Weird Ear phenomenon

vinnydbass · #1 05-08-2009, 10:12 AM

i absolutely do not have perfect pitch. my relative pitch is good though, doing ear training everyday in college, but i never could explain this. ive had this happen to me a few times, and i was kinda freaked out by it.

occasionally i'll hear a note, and my brain will go "hey, hold up, that is this note....." i usually remember the note in the context of a song. heres a specific situation:

during a jam session a couple of days ago, my guitarist played a note, i didnt see him play it, and i did not know what note it was. but the first thing that had sprung to my head was "pea" by red hot chili peppers, the first note, being an F. so i proceeded to play an F on the third fret of my d string, it matched and sure enough it was an F the my guitar player had played, he had a capo on the first fret and strummed his e string.

same happens whenever i hear an open e on guitar it immediately reminds me of broken social scene's "7/4 shoreline"

has something like this every happened to anyone else?

limit6 · #2 05-08-2009, 10:19 AM

Yes sir, all the time. You're thinking more musically and going beyond the pages. Congrats

Zombbg4 · #3 05-08-2009, 10:21 AM

Same thing happened with a kid at my school. The jazz band was on a quest to try and "learn" perfect pitch after we found out a trumpet player had it. One the the techniques we tried was finding a song that starts on or has a main riff a distinct note, then find eleven more, one song for each note. Well, one of the guys actually learned that. Play a note and he'd run through his selected songs and he would nail it. Didn't work out for me though. Try the one song per note thing and I'd guess that you would be able to do the same. Let us know how it works out!

Wademeister63 · #4 05-08-2009, 10:21 AM

Not exactly but I had a lot of times where a guitarist will hit a chord and I can recognize it a EXACTLY belonging in something unrelated. The other day we were tuning up and getting ready for I don't know what song. Guitarist hit a chord and I sang out I SEE A BAD A-MOON A-RISING... It was too perfect to let get away.

Jim Carr · #5 05-08-2009, 06:11 PM

A lot of ear training students start becoming much more sensitive to the key of pieces and it often relates to music they know. I experienced it much more when studying fixed do. Please no flames, I am making no claims for or against any ear training discipline, just reporting what I have exerienced. YMMV, IMHO, etc., etc., ad nauseum, usw.

IbanezATK · #6 05-08-2009, 07:51 PM

Sure, has happened to me. I was born with relative pitch but not perfect pitch, but there are certain notes I relate to certain songs. I can tune within a few cents on guitar by "thinking" Come As You Are and going up a half step.

I'm currently doing the Perfect Pitch and Relative Pitch Courses... or I should say I have them and I plan on doing them. Hopefully they work.

mndean · #7 05-08-2009, 08:59 PM

Oh, yeah. Relative pitch here, but I "knew" certain chords when I played pretty much every day and heard a new song. Was easier for me when on guitar, though. I also had key preferences (three of them), and it was lots easier for me to pick out the notes of a melody in those keys. On some songs I could do it cold, having heard it once. Other keys were very frustrating for me.

RAM · #8 05-08-2009, 09:05 PM

Ditto.

I don't have perfect pitch, but have developed a sense of relative pitch. There are times I may recognize a note or have even been able to tune a horribly out-of-tune guitar or bass to pretty close to the actual tuning.

I was recently at a friend's house where he had an old beat-up acoustic guitar. Screwing around I picked it up to strum a couple of bar chords. Noticing how badly out-of-tune it was, I tuned it up, but didn't use the benefit of using a tuner. The next time I went over there, I brought my Petersen Stobo-flip, and to test myself, I wanted to see how close I could get the tuning, which was pretty darned close. Keep in mind that every string was VASTLY out: at least a couple of steps! I was able to get the strings within just a couple of cents of being in tune!

BTW: This thread is probably better suited for Misc than under Basses...

darthplagis · #9 05-08-2009, 09:09 PM

i thought every one did that

but the way it happens with me is different (prob the same, just my explanation :P) say i hear a note or chord like an F my head automatically pops up the notes on my fretboard and my hand follows (E1,A7,D3 or G10 for example).

i have only done pitch training by learning my neck and singing (lead and harmony) so i dont know if that qualifies for 'training' but im pretty accurate, i guess its just like muscle memory for note positions and major/minor scale patterns just in the ear, so like when the ear vibrates at a certain frequency and you are associating that frequency with the given note/passage you are playing you remember both? maybe i dont know i am a self taught musical plebeian :P

dabbler · #10 05-09-2009, 06:23 AM

This is a known phenomenon.

In the book, "This is your brain on music" ( http://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Brai...1870959&sr=1-1) EXCELLENT book, BTW, if you are interested in how music affects people and lots of other things you probably never throught of. It's by a guy who knows, music from performing, engineering, and the cerebral side.

Anyway, the author did and experiment. Another researcher had tried to "train" perfect pitch. This had been unsuccessful. What the author did was ask his subjects to sing their favorite song. These were not trained musicians (at least not all of them were). Uncannily, they sang the song IN THE CORRECT pitch AND tempo of the commercially recorded version! The author stated that they could play the commercial version with the previously recorded version from the subjects and it would sync up and mesh perfectly!

Another story, my trumpet teacher told me that I could develop perfect pitch and that I was already part way there. I laughed, but all he did was say, sing a Bflat, to which I replied, I have NO idea what I b flat is. Then he said, put your horn to your mouth, and pretend to begin to play a b flat (trumpets tune to a b flat) I did, then he said put the trumpet down and sing what you would have played... and I sang a b flat!

My take? If you hear/play something often enough you will remember the pitch!

