Perfect Pitch

I'd recommend David Burge's CDs, I use them and I'm noticing great improvements. I think it would be a very benefitial decision for you to buy his Perfect Pitch CDs, but I caution you: there are many imitators who claim to teach Perfect Pitch that actually don't; David Lucas Burge's method is the only one with multiple, independent university studies by professors prooving that his method actually does work.

Anyone who says that Perfect Pitch can't be learned or isn't worth it is simply wrong. No, you don't need Perfect Pitch to be a good musician, but it will help you immensly, especially if you compose. Whether or not you want to spend the time acquiring it is up to you. It's worth it to me, and that's why I work hard at it.

don't forget the disadvantages to perfect pitch:

when someone's singing a song in a different key than it was originally written in, it's very unnerving.

The fact that I've listened to mostly baroque music on original instruments means I'm always a half step above normal. (when I say A, it's really Ab- that makes you look really dumb) Then there's the fact that I tune my flute down a half-step half the time, thinking it's right.

So, needless to say, whether or not it's possible to 'learn' perfect pitch, the disadvantages can even out the advantages.

I use the burge cd's i've noticed improvement also,

And zentari that's not a disadvantage burge actually talks about it and several other so called "disadvantages", that's just a myth.

and also, your problem is just underdevloped perfect pitch.

Burge explains it as well.

don't forget the disadvantages to perfect pitch:

when someone's singing a song in a different key than it was originally written in, it's very unnerving.

So, needless to say, whether or not it's possible to 'learn' perfect pitch, the disadvantages can even out the advantages.

Oh, god, I don't have perfect pitch yet, but I'm getting close, and these little things annoy me.

Pianos drive me crazy about a week after they've been tuned. I can hear the notes sliding out of tune.

People switching keys and not quite pulling it off makes me twich violently. My best friend does this all the time. It drives me crazy. He'll miss some intervals, or change to the wrong key, and I'll just look at him and walk away because I can't take it. The thing that annoys me most is he gets stuck in a key. He'll start a song in the same key as the one he finished and not realize it. Bah. *shudders*

As for myself, I've managed to cobble together some facsimile of perfect pitch by simply comparing pitches to the absolute highest note I can sing without starting to break into falsetto. It just happens that it's exactly an E-flat, plus or minus a few cents, so from there relative pitch takes over.

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Can you really AQUIRE perfect pitch? I have always heard that it is something you are born with.

i dont have it :wub:

but in my experience, lots of musicians don't and some ppl with a limited amount of music knowledge have it...

Sapphire has perfect pitch and hes not even a musician.

Though he does have extended knowledge of music.

personally I believe a person can develop perfect pitch, I personally have never tried, but I mean its completely conceivable and I don't see why a person could not develop it, but I have a feeling it would be analogous to learning a language without any help, just by ear, like a child does, and I have a feeling its extremely tricky because it probably requires a great degree of perceptiveness that most adults are incapable of.... anyways I highly doubt these tapes work, my friend is a jazz musician and tried to get perfect pitch, he worked at it for like a year and a half, and never got it down 100%, but his ability to name absolute pitches got better, and to name relative pitches, however most of his work was done by just trying to be perceptive and listen, not by some miracle tape, hes pretty good at naming pitches too, he can name maybe 5 to 10 pitches right using absolute pitch for every he gets wrong, and I mean absolute as in, play a note before having any reference other than memory possibly.

Hi Guys

I have perfect pitch but more often than not it annoys the hell out of me. I sing in a number of choirs, and when we go flat/sharp i have to mentally TRANSPOSE the music in front of me at sight to the new key otherwise i will be singing out of tune with the rest of the choir....

Usually, when that happens, I ignore the music in front of me if I know it well enough and sing the notes that those around me are singing - if those notes are not a quartertone too low. If I don't look at the music, I immediately recognize the "new" key that the choir is inadvertently singing.

Otherwise, it will become confusing when the music says b minor and the choir chooses to sing in Bb minor!

(This has happened recently). :D

Hey there!

Quick question to all Burge users who have advanced reasonably into the course. Is it really of vital importance to follow Burge's "15 or 20 minutes and no more!" rule or are there those of you who have found it better to practice extended amounts of time and seen better results?

