memory and association

[kindablue]

i found pitch paths was a great help. but i ended up taking his idea and making up some files with Reason4. short files that go for about 8 seconds. a note plays, there is a gap then the pitch path tune.the tune is the answer as well practise. i did this over 4 octaves. grouped them into folders, C and D, Then C,D and E etc. put them on a cd and my iphone. i play the CD in my car hit random and testing and learning starts. currently completed all white notes and F#, C# and working on G#.

i am making up mp3's for relative pitch using tunes for each interval and testing the same way. it seems to be working so far. and when i play relative pitch app on my phone i notice improvement. i can't always play with the phone especially when i am driving, so the CD on random works really well.

there are a lot of methods out there. it is good to find one that works best for you and stick to it for a while and see how it goes. i use relative pitch app for the testing, and also real applications like listening to songs or transcribing on my guitar. that is where it is at really. if you can't use the information in a practical context then there is something wrong.

i once used a C note as my txt message alert. everytime i got a txt the C note sounded. i sang it back. i can pretty much get C note right 99.9% of the time. sometimes i am flat slightly.

[ChristopherS]

I love that idea of using your phone's alert sound to ingrain a particular note! Will definitely be trying that myself, to reinforce my 'C' Thanks for the tip!

[kindablue]

it is like waking up hearing a song on the radio and having that song in your head all day. when you want to hear that C, just think of your phone and you can hear the note. setting a note as an alarm is really good as well.

[Big Ears]

Can you hear particular characteristics of the note? Does it sound distinctive to you at any point (e.g.the attack or the decay phase of the sound)? I'm aware (from the David Burge course) that notes vary in that way but as yet haven't managed to do much with the knowledge!

[kindablue]

Can you hear particular characteristics of the note? Does it sound distinctive to you at any point (e.g.the attack or the decay phase of the sound)? I'm aware (from the David Burge course) that notes vary in that way but as yet haven't managed to do much with the knowledge!

hhhmm i understand what you mean. there are notes that i just identify without the pitch path tune. i have heard it enough to know that it is what it is. i can't describe why notes sound different. my ear has become a lot clearer in the broad spectrum of things. still a long way to go, maybe i can answer your question better as time goes on.

i do think that everyone would have a different view on a note and its characteristics. when i am doing pitch paths i am not listening for different characteristics. the trigger tune is the identification then i later the tune is not there i just hear the note....

sorry i haven't quite answered your question but i can't explain what i am hearing.

[Big Ears]

still a long way to go, maybe i can answer your question better as time goes on.

i do think that everyone would have a different view on a note and its characteristics. when i am doing pitch paths i am not listening for different characteristics. the trigger tune is the identification then i later the tune is not there i just hear the note....

sorry i haven't quite answered your question but i can't explain what i am hearing.

I agree that things definitely become clearer over time. Certainly, I've found that to be the case with relative pitch, chord tones/harmony and music theory in general.

Burge actually desccribes characteristics as he plays the notes in his early examples and I must say, they do leap out at you once he does so. Having a different view on the characteristics is a bit of a mind boggler - a bit like the question of: does everyone see the colour we call blue the same way?

Again, Burge points out that colour and sound are both vibrations - they're just perceived by different senses. Colour is light moving a trillions of cycles per second, while sound is air moving at hundreds to thousands of cycles per second.

Do you have regular ear training time? I usually do the internal perception stuff (listening and repeating by singing pitches) at home. The external stuff (listening and naming) I tend to do on the way to work.

[Big Ears]

Oh, meant to say: Your answer was fine - I really just wanted to get an idea of how you were 'getting into' the sounds. Burge goes pretty much unchallenged and I'm always interested in alternative approaches. I tend to learn best by working through a variety of approacjes and combining them into something that works for me.

[ChristopherS]

I think there are a variety of ideas about how absolute pitch works, and so how best to train it. I'm actually currently working on a post about that.

I'm definitely another one who likes to try several approaches and find the mix which seems to work best for me (as the growing pile of play-by-ear books by my piano will attest to!) That said, some of the suggestions for absolute pitch learning definitely seem to have more merit to them than others... Anyway, more on Monday!


I've just been fiddling with ringtones for my iPhone - it seems that without jailbreaking shenanigans you can only set custom ring tones, not SMS tones! Terrible. Fortunately I quite like subtler ring tones, so I've set a single C piano note for that for now. I guess the downside is thinking that my phone's ringing if I ever hear a piano C out in the wild!

Also realised I didn't know what the three notes were in the default three-note SMS tone on the iPhone. It's named 'Tri-Tone', but turns out it's actually D/A/D. So I can use that to help my absolute pitch training too, now. It feels great to awaken your ear to the sounds it's been 'blindly' hearing day-to-day...

[card1234]

Hello Everyone!

[card1234]

I come the forum at first!