Developing perfect pitch on guitar vs. other instruments: the timbre problem
I think guitar and other string instruments may present a special kind of difficulty that Burge doesn't really address in the course. This is the fact that the guitar actually has various small differences in timbre. Burge talks about how timbre can affect perception of the colors and can make it difficult to detect them on other instruments, but he doesn't mention that various timbres exist within the guitar. For example, take the note F# on the D string, 4th fret. You might be able to hear the special quality, the color, that that note has at that location. Take that same note on the A string 9th fret. Notice anything? The note on the 9th fret will sound a bit different - this is a tonality difference, or a timbre difference, and it will present a difficulty in gaining perfect pitch on the guitar. As we know, there are many such cases where the same notes can be played on three different places on the guitar. Piano players don't have this problem, although I'm sure there are other subtleties in developing AP on a piano.
How to get around it:
One thing I've noticed that helps is to take two strings, and play the note you are training on each one, back and forth. If you hear the color better on one string, play that one a number of times and then try to "transfer" your hearing of it to the note on the other string. You can do this for a few notes at a time too. I think you will notice that the B and high E strings don't have too much of a timbre difference, so those won't be very difficult to distinguish.
Burge has guitarists train open strings then random notes quite a bit. This is all well and good, but it will take you away from the timbre problem if you are continually playing random notes in random places. Instead, try identifying notes on first the high E string a bit, then the B string, then G, etc. You can go in reverse order, from the low E string, start from the middle, and eventually work up to random strings. Acknowledging the timbre problem and addressing it in this way is going to help you.
Important concept:
If it is helping your ear, keep training it. This may sound obvious, but in the past I have had problems with it. Something may have been helping my ear along, but because I thought I needed to train something else, I moved on too quickly. Try not to let this happen. If you are benefitting from training only two or three notes for even 5 whole minutes, that's fine. Also try going up and down a scale until you find a note that sort of hits a sweet spot with your ear. Train that note and the adjacent scalar tones. I try to avoid training three half steps in a row most of the time because I find it confuses my ear. Try doing a half step then a whole step. Train those three tones, compare them to each other, and move on to another section of the guitar, when you are ready. Also, going down or up an octave from the note you are training can sometimes help.
What do I mean by helping your ear:
Remember what I said about that little popping sensation you might get in your ear? This is good, just remember to stay relaxed as you train your ear, as Burge says again and again in his course. The sort of popping/opening sensation is your ear expanding and opening up, and it can only do that if it is relaxed (other people have described their experience differently than I have, referring to a feeling like they were putting on glasses (for their ears) when they didn't even know they needed them). How do you relax your ear exactly? I'm not really sure but I suppose one way to describe it is by saying just don't strain to try very hard to hear pitch colors. Try instead to let the sound come to your ear. That's the best I can describe it and honestly I often question whether I am relaxing or not while I'm training. I must be doing it sometimes though because my ear is still getting better.
If an opening sensation becomes particularly active while you are training something on the guitar, keep training that! Do it until you feel you aren't really getting much out of it anymore, (up to about 3-5 minutes I'd say is reasonable). Conversely, if you start training some notes and you don't feel like you're getting anything out of it, stick with it for a bit and see if you start to get a slight opening up sensation.
These will often be subtle sensations, and sometimes you actually might not even have any. This is ok, and as Burge says, progress might not ostensibly come every day, but it is happening. He makes a nice analogy of the idea of a plateau; sometimes you feel like you've reached one, but it is at that point that you just have to walk across the flat surface until you get to the next hill that you can climb.
Sometimes I feel like I have hill days, and sometimes flat surface days. Actually for a while it's been basically every other day a little hill day and the other ones flat surface days. I hope the analogy makes sense.
One positive thing is that your ear seems to improve in between training sessions. It will seem to be undergoing changes - this is sort of your ear reassembling itself to adapt to a changing environment. You might only train 30 minutes a day, but your ear will continue to develop for the remaining 23 and 1/2 hours!
