David Burge Perfect Pitch Course

[Griffinator]

Frankly, I think the whole concept of being "born with" perfect pitch is flawed on its face.

 

How in the world would someone be "born with" an instant and perfect tone relationship understanding of the Western 12-note scale?

 

Sorry, but conditioning is the only way to make that happen.

 

exactly right, but we really all were born with ability to get "perfect pitch". Just most of us lost it along the way.

This is just a matter how we listen to the sounds.

 

p.s.

yes you can get it back though with mind training.

 

agreed.

[Bridog6996]

Frankly, I think the whole concept of being "born with" perfect pitch is flawed on its face.

 

How in the world would someone be "born with" an instant and perfect tone relationship understanding of the Western 12-note scale?

 

That argument doesn't quite make sense, because that's not really the way it works. Perfect pitch recognition isn't dependent on any particular scale and/or tuning. How the person with perfect pitch "hears" the notes is affected by the musical customs he or she has been surrounded with. It's just a matter of what your reference is for identifying the notes. An Indian person with perfect pitch, for example, certainly wouldn't hear and identify notes in terms of Western equal temperament.

 

I think it's a combo platter of innate ability and conditioning. How you relate to a tone that you hear is where the conditioning comes in. Having the ability to instantly make that connection, however, is innate I believe. Otherwise, if it were pure conditioning, don't you think a much larger percentage of people would have perfect pitch?

[Griffinator]

No, I don't, because the vast majority of people never pursue music on much more than a cursory level (recorders in elementary school, etc).

 

Now, do people tend to be genetically predisposed toward pitch recognition? Certainly. Doesn't mean someone who wasn't can't learn it.

[Bridog6996]

No, I don't, because the vast majority of people never pursue music on much more than a cursory level (recorders in elementary school, etc).

 

Let me rephrase that. Don't you think a higher percentage of musicians would have perfect pitch. I've known hundreds of musicians over the years who started seriously practicing music at an early age, yet of those, I can count the ones with perfect pitch on one hand.

 

edit: Let me also add that I also don't disagree that it can be learned later in life to a certain extent. "To a certain extent" meaning that in that case it's probably more like a skill than an ability, something that can come and go over time if not kept fresh. Like learning a 2nd language as opposed to speaking your native tongue.

[Griffinator]

No, because I don't think that musicianship is necessarily chained to having some innate ability coming out of the birth canal. I think interest in music is, by and large, something learned.

 

Furthermore, practicing music at a young age does not equal practicing pitch training at a young age.

[Steve Nathan]

There's an old thread with some good discussion on this subject, but I'm not sure how to go about finding it.

 

From what I've skimmed, there's a lot of the same misunderstanding of what we call "perfect pitch" here. Sorry Grif, but I've had this since before I knew what a 12 tone western scale was. My father said he know I had it before I even took my first piano lesson (at the age of 3). Says he noticed that when I sang by myself (unaccompanied), things I'd learned from records and TV commercials, I always sang in the key of the recording.

It is so much more than just what so many deride as a parlor trick. Picking out piano notes while blindfolded is the least of it.

At it's core is a hyper awareness of all the frequencies around us. An inability to tune out the constant symphony of sounds from everything within ear shot. Hearing the notes and overtones in your air conditioning at the same time as the dryer in the next room plays a C and an E (a 10th above) when you wife opens the door. Stepping outside and hearing chords from the combinations of birds calling, a Bb car horn, the rising tone of it's engine accelerating, the hovering between G# and A of a distant weedwacker. It never stops, never goes away.

Interestingly (at least to me), is that my wife has a similar condition only visual. Where I see a sky as basically blue, she sees dozens of hues of varying intensities, each one a unique mixture of primary colors. She has always seen this way, which no doubt led her to become a painter. Yes, learning to mix paint is a skill that can be learned, but the ability to "see" those relationships are surely inborn.

[Bridog6996]

No, because I don't think that musicianship is necessarily chained to having some innate ability coming out of the birth canal. I think interest in music is, by and large, something learned.

 

Furthermore, practicing music at a young age does not equal practicing pitch training at a young age.

 

I feel like you missed my point entirely. Firstly, musicianship and perfect pitch recognition are not one and the same, and I never suggested otherwise or that musicianship doesn't have to be learned. You can have perfect pitch and be a mediocre musician, and vice-versa. You're arguing apples and oranges here. Secondly, you didn't really answer my hypothetical question. Nobody I know that has perfect pitch practiced pitch training at a young age. They've all said, in their own ways, that pitch recognition was sort of always there, and at some point they just "realized" they could do it. So where did it come from?

