yea I could, and have done it in the past...never had to do the position bit before but I'm pretty confident in my ability to do so (I know middle C so it shouldn't be an issue).
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Do I have Perfect or Relative Pitch?!
- Thread starter johndough247
- Start date
yea I could, and have done it in the past...never had to do the position bit before but I'm pretty confident in my ability to do so (I know middle C so it shouldn't be an issue).
The bigger problem playing with others who have perfect pitch is their inability or unwillingness to follow the intonation of the ensemble. I have played with a sax player who would be sharp/flat relative to the rest of the group because "he was right and you guys are sharp", but sometimes like tempos which ebb and flow so can group intonation.
The perfect pitch topic is about as lame as the virtues of reading and the importance of modes. Who really cares?
I call this perfect pitch, and you surely have relative pitch as well.
Did you train your ear somehow to arrive at perfect pitch?
lol. Wasn't that an episode of the Outer Limits? Seriously though, I never thought of it like that.
Some people will take this as some kind of cocky answer (it's not), but to be honest, I guess life trained my ear...it was a culmination of all my experiences (remember the songs and the NES game that I could recite from memory on pitch, I heard it when I was no older than 5 or 6 years old, I definitely wasn't hammering the same key over and over to learn it at that age, and i've never done that for the record). Either that or you are truly born with it.
Yes, we are talking about spectrums here, so I'll concede that my color analogy was not perfect.
Let me put it to you this way... Have you ever used an electronic tuner to tune an instrument? If you have perfect pitch you would see them as slow, sometimes innacurate and completely useless lumps of plastic. (for you anyway)
I presume that those with perfect pitch unconsciously calibrated their ears growing up to thousands of recordings of songs over the years and later learned the names of the notes they were listening to.
So maybe if you grew up on a desert island with an out of tune piano and nothing else, it might take you a while to get re-adjusted.
By the way, what do you think of microtonal music that is based on scales other than our 12-tone chromatic scale?
I agree somewhat. Perfect pitch can come in handy in vocal applications. Beyond that, it's a bit of a parlor trick.
In instrument ensemble, relative pitch is where it's at.
The ability to hear perfect pitch like that represents more than just an ability to name notes. It represents that a person is 'seeing' and perceiving music in an entirely different way than others and allows for innate musical abilities and understanding that take others years to learn, if ever.
I think it is closely related to synesthesia, if not a direct form of it.
If you want a rank and file band member who takes direction, someone with perfect pitch may not be the best choice but if you want some truly creative musicians, you have good odds finding them in that group.
For someone with perfect pitch ( or absolut pitch ) everything is music and note ...
you talk = he can tell you what note you use when you talk.
A truck pass by = he can tell you the note the truc does.
Your high heel on the floor do music note too...
you can listen to multiple music source at once and write them down perfecly ( was really amaze when I saw that for the first time ).
you talk = he can tell you what note you use when you talk.
A truck pass by = he can tell you the note the truc does.
Your high heel on the floor do music note too...
you can listen to multiple music source at once and write them down perfecly ( was really amaze when I saw that for the first time ).
I can recite the whole Mario theme song in my head in absolutely perfect pitch, but I don't have even relative pitch.
I think perfect pitch, relative pitch, synesthesia, gifted writing, steady hand for drawing etc. don't make an artist.
Creativity, attitude, soul and mindset make an artist.
I developed that opinion after numerous examples.
I'll give you 2.
I have an incredible gift of drawing. My hand is very steady, and the pen simply glides over the paper, creating what I imagined almost effortlessly. But, the most drawings I ever did (serious, expressionist, creative drawings) is maybe 10. At most.
That's how many times I felt that I can channel myself to create something by drawing. That's it, no more.
With music, I do it all the time, but I don't even have a relative pitch, nor am I a synesthetic. (reference for those who don't know what it is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia)
On the other hand, my girlfriend... She's something else. So contradictive to herself.
She is a synesthetic. She can see colors in her mind's eye when she thinks, hears or reads a word. She also sees/feels colors when a certain note is played, or a certain scale even. To her- Am is red. The word "piano" is white, and the word "bass" is brown. She has a voice of an angel, she can sing anything almost perfectly. BUT it takes time to master a song. Or she can sing with the vocalist, but on her own, she misses like 80% of the notes. She can tell if someone else is singing a cover of a song a third lower, per example. But she struggles with singing her own stuff, on her own, or even following a whole band! Not to mention her rhythmic confusion. She can't play nor sing in a given rhythm for the life of her. If I tell her to play a half note, a quarter note, a half note and then a whole note, she'll play 3 half notes and a whole note. It's ridiculous. About her pitch, I don't know, I think it's relative. I'll have to check that out. She can point to some pretty small nuisances though, it's incredible. See how strange it is? She had piano lessons for like 7 years, she can play some classical music, but it's all rehearsed a million times. She never broke that frame of tutored music. I don't think she ever played a chord progression on her own, experimenting with it, or a melody, anything.
So.... I don't consider her a musician. She has some skills and talents that some people would kill for. But she's not a musician.
