PERFECT PITCH ?

Funny that you mention that....I was discussing that there is something that happens when one takes 'the good stuff'......the chemicals in there do strange things to your system.... I think that it's like 'short circuiting' your neurons or something...resulting in something like I described. I think that there is a way to get there the 'long' way as well....years of listening and searching etc etc. That's all speculation tho, but I look at my change to vegge and the impact it had on me, and how different my senses responded. I can imagine that a similar thing happens with a joint :lol

I also spoke to my gf to see if she had synestesia as well....turns out that she doesn't - she says that she hears that an E is and E and she hears a G as a G. SHE doesn't taste banana marshmallows or anything like that.....I think that's just me and my own weirdness hahaha :lol
she also doesn't seem to associate sounds with colors or anything like that. She essentially just hears a G from a C the way we hear a piano to a guitar - just a different sound, nothing more. Her senses do not seem to 'overlap' in any way like mine do.

This thing gets more intruiging by the minute!
 
At the end of the day your brain is a big piece of computing that's driven by chemicals - natural or artificial. Too bad for the idea that you can escape your mind and become a flying raven when you eat mexican mushrooms - it all happens within your head IMO. My wife had a tooth removed yesterday and she took a very powerful painkiller that includes tramadol - which acts like an opioid, that messes with the norepiphedrin reuptake in the neurons, and all of the sudden the excruciating pain is gone and you feel high. It's still waaaaay to complex to understand all what happens there (even if a genius like Kurtzweil thinks that we can get to immortality by dumping our brain on a powerful enough computer but then how do you play guitar :)) but the code is being slowly cracked ...
 
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jon <I might 'feel' a tone, or I might see (hallucinate?) strange colors when I hear some types of music>I'm old enough to have been around in the psychedelic era...one particular trip I could not tell the difference between sound and color...I'll never forget that feeling.

Intense, man. I haven't had that [real] kind of Sid.


@pdelanghe:

- obviously jon's change to veg enabled his stopping vices, and that's where I think a lot of the change occured - becoming un-toxic. Of course, the energistic interaction with his girlfriend (of which neither are probably aware), and perhaps others, I wager has a lot to do with it, also.

- I tend toward chromatic music, and electronic and particularly Roach I am no different about. I stay away from most of his faster tempo, and especially percussion-oriented, stuff in favor of his electro-ambient. But check it all out. There's a fuck load on Youtube, especially whole albums.

- on disembodiment, etc: ultimately, you could think the sounds, and they would materialise. If there were some kind of telepathy (and there is, I've experienced it), why would someone even need speak? A great thought experiment along these lines is Peter F. Hamilton's Edenists in his Confederation Universe. With simple textual devices, he offers an intimate experience, and shows juxtaposition, correlation, and co-incIdence between the two mediums. I actually 'saw' those color spaces I mentioned when reading the parts where 'affinity' occurs. (Affinity is the, what he calls, pseudo-telepathic ability Edenists have, afforded by Cloned Neuronal Symbionts in the basal ganglia that 'communicate' through quantum entanglement.)
 
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Well, I'm a little bit lost with your last comment .. I just googled Peter Hamilton, who looks like an SF writer I should know, but I don't ... sounds interesting, can you be more explicit or give me pointers ?
Thanks
Philippe
 
I have met and played with several people with perfect pitch. To a person, they seemed to consider it a curse, or at best, a double-edged sword. Did you know that a MUCH higher proportion of Chinese people have perfect pitch, due to the fact that their language is pitched? Not only is it pitched, but when researchers tested thousands of Chinese speaking common Mandarin phrases, the vast majority used the same notes throughout the phrase (C-D-A for thee words or syllables, in a simple example).

I have pretty exquisite relative pitch, as I presume most musicians (and ex-audio engineers) like me do. I do sort of sometimes see sound and pitches as color, but it's not consistent... Aural/Visual hallucinations when I'm 'stoned' on playing music, perhaps?
 
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Interesting comments and information everyone.

I am not personally convinced on labels such as hearingosis, invented-learned-latin-labelitis and brain chemicals, music is to me a spiritual thing and if our ears are tools for listening it seems not a bad idea to improve how we listen and use that ability to communicate with through our instruments so that we sound better.

Any kind of toxin in the body will dull perceptions so cleaning up the systems and keeping the nature pure has to be useful not just for hearing. And if anyone noticed there is a Rush song to be found in the last sentence.

So anyway I have been playing for some 45 years on one instrument or another to a greater or lesser degree and I think I may try one of those courses and see what happens. Will I be blessed or will I be cursed ? Who knows but walking into music shops is usually grating on the ear. Not just pitch but folks playing mechanically etc.