[Bridog6996]

Interestingly (at least to me), is that my wife has a similar condition only visual. Where I see a sky as basically blue, she sees dozens of hues of varying intensities, each one a unique mixture of primary colors. She has always seen this way, which no doubt led her to become a painter. Yes, learning to mix paint is a skill that can be learned, but the ability to "see" those relationships are surely inborn.

 

I used to have a friend who had difficulty watching television and movies because of the rapidly changing frames. While most people would just see a continuous moving picture, she somehow had the ability to see the constant refresh of the individual frames, which she described as somewhat similar to the phenomenon that happens when you see a television screen recorded by a video camera. I'm not real sure how that translated to other aspects of her life, but I'm sure she saw the world in a different way than most people.

 

Some people see visual imagery and colors when they hear music. it's amazing what the brain is capable of and how it varies from person to person.

[Griffinator]

No, because I don't think that musicianship is necessarily chained to having some innate ability coming out of the birth canal. I think interest in music is, by and large, something learned.

 

Furthermore, practicing music at a young age does not equal practicing pitch training at a young age.

 

I feel like you missed my point entirely. Firstly, musicianship and perfect pitch recognition are not one and the same, and I never suggested that musicianship doesn't have to be learned. You're arguing apples and oranges here. Secondly, you didn't really answer my hypothetical question. Nobody I know that has perfect pitch practiced pitch training at a young age. They've all said, in their own ways, that pitch recognition was sort of always there, and at some point they just "realized" they could do it. So where did it come from?

 

Do you know people that have no musical training whatsoever that also have perfect pitch?

[Bridog6996]

No, because I don't think that musicianship is necessarily chained to having some innate ability coming out of the birth canal. I think interest in music is, by and large, something learned.

 

Furthermore, practicing music at a young age does not equal practicing pitch training at a young age.

 

I feel like you missed my point entirely. Firstly, musicianship and perfect pitch recognition are not one and the same, and I never suggested that musicianship doesn't have to be learned. You're arguing apples and oranges here. Secondly, you didn't really answer my hypothetical question. Nobody I know that has perfect pitch practiced pitch training at a young age. They've all said, in their own ways, that pitch recognition was sort of always there, and at some point they just "realized" they could do it. So where did it come from?

 

Do you know people that have no musical training whatsoever that also have perfect pitch?

 

And around we go. All I can do is refer back to one of my previous posts. Someone who has no musical training could very well have perfect pitch without realizing it. Musical training is what gives you some sort of reference for what you're hearing.

 

The short answer, though, is yes, I know at least one (see Steve Nathan's recent post).

[Cygnus64]

At it's core is a hyper awareness of all the frequencies around us. An inability to tune out the constant symphony of sounds from everything within ear shot. Hearing the notes and overtones in your air conditioning at the same time as the dryer in the next room plays a C and an E (a 10th above) when you wife opens the door. Stepping outside and hearing chords from the combinations of birds calling, a Bb car horn, the rising tone of it's engine accelerating, the hovering between G# and A of a distant weedwacker. It never stops, never goes away.

 

Steve, you sound like it's some perverse form of tinnitus. It's not for me, is it for you? Like you, I know the pitch of every single noise. I don't really think about it.

 

I suppose our individual opinions of having it are partly due to what we play, how we play and how we learn. You're doing improv, playing by ear etc, it's probably extremely beneficial to you. I played the Mozart Requiem tonite, didn't help one steenkin bit. It only helps on my forays into pop music, I am one of the rare classical geeks who can "cross over" to an extent, and a lot of that is the ear.

[Jazzed]

Interestingly (at least to me), is that my wife has a similar condition only visual. Where I see a sky as basically blue, she sees dozens of hues of varying intensities, each one a unique mixture of primary colors. She has always seen this way, which no doubt led her to become a painter. Yes, learning to mix paint is a skill that can be learned, but the ability to "see" those relationships are surely inborn.

Could your wife be a tetrachromat?

 

Frankly, I think the whole concept of being "born with" perfect pitch is flawed on its face.

 

How in the world would someone be "born with" an instant and perfect tone relationship understanding of the Western 12-note scale?

 

Sorry, but conditioning is the only way to make that happen.

Conditioning might teach a person who has perfect pitch where to to "divide the pie" of frequencies and how to name those slices, but that doesn't mean the ability to accurately recognise pitch frequency in isolation couldn't be innate.

 

Since colour analogies seem helpful, one could say that our ability to distinguish different colours is innate, but our names and general divisions of colour ranges (where "red" becomes "orange") is "conditioned". A baby (with normal vision) can probably distinguish between different colours before they acquire the names and basic colour terms of their native language (interestingly, the coverage of basic colour terms differs cross-linguistically, similarly to how the basic scale differs cross-culturally).