First of all, I thought I had long ago noted that I did succesfully go through David Lucas Burge MasterClass 22.

For Nosal, I suggest not more then about 30 minutes each session.

For PPP's that would like to work and improve their perfect pitch, it depends.

It depends on at which sort of level or degree of perfect pitch you are at.

If you can already ID "all" tones you hear, I would not suggest this course at all.

If you want to work on your Active-AP, his exercise is very simple and anyone can do it:

Just think up any desired note and think it up (you can also take 12 cards and write each note on it) then sing it and check if you were correct.

If you were wrong you should compare these tones.

So listen to the wrong and the correct tone, then hear these tones mentally.

That is to compare them mentally, then listen to the difference/compare again.

The basic thing he will teach you is to always correct the error.

Compare the wrong tone with the correct tone.

That is it.

Take care,

Elcon

Hi Guys

I have perfect pitch but more often than not it annoys the hell out of me. I sing in a number of choirs, and when we go flat/sharp i have to mentally TRANSPOSE the music in front of me at sight to the new key otherwise i will be singing out of tune with the rest of the choir....

oh lol! That sounds like a horrible pain! I never even thought of that...

I also have perfect pitch, but my tuba teacher, who doesn't have perfect pitch, is glad she doesn't have it. - mainly because she was playing at a concert once, where the piano was half a semitone flat. For most people playing this was an easy enough problem - they just tuned their instruments to fit the piano accompaniment. But one person on violin had perfect pitch, and she couldn't tune her instrument out, because it sounded wrong. She had to play without the piano.

Anyhow, I was told that you weren't born with it, no-one is. You develop it by being frequently exposed to tuned pianos (and any other instrument, I suppose) at a young age, like 3 or 4. This means my brother is to blame for mine, since he was 11 or 12 when I was 3 or 4, around the time when he took his Grade 8 and advanced certificate.

I also suppose that if you are exposed to badly tuned pianos, you develop 'wrong' perfect pitch... how annoying that must be...

I haven’t read this thread because I don’t have time. But I’ve looked into the idea of “perfect pitch” in some depth before. To begin with it’s flatly impossible to be born with “perfect pitch”. The reason is simply because A=440 Hz is an arbitrary human standard. There’s nothing special about it in nature. In fact, it wasn’t even always the human convention. So being born with “perfect pitch” is hogwash.

What people are born with is an innate ability to recognize and categorize absolute pitches. However, all humans who have healthy hearing have this ability. Some focus on it and develop it during childhood and others don’t. The ones who develop it think that there were “born” with the ability, but so was everyone else. Other people just didn’t focus on it and develop.

In fact, the vast majority of people don’t focus on it or develop it for the simple reason that it genuinely isn’t important.

The only real use that it can serve would be to transcribe music by ear. This might also come in handing for composing music heard in one’s mind. So in that sense it may be useful for composing. But musically it’s totally useless. In fact, as someone else pointed out it can actually be annoying! It’s better to be more flexible and accept any relative base as the tonal center.

However, having said all of that, there is some benefit to being able to recognize keys. And that can be learned by anyone who has good hearing simply via practice and paying attention. Learning the circle of fifths would be a great place to start.

Being able to recognize keys can help with composition. Again, even if it’s just recognizing the key of music that a person hears in their mind.

Simply paying attention to harmonies, keys, and common progressions is helpful to anyone who’s into music in any form. It just like anything else, the more you are around it, and the more you pay attention to it, the more you begin to recognize it. But those traits really have nothing to do with “perfect pitch” as it’s called. Simply paying attention to these details is the first and single most important step to becoming conscious of them.

Good hearing is also important. Some people simply have more sensitive ears than others. Just like some people can smell odors more strongly than other people, etc. Everyone’s senses are not identical.

Sorry, I noticed the last post was on August 27th, but didn't realise that was last year. Which makes this topic kinda old.

Very old :thumbsup:

Of all the people that I've been in contact with who have perfect pitch, the vast majority of them can't stand that they have it and actually find it to be a deficit. I worked with a choir director at a church by some train tracks. She has perfect pitch. Honestly, she had to stop practice with the choir when a train went by because the song they were singing was in one key, the horn was in another and the rumble of the wheels droned yet another. I'm sure the sheer 'noise' of it all had a good part to play in the distraction but she claimed it was because of the different pitches going on.

