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.