If anyone else tried one of these courses, what did you experience ?
 
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Based on the Chinese experiments, it's clear that perfect pitch can be learned. However, what is not clear is whether it can be learned in adulthood, when the brain, though still highly neuroplastic, is much less so than those first few years of toddlerhood when language aquisition is a major part of brain development. Still, I suspect that with heavy, heavy work, it's probably still possible to attain it in adulthood. One man tried to gain an idiot-savant-like power of calendar computation (i.e. being able to instantly answer something like what day of the week is january 17th, 2033). He did this through rigorous drilling, literally building new neural pathways. The book 'the Brain that changes itself', about neuroplasticity, might interest you.

Bottom line: I bet you can do it, but you may need to drill very hard, very long, very consistantly, inorder to achieve it.

Good luck.
 
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Based on the Chinese experiments, it's clear that perfect pitch can be learned. However, what is not clear is whether it can be learned in adulthood, when the brain, though still highly neuroplastic, is much less so than those first few years of toddlerhood when language aquisition is a major part of brain development. Still, I suspect that with heavy, heavy work, it's probably still possible to attain it in adulthood. One man tried to gain an idiot-savant-like power of calendar computation (i.e. being able to instantly answer something like what day of the week is january 17th, 2033). He did this through rigorous drilling, literally building new neural pathways. The book 'the Brain that changes itself', about neuroplasticity, might interest you.

Bottom line: I bet you can do it, but you may need to drill very hard, very long, very consistantly, inorder to achieve it.

Good luck.

I have good persistence and have been studying something or other since I was three years old. You know what I think I will give it a try just to see what happens.
 
It sounds to me that you definitely have good relative pitch, referencing an interval from a known note and if you can hear that B in your head 100% accurate it must be a possibility to develop that to just be able to hear any note and know what it is. It would seem that 100% accurate B is perfect.

So B D B DD or D B B DD? I think you are saying D B B D B and D D B DD but to hear D D you hear D B and know its D D because you hear D B. Yes?

BTW, seldom Bb, never B# but always B Natural.
 
I don't have perfect pitch, but I can hum or sing the beginning note form a song I'm well familiar with within +/- 20 cent accuracy, especially an E. The E is burned into my brain - I'd say +/- 10 cents with an E using a tuner, closing my eyes, humming the note and then checking the tuner.

I can "count up and down" in half steps to find other notes, but it's a time consuming process.

I don't know what that would be called, but I think it's proof that it's possible to learn perfect pitch. If I studied 12 songs each beginning with a different note I could recite the note instantly with a high degree of accuracy. It will never happen - I don't have the time or inclination, but I believe I could do it.
 
So B D B DD or D B B DD? I think you are saying D B B D B and D D B DD but to hear D D you hear D B and know its D D because you hear D B. Yes?

BTW, seldom Bb, never B# but always B Natural.
Not quite certain what you mean? The user Frozen said he can always know a B, if that is the case he may be able to develop the skill to hear other notes like that.

To B or not to B, perhaps Shakespeare
Doo be doo be do. Frank Sinatra
 
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So in the interests of seeing if Perfect and Pitch and Relative pitch can be developed I pulled the trigger today on a course. Once it arrives in the mail I will test it out objectively for some time and see what happens.
 
Let us know your thoughts. You will definitely enjoy much of the aspects of it, but I think when you start to hear what you've been 'missing out' on, and start to hear all the tuning discrepancies in all those records you love - zep, VH, metallica, every single rap record ever.....you'd prob say the same thing. Not meaning to discourage you tho, but my advice is still to spend your efforts on RELATIVE pitch.

On the topic of vegetarianism - I spoke to a lab tech who was filling the shift for our usual one last night - she described just what I did before - her senses were heightened and she could taste and smell things that she couldn't before. She also mentioned that a lot of times when she eats out, it's a problem for her too - she can taste if there was meat prepared nearby etc.
She turned vegan about 10 years ago, she was a meat eater before as well. She also mentioned how just the smell upsets her stomach now - as it does mine, so we both are very careful where we eat :(

The funny thing is that our discussion actually started off when I came into the lab, and instantly asked if I was smelling KFC chicken - turns out that the pepsi bottle about 6 ft away that she had on her desk came from kfc, an hour or two earlier :eek: (she ordered fries, but the close proximity to the chicken I supposed meant that the odor remained on the pepsi when they were preparing orders)

I also had a brief chat with our safety officer and nurse this week and he casually mentioned while we were talking about food, that he had no eaten meat in the last two months, and he also described the 'spring' in his step too, without me even mentioning it :eek: I STILL didn't mention it! :lol He also went on to describe that everything tastes 'different' and he doesn't think that he will go back to eating meat unless he has to.