If you really want to train your ear to listen and keep track of music in real time, look into studying with Marianne Ploger. A true master in being able to teach people how to listen and what to listen for.

I reall learning somewhere that perfect pitch has been traced to a small part of the brain around the backside of the left ear. (The same area, but different section, that is associated with recalling colors and other specific 'name' issues.) This part that takes on perfect pitch shrinks as the brain matures to about 5 years old or so. (If you don't use it, you loose it.) If not properly trained or exposed by that point, it cannot be thus trained.

Relative pitch is better anyway. You are better served to hear relationships between notes than just individual notes. Individual notes mean nothing until relationships are built between many notes. (The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts.)

while not essential, perfect pitch is a good thing. I am beginning to pick it up, and there are tricks to begin to learn it yourself.

what I am doing now is a combo of relative and absolute pitch. I have memorized middle C, and use it as a reference. how did I memorize it? well, I am a bass, and recently I started to look into singing a lot more, and I realized that middle C is just where I start to be uncomfortable range wise. so, I have memorized in both a physical and a mental sense that note. I also have (kind of useless now that I have middle C) the Bb 3 octaves above middle C memorized, because as an avid clarinetist, I have memorized artie's final note in artie shaw's Clarinet concerto (look it up on youtube, you will see what I mean.)

since I have memorized those pitches, I can reference the rest, through intervalic knowledge. easy stuff. kinda. you do have to have a good memory.

also, to the previous poster, I have never heard of someone being bothered in that way by perfect pitch. any moron who knows music would be disturbed in that way, because of looking at notes relative to another. I mean, if the horn is in F# and the band is in C there are going to be people cringing. add the fact that the droning wheels are in C# and you have a very unpleasant mix. now, I don't need to know what keys they are in to be angry at it, I just need to know that it's a minor 2nd, and a tritone. so I'm not sure why perfect pitch is the problem there. I think she probably just had sensitive... something. a migrane, perhaps?

I've mentioned this before (possibly in this very thread :toothygrin:), but I'll say it again just because I will say it again. I, like J. Lee, have good pitch memory, and will memorize keys and pitches well, but I'm not sure if I have perfect pitch. Again, like J. Lee 9 times out of 10 I can get the G but this is just because of my pitch memory. I suppose it's kind of the same, but I don't think I have perfect pitch. I do believe, however, that one can have something in the middle of perfect pitch and no ear at all. So it is possible to develop it, just harder if you're older (like many things :P).

I have perfect pitch and for most things, it is incredibly useful and a great tool. In other ways, it is a drawback. Instruments like French Horn and saxophone (and trumpet and clarinet to a lesser extent) are extremely hard to read if not impossible, because our brains cannot reconcile the difference in the sound and the note on the page.

In other words, when I press the fingering for a "D" and a note other than "D" comes out, our system crashes. While other people will accept a "C" as a clarinet "D", we can't do that....because we know better. We know that what we are really playing is a "C."

So in playing transposing instruments, perfect pitch is a massive drawback. Of course, all this could be avoided if parts for every instrument were available in concert pitch. Unfortunately that's not the case.

Now I'm a little confused, because I'm reading about people trying to learn perfect pitch. I didn't think true perfect pitch could be learnt. Even if you train yourself to be able to recall "C" without reference, you are still getting other notes based upon the "C" you remember.

Those of us with perfect pitch hear and identify every note immediately without even thinking.

I don't really understand this reasoning though. If you're reading a French Horn passage in F that sounds at the same time as an instrument that is not in F, people with relative pitch have the exact same problem as people with absolute pitch, since you've still got two "conflicting" transpositions. All you have to learn is that the note written on the "C line of the violin clef" isn't actually a sounding C, but an F, in this case. This is the same everybody has to learn who doesn't have perfect pitch.

The only time when it would make a difference is when you're reading a passage of a transposing instrument when no other instrument plays at the same time. Or when all instruments play with the same transposition.

Hello everyone! First post! yay me!