[Jim Alfredson]

Yep. If you don't know the word for the color "blue", can you no longer see it?

[offnote]

Yep. If you don't know the word for the color "blue", can you no longer see it?

 

:grin: bingo, it's amazing how misunderstood this skill is. I see even people who has it have no idea what is this and how it works and this is so simple....

[Eric Jx]

I used to have a friend who had difficulty watching television and movies because of the rapidly changing frames. While most people would just see a continuous moving picture, she somehow had the ability to see the constant refresh of the individual frames, which she described as somewhat similar to the phenomenon that happens when you see a television screen recorded by a video camera. I'm not real sure how that translated to other aspects of her life, but I'm sure she saw the world in a different way than most people.

 

Some people see visual imagery and colors when they hear music. it's amazing what the brain is capable of and how it varies from person to person.

 

I think your friend's issue can be explained by her "flicker fusion threshold". That's the point where the mind inteprets a series of rapidly changing images as fluid motion. Film is often shot at 24 frames/second because most peoples flicker fusion theshold is well below that. But people's thresholds vary and your friend is probably an outlier.

 

[iLaw]

I hate to jerk this thread back on topic, especially since I don't see Darren (the OP) participating anymore, but if he is still around I hope he's noticing that after four pages and four days of posting, we still haven't had a single person step up and say "yes, I did the course and now I have perfect pitch and would be happy to prove it to skeptics."

 

This is particularly remarkable because I believe the course costs around $140 (just the perfect pitch component) and you'd think that some "sunk cost" cognitive dissonance would bring out at least a few true believers.

 

Larry.

 

[Steve Nathan]

Steve, you sound like it's some perverse form of tinnitus. laugh It's not for me, is it for you? Like you, I know the pitch of every single noise. I don't really think about it.

 

 

 

No, it's more RainMan than Tinnitus.

 

It's ever present, but it sits back until I pull it to the surface by paying attention to some specific aspect. Funny thing is, when I do bring it to the surface, I always "see" piano keys in my head that correspond to the notes I'm paying attention to. Though the hyper awareness of sounds has always been there, I'm sure I "learned" to associate it with piano keys later in life. I'd guess that as primarily a cellist, you have a different visual experience (if any).

 

Do you know people that have no musical training whatsoever that also have perfect pitch?

 

I doubt this would ever be. I think whatever gives someone PP, is closely related to whatever is responsible for musical interest. Awareness of noise is tied to interest (and ability) in the organization of noise.

 

we still haven't had a single person step up and say "yes, I did the course and now I have perfect pitch and would be happy to prove it to skeptics."

 

I don't think anyone will ever honestly say this. I don't believe Mr. Burge can "teach" PP to anyone. He may very likely have a system that can teach people to enhance their absolute pitch greatly, and maybe even teach people to train their brains to recognize the many surrounding clues and deduce pitch from stored memories of those cues.

 

True perfect pitch, though individuals may vary in strength, you either got it or you don't.

[Cygnus64]

I'd guess that as primarily a cellist, you have a different visual experience (if any).

 

Violinist, close enough. I actually have three things I see: if it's a melody, violin. If it's a bass line, bass ( I played bass in high school and college). Chords- keyboard.

 

I don't believe Mr. Burge can "teach" PP to anyone.

 

I look at it this way: every year, conservatories put out thousands of players that can play crazy shiat like Scriabin, Bartok, Prokofiev etc- off the scale difficult. If so many can do that, then they could also learn perfect pitch, since they've proven they can learn something so difficult. They can't.

 

If it worked, every university would teach it. It would be as popular as Hanon or Adler orchestration, it would be the intermittent wiper of the music world and every soul would have it.

[SK]

Cygnus and Steve, I don't see the value of such a course even if it were possible, since perfect pitch is not a guarantee of musicality. I worked with a bass player once who had it but it didn't help his playing.

 

Now this is weird, I have semi-perfect pitch. I have perfect pitch on piano, any piano or a recording of one. I also visualize the keys for notes, chords or clusters. But it isn't typical perfect pitch because I don't have it with other instruments, for which I only have good relative pitch.

 

Not sure if this has any bearing on the topic, but I was rehearsing for a concert with my sister a couple years ago. She's a classical singer, and we were going to change keys on a piece. She told me it would have to be written out for her, because she said it's hard to transpose from an existing chart - she only hits the pitches that are on the page.