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Monday, May 13, 2013
A word about perfect pitch
A word about perfect pitch/developing perfect pitch:
On wikipedia's "absolute pitch" page, you will see a subsection in bold saying AP is a "Difference in cognition, not elementary sensation." I don't think this is true. AP has both a physical element and a cognitive element. I don't know what instruments of observations the physicians cited on the site were using but it may be that the physical changes that will take place in your ear are too miniscule/subtle to detect with those that were used. In my experience, a bit after I began training, my ear started to get a sensation similar to that of when the ear drum sort of pops in and out at high and low altitudes. For me the sensation that the ear is "opening up" is genuinely physical. . The more your ear opens up, the clearer you will perceive the particular qualities of each note. As you can imagine, you have to be pretty gentle with this and allow it to be a very gradual process. Burge recommends a maximum of 45 minutes of ear training at a time, and that seems to be pretty good - the longest I've gone is about 50 minutes. He has listeners start out at about 20 minutes though and I think that is a good idea - to work your way up to more time over time. It might be about 3 weeks to a month before you start getting an "opening up" sensation, it might take less time or more time though. As I will mention again, this means the training is working and your ear is developing. Burge doesn't explicitly mention anything about this physical sensation, although he alludes to it a few times - in the written part of the program he says "the ear will open like a flower". Might sound a bit cheesy, but that's basically what seems to happen. If you experience some discomfort in your ears, you may want to refrain from training, but remember that it could be a positive sign that your ear is improving - just remember to kind of take it easy and that the ear opens only a little at a time.
On wikipedia's "absolute pitch" page, you will see a subsection in bold saying AP is a "Difference in cognition, not elementary sensation." I don't think this is true. AP has both a physical element and a cognitive element. I don't know what instruments of observations the physicians cited on the site were using but it may be that the physical changes that will take place in your ear are too miniscule/subtle to detect with those that were used. In my experience, a bit after I began training, my ear started to get a sensation similar to that of when the ear drum sort of pops in and out at high and low altitudes. For me the sensation that the ear is "opening up" is genuinely physical. . The more your ear opens up, the clearer you will perceive the particular qualities of each note. As you can imagine, you have to be pretty gentle with this and allow it to be a very gradual process. Burge recommends a maximum of 45 minutes of ear training at a time, and that seems to be pretty good - the longest I've gone is about 50 minutes. He has listeners start out at about 20 minutes though and I think that is a good idea - to work your way up to more time over time. It might be about 3 weeks to a month before you start getting an "opening up" sensation, it might take less time or more time though. As I will mention again, this means the training is working and your ear is developing. Burge doesn't explicitly mention anything about this physical sensation, although he alludes to it a few times - in the written part of the program he says "the ear will open like a flower". Might sound a bit cheesy, but that's basically what seems to happen. If you experience some discomfort in your ears, you may want to refrain from training, but remember that it could be a positive sign that your ear is improving - just remember to kind of take it easy and that the ear opens only a little at a time.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Introduction
About me: I am a guitarist who's been playing music for about 18 years. I have been trying to develop perfect pitch on and off for about 14 years. At the beginning I was using the David Lucas Burge course, but I lost it and didn't listen to it for a number of years, even though I continued training according to the same methods. I recently got the course again, and it has been helpful to listen to some of Burge's advice again. At this point I am pretty close to absolute pitch (I think/I hope). I can hear Burge's pitch "colors" (from now on I won't put that in quotes) pretty well and I can pick most notes/chords fairly well on the radio if they are sustained for a number of seconds or are repeated, but I do still have trouble with a few notes and I also confuse some pitches sometimes. I am making this blog for musicians (especially guitarists) who are having some difficulty with Burge's course. More on that...
Who this blog is for:
Primarily guitarists (although I think musicians of other instruments could benefit as well) who have taken the David Burge perfect pitch ear training course, have gone through the whole program, haven't developed perfect pitch, and are still wondering: how the heck do I get it?? Even though I doubt guitarists who go through Burge's course alone will achieve perfect pitch, I still recommend getting his program. He is an expert on perfect pitch and its training and his course was certainly beneficial to me - however, he is not an expert on the guitar.
Why develop absolute pitch:
If you're here, I'm presuming that you already imagine the value of this perception. Nonetheless I'll list a few reasons here.
