Perfect Pitch ear training?

[M0ses]

No, you learned relative pitch. Which is almost as useful, but not as annoying (or so they say).

Anyway, this jerk in my relative pitch-training class (I'm a trumpet major at UWM) can sing a perfect middle C every time, so that's what we as our "movable do". And C is too high for me, I'm a baritone.

 

[Chrisk-K]

I'd say its more of a curse than a blessing. It sucks when you transpose, or play a song in a different key, and it can be a substitute for good interval work and sight singing.

I have perfect pitch and don't understand why it sucks to have perfect pitch when you transpose.

For me, it's a curse when a piece of music isn't recorded with A=440. I cannot listen to, say, some Fleetwood Mac songs recorded with something like A=450 (Buckingham sped up the master tapes) because all the notes sound wrong to me.

One has to be born with perfect pitch. My 2nd son has perfect pitch, too.

 

[M0ses]

I have perfect pitch and don't understand why it sucks to have perfect pitch when you transpose.

For me, it's a curse when a piece of music isn't recorded with A=440. I cannot listen to, say, some Fleetwood Mac songs recorded with something like A=450 (Buckingham sped up the master tapes) because all the notes sound wrong to me.

One has to be born with perfect pitch. My 2nd son has perfect pitch, too.

I don't understand this honestly. But I don't have perfect pitch, just relative. You guys with perfect pitch who complain about it are just being inflexible.

Why does it matter if it's 440 or 450? There's nothing inherently good about 440. It's an arbitrarily chosen number. In fact, the standard used to be 444. I don't see how being able to hear the difference makes one or the other better. If it had never been changed from 444, I bet you'd be just as unable to listen to something in 440.

Totally agree on the transposing thing, too. The notes on a page are nothing but a visual representation: if you had learned to read it "transposed" in the first place there wouldn't be a problem.

It's kind of like dissonance. I don't get that either. Just because it doesn't sound like a major scale, it sounds bad? Bah. Just because it's not one of our equally tempered 12 subdivisions of an octave, it sounds bad? No way.

 

[lament]

I don't understand this honestly. But I don't have perfect pitch, just relative. You guys with perfect pitch who complain about it are just being inflexible.

Why does it matter if it's 440 or 450? There's nothing inherently good about 440. It's an arbitrarily chosen number. In fact, the standard used to be 444. I don't see how being able to hear the difference makes one or the other better. If it had never been changed from 444, I bet you'd be just as unable to listen to something in 440.

Totally agree on the transposing thing, too. The notes on a page are nothing but a visual representation: if you had learned to read it "transposed" in the first place there wouldn't be a problem.

Think about color. One color has wavelength 700nm, another 450nm. It's all relative and arbitrary. But I'm sure you would find it disconcerting to look at your favorite painting when all the colors are shifted.

The reason for that is that when it comes to color, you have the equivalent of "absolute pitch". Now imagine the same, but for sounds.

 

[klokker]

I don't understand this honestly. But I don't have perfect pitch, just relative. You guys with perfect pitch who complain about it are just being inflexible.

Uh, yeah. That's the problem with it.

 

[M0ses]

Ok, I'll shorten my question:

What's so great about A440?

 

[phillipkregg]

Think about color. One color has wavelength 700nm, another 450nm. It's all relative and arbitrary. But I'm sure you would find it disconcerting to look at your favorite painting when all the colors are shifted.

The reason for that is that when it comes to color, you have the equivalent of "absolute pitch". Now imagine the same, but for sounds.

^ Yes, this.

 

[M0ses]

Think about color. One color has wavelength 700nm, another 450nm. It's all relative and arbitrary. But I'm sure you would find it disconcerting to look at your favorite painting when all the colors are shifted.

The reason for that is that when it comes to color, you have the equivalent of "absolute pitch". Now imagine the same, but for sounds.

Sorry, I missed this.

It makes sense though. I see what you mean. I now recognize the legitimacy of it. But, if I wrote an entirely new tune in 444, you'd be cool with it, right?