Anyway, there's a lot of riff-raff about what perfect pitch is and what it isn't and if we're born with it blah blah blah. And so I would just like to clear some things up. You can believe me if you want, that's up to you.

1. No one is born with perfect pitch.

Just as how in kindergarten we learn what Red, Yellow, and Blue is, and distinguish the differences between them, we too must learn perfect pitch (or absolute pitch) from ground zero. Some people just develop it at a very early age, and this is normal. But saying that people are "born" with perfect pitch is as ridiculous as saying that choice few are born already knowing what the color wheel is. Perfect Pitch is also a human ability. It is something that is built in in all of us, it is not a genetic trait or defect.

2. Perfect Pitch is NOT a hindrance. I personally developed perfect pitch with the Burge Supercourse and I tell you now, if an entire orchestra is toned down, I'll just know it's toned down, it won't drive me crazy or up the wall. It won't annoy me, or bother me, or cause me to throw up and pass out or any other nonsense. I'll simply go like, huh, that's a different pitch. If you have a friend that has perfect pitch and says they can't stand to listen to some music because it is not in tune then they're most likely lying to show off. Either that, or it's a personal preference, but it is not the actual perfect pitch that is making them suffer. Absolute pitch just clears up what you hear. Remember it's a HUMAN ability. That means that once you develop perfect pitch it won't turn your ear into a robot and all of a sudden anything that isn't a Studio Standard of 440hz will drive you crazy.

3. Perfect pitch is Tone Color recognition. Basically how you can visually see red and yellow and how they differ in hue, the same applies to music except in tone. Now this doesn't mean we associate colors to sound, not at all. Tone color is different than visual color. How sharp or dull, how twangy or mellow, how this and the other, how you describe the sound of each separate pitch is the tone color. And each pitch has a its own tone color. Thats how perfect pitch works, it's basically opening your ear up to pick up these delicate differences, you fine tune your ear to perceive these tone colors. Now the myth is that once you have perfect pitch that you sing EXACTLY or hear EXACTLY what the pitch is. This is simply not true. In colors, red, for example has different shades, light to dark, either way we can still tell it's red. The standard red could be compared to C5. A darker red to C4 and a lighter red to C6. Perfect pitch doesn't mean you will be able to distinguish a tone down to the exact semitone/cent remember, it's a human ability, no one is EXACT. If they claim to be, don't believe them.

A lot of people with perfect pitch claim a lot of things just to get attention and show off. My friend being one of them, said he was born with it. Once I developed it, his ego got a well deserved slap in the face.

As for the CDs, I would say buy them, try them, there's a money back guarantee. I recommend David's collection, just because he's not so serious as the other ones. I like him. :D

DON'T BE AFRAID TO OBTAIN PERFECT PITCH, IT WILL NOT RUIN MUSIC FOR YOU, IN FACT IT WILL COMPLETELY CLEAR UP MUSIC AND OPEN YOUR EAR TO RICHER TONES AND SOUND.

Trust me. It's worth it. The urban legends, don't listen to those, just find out for yourself what is true and what isn't.

- Danny-O

Hello everyone! First post! yay me!

I personally developed perfect pitch with the Burge Supercourse...

- Danny-O

Now long did that take you? I went through that course, but never really worked on developing it. Just wonder how long it takes to develop it well.

1. No one is born with perfect pitch.

Just as how in kindergarten we learn what Red, Yellow, and Blue is, and distinguish the differences between them, we too must learn perfect pitch (or absolute pitch) from ground zero. Some people just develop it at a very early age, and this is normal. But saying that people are "born" with perfect pitch is as ridiculous as saying that choice few are born already knowing what the color wheel is. Perfect Pitch is also a human ability. It is something that is built in in all of us, it is not a genetic trait or defect.

I don't think the argument is that you are born and then have it. That's just a lazy way of saying you need to form it as a kid and if you don't you're screwed. Consider talking, if you don't learn to talk before a certain age then it becomes nearly impossible, if not impossible, to learn to talk. You can learn simple phrases but talking on a normal level cannot be done. The question is, is perfect pitch the same way? Is there a certain age when perfect pitch is no longer learn able but instead you learn something that is close to it but isn't it.

Perfect Pitch is NOT a hindrance (for me).

But it is for some people.