 

So she's trained her vocal chords like an instrument to sing any written notes accurately, no matter what else is being played around her. This may be common knowledge, but not being a singer myself, I never realized this about trained vocalists. I'd guess it's more about recall and ear training than perfect pitch.

[Cygnus64]

Cygnus and Steve, I don't see the value of such a course even if it were possible, since perfect pitch is not a guarantee of musicality.

It can be a massive time-saver. I'm guessing with a guy like Steve, no lead sheet= no problem. I'm the same way with a melody, I can just play it.

 

And this may have no bearing on the topic, but I was rehearsing for a concert with my sister a couple years ago. She's a classical singer, and we were going to change keys on a piece. She told me it would have to be written out for her, because she said it's hard to transpose from an existing chart - she only hits the pitches that are on the page.

 

So she's trained her vocal chords like an instrument to sing any written notes accurately, no matter what else is being played around her. This may be common knowledge, but not being a singer myself, I never realized this about trained vocalists.

 

This is the way most classical people operate. It's partly how one learns music and partly just sticking to tradition and not taking any chances. It's literal. There's an exactness that's required that isn't in most genres. If one ever sees a classical score, what stands out is how many markings there are in addition to notes. Dots, dashes, Italian expressions like dolce (which means "sweet"), on and on. Composers are control freaks and micro-managers to the nth degree.

 

I think the truth with your sister and classical people is this: they don't do it because they don't have to. She found a sucker to write it out- you. Don't worry, I often do the same for lots of people, I have to transpose their parts or write out a bass part for something incredibly simple like Happy Birthday . If someone had to do it on their own, they could probably do it easily. We all rely on certain things and it's hard to leave our comfort zone. Once we do, we realize that we can do lots of things we didn't think possible.

 

I did a gig years ago with a viola player who was studying at Juilliard. We were doing a cocktail hour and the cellist was late and the management was getting pissed, they wanted tunes. I told the viola player to play the bass line of Pachelbel Canon and I'd improv on it. He looked at me like I was speaking Martian. 8 notes. 8 friggin notes. DABF#GDGA. I wrote it like that on a napkin. Dude couldnt do it. It REALLY soured me on how classical music is taught at conservatory level. It's like someone doing trig/calculus with a calculator and not being able to add 2+2 without it. That's wrong.

[SK]

Good points Cygnus, and entertaining.

It can be a massive time-saver. I'm guessing with a guy like Steve, no lead sheet= no problem. I'm the same way with a melody, I can just play it.

Me too. I was saying perfect pitch doesn't guarantee musicality, but it certainly can be a useful tool.

 

She found a sucker to write it out- you.

Haha, well almost, but I got out of it. When she suggested rewriting it, I remember saying in my best southern gas station attendant voice, "Well, that's gonna run ya'."

[dazzjazz]

hi Larry,

 

I'm still reading, or skim-reading the posts.

I'm waiting to get hold of the people here in Sydney who've done the course and developed PP.

 

I do agree that the marketing style of DB is snake-oil.

However, I've experienced the first step, distinguishing between F# and Eb, so I'm going to continue with the course - can't hurt, especially as I bought the set off eBay 2nd hand - it was cheap.

 

Darren

 

I hate to jerk this thread back on topic, especially since I don't see Darren (the OP) participating anymore, but if he is still around I hope he's noticing that after four pages and four days of posting, we still haven't had a single person step up and say "yes, I did the course and now I have perfect pitch and would be happy to prove it to skeptics."

 

This is particularly remarkable because I believe the course costs around $140 (just the perfect pitch component) and you'd think that some "sunk cost" cognitive dissonance would bring out at least a few true believers.

 

Larry.

[SK]

dazzjazz, a question if you know the answer: Does this program claim to teach the ability to recognize more than one note at a time, and if so, does it teach to recognize the sounds of chords by their individual notes? There's actually a purpose to my question, thanks.

[offnote]

dazzjazz, a question if you know the answer: Does this program claim to teach the ability to recognize more than one note at a time, and if so, does it teach to recognize the sounds of chords by their individual notes? There's actually a purpose to my question, thanks.

 

that's interesting question and I'd like to ask Steve Nathan how do you hear the chord, as a one composite sound or each note kinda detached?

[dazzjazz]

I'm not that far into the course, but given the drills so far, I believe that the answer to both your questions is 'yes'.

 

dazzjazz, a question if you know the answer: Does this program claim to teach the ability to recognize more than one note at a time, and if so, does it teach to recognize the sounds of chords by their individual notes? There's actually a purpose to my question, thanks.

[d halfnote]

I started to read all the posts befor e commenting but I can't stop my self...