Ozonbass · #11 05-09-2009, 06:43 AM

I think that you can pick those notes out is extremely cool...the only notes I ever "hear" in my head are from the tinnitis...

"Your head is humming and it won't go...in case you don't know.
The piper's calling you to join him"

They knew.

JonathanF · #12 05-09-2009, 06:49 AM

That's funny, after reading your post "Pea" played in my head. Then I played it and both F's matched. There must be something about this song...

Sometimes though singing a song in another key just doesn't sound right, I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about...

dropbass · #13 05-09-2009, 07:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dabbler

This is a known phenomenon.

In the book, "This is your brain on music" ( http://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Brai...1870959&sr=1-1) EXCELLENT book, BTW, if you are interested in how music affects people and lots of other things you probably never throught of. It's by a guy who knows, music from performing, engineering, and the cerebral side.

Anyway, the author did and experiment. Another researcher had tried to "train" perfect pitch. This had been unsuccessful. What the author did was ask his subjects to sing their favorite song. These were not trained musicians (at least not all of them were). Uncannily, they sang the song IN THE CORRECT pitch AND tempo of the commercially recorded version! The author stated that they could play the commercial version with the previously recorded version from the subjects and it would sync up and mesh perfectly!

man i have the same book... i though it was good i guess for some people... it just felt like i already knew /understood the whole thing..like i wasnt getting any NEW info or revelations into music...or making me see music in a way i never had...but i do think if you play and dig science you should give it a read...

dropbass · #14 05-09-2009, 07:29 AM

anyone else have those times... where just free jamming and you come across a lick from a song just in the right way and end up working out most of it. with out it even playing i love that!!!!!

Mikio · #15 05-09-2009, 10:17 AM

yeah, I don't think perfect pitch is something you got or not, I think it's something you can definitively learn and that just some people are just lucky to have mor "ear talent" than most people.

LowKee · #16 05-09-2009, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mikio

yeah, I don't think perfect pitch is something you got or not, I think it's something you can definitively learn and that just some people are just lucky to have mor "ear talent" than most people.

You can learn relative pitch but not perfect pitch. The difference is this: relative pitch and pitch memory are related to muscle memory. This means that when you hear notes that you already know (as in a song that you listen to a lot) your vocal chords remember how to make that note and can sing it. You can use this to find other pitches and thus, it can function in a very similar way to perfect pitch. True perfect pitch, however, is not related to muscle memory. This means that you can find a pitch without any other point of reference.
So while you can learn very precise relative pitch, it is still not "perfect pitch."
There is a lot more to it than this, but I don't really know that much about it. I learned this from one of my professors who has studied the physiology of music fairly extensively (she also has perfect pitch).

wildhorse · #17 05-09-2009, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wademeister63

Not exactly but I had a lot of times where a guitarist will hit a chord and I can recognize it a EXACTLY belonging in something unrelated. The other day we were tuning up and getting ready for I don't know what song. Guitarist hit a chord and I sang out I SEE A BAD A-MOON A-RISING... It was too perfect to let get away.

Must have been a D. Of course John tuned down a whole step and played an E. But still a D.

The bathrooms on the right!

Jim Carr · #18 05-09-2009, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LowKee

You can learn relative pitch but not perfect pitch...True perfect pitch, however, is not related to muscle memory. This means that you can find a pitch without any other point of reference.
So while you can learn very precise relative pitch, it is still not "perfect pitch."
There is a lot more to it than this, but I don't really know that much about it. I learned this from one of my professors who has studied the physiology of music fairly extensively (she also has perfect pitch).

+1

I agree that you cannot learn perfect pitch aka Absolute Pitch (AP). However, you can induce AP-like experiences in more isolated and specialized circumstances. These are highly varied and not at all well-understood in the music-cognition field. By their nature, these pitch-memory phenomena are hard to study and thus are much harder to track to specific neurological structures or even specific effects.

Never-the-less, they exist, and they are not AP, yet they are AP-like in nature. Again, I totally agree AP cannot be learned.

wildhorse · #19 05-09-2009, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Carr

+1

I agree that you cannot learn perfect pitch aka Absolute Pitch (AP). However, you can induce AP-like experiences in more isolated and specialized circumstances. These are highly varied and not at all well-understood in the music-cognition field. By their nature, these pitch-memory phenomena are hard to study and thus are much harder to track to specific neurological structures or even specific effects.

Never-the-less, they exist, and they are not AP, yet they are AP-like in nature. Again, I totally agree AP cannot be learned.

True. I know guys that can hear any note or chord that can be played. Question remains wether it would be on all instruments. Can't have perfect pitch because pitch isn't perfect.

Duplo42 · #20 05-09-2009, 03:20 PM

Well, talking about weird:

When i was in music high school, i suddenly started to hear rhythm in correct BPM. Teacher would go "What tempo is this?" and started to tap it. And it just came outta my mouth "112." And he said "No, i meant: is it allegro or whatever." But he checked it on metronome and i was dead on correct.
Than we tried it vica-verse, "Tap 94 for me, please", and i just did it and it was correct again. Dunno what would u call it, perfect rhythm?

But as far as notes go, if u play one note on i.e. guitar, i can tell if its flat or sharp, but i cannot name it. Its kinda frustrating, coz if i.e solo artist is not in tune, it really bothers me.

I can also sing any tune i heard, dead on pitch. Im just too lazy to learn what note that would be

That kind of phenomenoms usually come after a longer period of deep involment with music, so i kinda take it as something quite normal.

But i still dont get the perfect pitch thing. Instruments weren't always tuned to 440hz, which is standard for only like 60+ years. So why is it that perfect-pitchers hear something they call perfect for 440hz only...?