I think my iPods had AB repeat. For those who have not used a player with AB repeat, what it did was let you mark two points on a song ("A" and "B") and then it would loop the section between those two points.

It was great if you were trying to transcribe a song or figure out how to play it on your instrument. You could put a couple chords or a section of the melody on AB repeat until you got it and then move on.

The major streaming players don't seem to have this. Nor does Apple's Music player when playing local files.

You can download a song (if your streaming service supports it) or record it (if downloads are not supported) and then open it in GarageBand or something similar which should have a way to repeat a section.

That works but is a bit of a hassle, and sometimes you might want to try to figure out a song when you aren't at your computer.

Re: Learn perfect pitch in 15 years

#98

Post by uptownfunk »

rybosome wrote: post #19

I suppose I have perfect pitch, in that I can more often than not: * aurally identify key signatures * aurally identify chords * sing a given note on command It wasn't until I was into my early twenties that I could do this. For me, the single biggest stepping stone was building the connection between what I could hear in my head from a song that I remember clearly with the underlying music theory. Specifically, buil…

Can you share the playlists?
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