Arrrghh I wish I hadn't written my OP now.

Talk about thread hijacking.

There's a couple of guys here in Sydney that HAVE done the PP Course and HAVE developed PP - so there!

I understand yer frustration with people "coloring outside the lines" but what did ya expect, really ?

It's too tempting a subject for people to pass, as well as too mysterious to fully understand.

 

FWIW, I don't have this skill/talent BUT it is an inborn human ability. If not, then people outside the realm of music wouldn't have it...& they do.

 

Car mechanics sometimes tuned motors by recognizing the frequency they heard.

Many non-musicans sing pop songs at the same pitch they heard them.

A study not long ago found pitch recognition in birds.

All these things point to the fact that this ability is an inborn one...& one that we're prolly all born with but which deteriorates by non-use.

One of the trickiest parts of discussing this is that this isn't a uniform, "one size fits all" type of thing but something that we have---or have either developed or retained to varying degrees.

 

There's a lotta hype abt this, too, not just stuff like Burge's lessons (legit or not) but people with the ability who feel compelled to, perhaps, embellish their exact experience so that it matches what they've read or think the ability should be like or to make it seem a more special thing.

 

Many complain that they suffer terribly when they hear something in a diff key, etc.

I wonder how they get through the day b/c almost all music's sometimes in a key other than it was originally.

Such claims also beg the question of how they react to music if, when they heard it 1st, it was not in the key the commposer worked in...

Some complain b/c as they age & hearing deteriorates, they now hear music even in the same key, as being lower pitched, b/c they no longer hear high freqs as well.

Then there's the question of variable standards for the pitch of notes, whether at diff times or simply b/c of slightly diff tunings.

 

All those are just some of the legit or not-so-legit problems this ability may have.

Also why relative pitch is what's really valuable to musicians.

 

Other points...

The discussion of certain languages that have precise pitch inflections that govern the meaning of the same syllable (Mandarin, Viet,etc).

I've looked into this, 1st b/c I wondered how this would affect the meaning of words when sung in those languages.

When I was still in LexKY I asked a visiting Chinese musician abt it & he seemed unable to even understand what I meant so I have no direct evidence to turn in but I would suggest that's not even necessary.

Consider this: if the exact pitch were vital, how would a very young child, with a certain vocal range, be able to pronounce the same word as an adult male, with his deeper range ?

The fact is that those languages use relative pitch, not absolute pitch as their inflections.

 

I'd like the mention something that Learjet mentioned before.

The fact is that even those with "absolute pitch" don't find it absolute !

Tests indicate that when checking pitch on their favored instrument, they do well but when checking pitch on other instruments, they sometimes miss.

The reason ?

Timbral quality.

What this has, ultimately, is uncertain but, as we might gueass, the overtone series must be part of it.

 

What then when one is tested with pure sine waves ?

 

[iLaw]

... The discussion of certain languages that have precise pitch inflections that govern the meaning of the same syllable (Mandarin, Viet,etc).

I've looked into this, 1st b/c I wondered how this would affect the meaning of words when sung in those languages ...

OK, we're way off-topic now (into relative pitch rather than absolute pitch), but since you wondered .... It's my understanding that the tonal nature of these languages is an obstacle to translating Western vocal music into Mandarin. It was explained to me (with regard to staging Western opera in China) that when attempting a translation, the intervalic direction of the melody needs to be as consistent as possible with the tones present in the eventual translated Chinese text or there can be confusion as to the meaning of the text. It's another reason for presenting Chinese productions of Western opera in a Western language (usually the language in which it was originally written).

 

Larry.

 

[iLaw]

... When I was still in LexKY I asked a visiting Chinese musician abt it & he seemed unable to even understand what I meant so I have no direct evidence to turn in but I would suggest that's not even necessary.

Consider this: if the exact pitch were vital, how would a very young child, with a certain vocal range, be able to pronounce the same word as an adult male, with his deeper range ?

And yet Diana Deutsch found the incidence of absolute pitch at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing (CCOM in the chart below) far higher than the incidence at the Eastman School of Music (ESM in the chart below), which was already far higher than the 0.01% incidence that is commonly reported for the general population:

 

http://www.aip.org/148th/east_beij_no_semi_nol.jpg

 

Larry.

 

[Steve Nathan]

and I'd like to ask Steve Nathan how do you hear the chord, as a one composite sound or each note kinda detached?

 

More like: Each note kinda Attached.

[mate stubb]

If someone plays a tone cluster and asks me to identify it, I have to pick the pitches out.

 

If they play me a chord, I can identify it instantly as a single entity.