You give me any instrument in the world and I'll start tinkering with it, figure out a few patterns, maybe even create a song with it.
She, a classically "trained" musician can't figure out playing basic guitar.
It doesn't matter if you have perfect pitch or not... Or any other talent. It's something else. I don't know what, soul, call it whatever you want, but it's something else that makes you a musician or any other form of artist.
+1
I also believe inherent pitch recognition (perfect or not) does not make an artistic musician, it's how you apply said ability or lack thereof (and yes, of course there's that unique, indescribable thing that makes great musicians amazing and others just 'great' but otherwise "soul-less" imitators)
However, Your 10 pictures could be incredibly awesome and you're blind to that fact by simple self-doubt...how many great artists create something amazing and to them it was nothing special? how many of them you see burn out and quit but still leave us with something truly profound?
IMO Your girlfriend didn't apply her abilities in a way that would have strengthened them in a PRACTICAL way (not throwing blame on her, just the draw of the cards really in life), thus her inability to use said talents in typical gigging scenarios.
SIDENOTE: I re-tuned the guitar (forgot about the exercise so it sat de-tuned for an hour or so), after tuning I checked it about 1 minute later with a peterson strobe tuner:
E: -0.5 cent
B: -2
G: -10
D: -15
A: -21
E: -23
Considering the hour that it sat for without tension, and that I tuned the strings in reverse order to what I listed (i.e. EADGBE)...is it possible I had the bigger strings closer in tune and tuning the B and E strings pulled the neck a little more which resulted in the gradual loss in tuning on those strings?
Anyways, just posting the results as they occurred.
So people playing rock cover aren,t musician ... and people in any orchestra that play what a musical genious wrote few centuries ago aren't musician either ???
*looks at tuner* Muzza-Wuzza Flimm Flammin stupid perfect pitch ratsa flatsin bracka frackin I HATE RABBITS.
Seriously, if you've got a decent ear consider yourself lucky and leave it at that.
Seriously, if you've got a decent ear consider yourself lucky and leave it at that.
I'm going to be conservative & say you have relative pitch. Most people have relative pitch, but since they've gotten so good at recognizing & remembering certain pitches, it appears they have perfect pitch.
To me, it sounds as if I were to play a note, you would compare it to something you remembered & come up with the name of the note. That's relative pitch.
If you were to hear that note & simply recognize it for what it is, the same way you recognize the color red, or blue, that is perfect pitch.
Wow, there are a lot of threads about absolute pitch on these forums!
I don't claim to be an expert on the subject but I did do a substantial amount of research on AP for a term paper last semester. I wrote a pretty lengthy post about some AP basics on another thread that I'll link to rather than repost:
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f22/absolute-pitch-worked-me-879880/index3.html#post12593614
The explanations here aren't 100% perfect but they do a decent job at explaining some basic ideas. It's worth repeating that I am more than willing to send a copy of my paper to anybody interested in learning more about some of the scientific research concerning absolute pitch without having to delve into the often 'jargon-y' world of academic research.
I'm also willing to try and answer any questions people might have about absolute pitch. I really don't mean to, "toot my own horn"; this is just a subject that —really— interests me and that I would love to study as a career one day, so I relish any chance I get to discuss it!
EDIT: Also, it is unequivocally true that you are utilizing a well-developed relative pitch ability —based on the information that you have shared with us, that is.
I don't claim to be an expert on the subject but I did do a substantial amount of research on AP for a term paper last semester. I wrote a pretty lengthy post about some AP basics on another thread that I'll link to rather than repost:
http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f22/absolute-pitch-worked-me-879880/index3.html#post12593614
The explanations here aren't 100% perfect but they do a decent job at explaining some basic ideas. It's worth repeating that I am more than willing to send a copy of my paper to anybody interested in learning more about some of the scientific research concerning absolute pitch without having to delve into the often 'jargon-y' world of academic research.
I'm also willing to try and answer any questions people might have about absolute pitch. I really don't mean to, "toot my own horn"; this is just a subject that —really— interests me and that I would love to study as a career one day, so I relish any chance I get to discuss it!
EDIT: Also, it is unequivocally true that you are utilizing a well-developed relative pitch ability —based on the information that you have shared with us, that is.
Jazzdogg
Less barking, more wagging!
No, if that's all they do- they're impersonators.
I have a friend who plays bass and thinks he's the end all be all because he can play some very complicated covers. But that's all he does. His brother plays guitar and they just play songs.
If you told them to play a drum track and jam they would look like they picked up their instruments yesterday.
Maybe you're older so you don't have as many people like that in your surroundings as I do. I'm 18 and it's ridiculous how many people do that.
I met people who couldn't jam or stuff like that because they play all their life with a sheet of music but they could do stuff that I couldn't and still can't. It is a different skill set. You would be surprise at how it is hard to give life to music you didn't create especially when you have to give it emotion... for the record I'm 29.
As for the original discution, a person with perfect pitch will be a very good Choir teacher or if he creates music it could become like John Cage.
CrashClint
I Play Bass therefore I Am
This may be wrong, but I would beat everyone of you with a stick if the end result would give me Perfect Relative Pitch. 