1) your ear will get better and better as you do the training, even if you are still quite a ways away from absolute pitch (AP). You will notice that you hear music with more clarity, you will be able to pick up songs and melodies/solos more easily by ear, and you will just play better. Absolute pitch is not everything in music as people here probably already know well, but if it can be developed, putting time into doing so is quite worthwhile.
2) If you have any interest in learning other languages, and picking up accents well, and you're having trouble: here is your fix. Training for AP will open your ears and their ability to pick up accents and thus facilitate language learning.
3) It's cool. I think you'll be more in tune with the world and the sounds of nature. If you're a bird freak then you could probably pick out a warbler from an orange breasted whatever in a flash and tell your fellow bird watcher what note it was. A lot of people probably don't think that that is so cool but I do : ).
4) I'm not here yet, but I imagine when fully developed, your musical ability is facilitated immensely with AP. Burge says within three years of developing perfect pitch, he made 10 years of progress. What exactly he meant by that I'm not sure, but it sounds pretty good.
Well there you have it, an introduction to the blog. I will go on to post some fundamental principles, and various techniques to develop your ear. Again, I suggest getting Burge's course first, and going through all those exercises (at a slow and steady pace) before consulting this blog. If you are set against getting Burge's course however, this blog could still help you. I don't want to breach any copyrights with him, but I will paraphrase some things he said because it will just make the content more understandable, especially for people who've already gone through the course. Burge estimates 6 months to a year of training to develop perfect pitch. If you can do that, you freakin rule. As I said, I've been training off and on for 14 years, sometimes almost every day for over a year at a time. I aim to help you reduce the amount of time it takes to develop perfect pitch by offering some techniques that have really helped me. I think this type of training takes many years as an adult - at a very young age when the ear and mind is more malleable the training may only require a year or so.
Who this blog is for:
Primarily guitarists (although I think musicians of other instruments could benefit as well) who have taken the David Burge perfect pitch ear training course, have gone through the whole program, haven't developed perfect pitch, and are still wondering: how the heck do I get it?? Even though I doubt guitarists who go through Burge's course alone will achieve perfect pitch, I still recommend getting his program. He is an expert on perfect pitch and its training and his course was certainly beneficial to me - however, he is not an expert on the guitar.
Why develop absolute pitch:
If you're here, I'm presuming that you already imagine the value of this perception. Nonetheless I'll list a few reasons here.
1) your ear will get better and better as you do the training, even if you are still quite a ways away from absolute pitch (AP). You will notice that you hear music with more clarity, you will be able to pick up songs and melodies/solos more easily by ear, and you will just play better. Absolute pitch is not everything in music as people here probably already know well, but if it can be developed, putting time into doing so is quite worthwhile.
2) If you have any interest in learning other languages, and picking up accents well, and you're having trouble: here is your fix. Training for AP will open your ears and their ability to pick up accents and thus facilitate language learning.
3) It's cool. I think you'll be more in tune with the world and the sounds of nature. If you're a bird freak then you could probably pick out a warbler from an orange breasted whatever in a flash and tell your fellow bird watcher what note it was. A lot of people probably don't think that that is so cool but I do : ).
4) I'm not here yet, but I imagine when fully developed, your musical ability is facilitated immensely with AP. Burge says within three years of developing perfect pitch, he made 10 years of progress. What exactly he meant by that I'm not sure, but it sounds pretty good.
Well there you have it, an introduction to the blog. I will go on to post some fundamental principles, and various techniques to develop your ear. Again, I suggest getting Burge's course first, and going through all those exercises (at a slow and steady pace) before consulting this blog. If you are set against getting Burge's course however, this blog could still help you. I don't want to breach any copyrights with him, but I will paraphrase some things he said because it will just make the content more understandable, especially for people who've already gone through the course. Burge estimates 6 months to a year of training to develop perfect pitch. If you can do that, you freakin rule. As I said, I've been training off and on for 14 years, sometimes almost every day for over a year at a time. I aim to help you reduce the amount of time it takes to develop perfect pitch by offering some techniques that have really helped me. I think this type of training takes many years as an adult - at a very young age when the ear and mind is more malleable the training may only require a year or so.
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