Very interesting. I thought that it was just me, but it appears that it happens to others as well!
 
Found this quote by the great Mike Miller (the guitar player)

'The more you do ear training, the more you can keep track of what is happening, instead of having everything be a surprise when anyone does anything out of the ordinary. Your brain is able to recognize that stuff where it can be automatic: ear training is not that much different than looking at two blue shirts and knowing one is a different shade. I think it is of real value, because then you're not in the dark saying 'what the hell was that,' but instead, 'wow, he's got an Eb and an Ab against my.... that makes it lean into this kind of modal thing...' which you can choose to use if you want to: if I'm playing and the keyboardist plays another tonal center, I know what's going on there... I may not go there and play with him because he may only be playing it because it contrasts with what I'm doing. You have to pay attention so something unexpected can be incorporated, without having to check your guitar calculator to see what it is.'
 
Let us know your thoughts. You will definitely enjoy much of the aspects of it, but I think when you start to hear what you've been 'missing out' on, and start to hear all the tuning discrepancies in all those records you love - zep, VH, metallica, every single rap record ever.....you'd prob say the same thing. Not meaning to discourage you tho, but my advice is still to spend your efforts on RELATIVE pitch.
Certainly will update the thread with any discoveries I have with this. Funny you mentioned Led Zep, I was playing along the other day to Custard Pie, and my guitar was really close to the pitch and then when I was listening to Boogie With Stu, that one seems to be in between notes. This used to be a frustrating thing years ago when I played in a covers band, with cassettes running at different speeds and a band being relatively in tune with itself but not with normal pitch. At the time all my guitars had Floyd Rose units with lock nuts, so adjusting them to play along with an out of tune track was not great.

We seem now with all the great tools we can use on the computer for transcribing and making alterations to the pitch of a track etc really spoilt compared to years ago. I prefer now it is a lot more workable and a lot more inexpensive.

On the topic of vegetarianism - etc ...
Yes noticed this myself with a healthy lifestyle the perceptions in general are a lot clearer. I am not a vegetarian although I do live healthily. I can smell and hear things others don't.
Very interesting. I thought that it was just me, but it appears that it happens to others as well!
Indeed, and thanks for sharing your thoughts on the subject. It has turned out to be an interesting thread with a lot of good discussion from everyone.
 
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One thing I think is interesting and might be relevant, and I always use to teach my beginning student about tuning the guitar, is that sound is waves. Vibrations of waves. Much like color and might go along explaining the relationship colors have to music. A= 440 means that there are 440 cycles (waves) per second. It's very specific. The color red also has specific wave cycles. I would guess that people with perfect pitch and even great relative pitch are just very sensitive to those waves.

I mean that's like "duh" because that's what pitches are. Just sayin'.
 
I made a post about a year or more ago about one day I could HEAR the incongruence of two plucked open strings & figured out you could tune using that. It just happened & I think I . . . . NO . . . I KNOW I have bad ears. It's not something I was TRYING to hear, it's not something someone told me about or pointed out to me, I just heard it one day & it came from sitting in from of my Ultra plucking strings while trying to dial in sounds.

I've become more attune to being out of tune now when in 2007, I played an entire 2nd set OUT OF TUNE w/o even realizing it until I heard the recording (damn you alcohol!).

I am guitarded too. I can NOT figure out songs by ear, don't know how to learn like that. I can't dial in tones. I know what sounds good, but not how to get there.

Meh . . .
 
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Here's my take:

I can do all those things such as play songs I just listen to as well. I DO NOT have perfect pitch. I'm far from a trained musician, and I don't really read music (I can pick out notes, and fumble my way on the piano.) I listen to a song on the radio, and pretty much can instantly play it. Now if we're talking math rock, or prog extended things, I'll be able to pick out most parts, but of course not one time through.

I've had this argument for years with my wife. She sees it as some manifestation of huge talent. I just call it a skill that anyone can learn. Maybe not to the extent I can now, but learn intervals, and you can pretty much figure out how it's played. I like the concept of 'colors', since while you can get the interval, you might not know the KEY...unless you can hear that 'whatever' in there. This is where talent comes in. I still think this is not difficult to discern (I'll be everyone can pick a 'D' chord out of a lineup in a second.) Maybe more difficult if it's by itself...wouldn't know.

And while I don't have perfect pitch, I have a VERY VERY difficult time watching any of these music shakedowns (The Voice, X-Factor, etc) as I cannot help but wince each EVEN SLIGHTLY sour note comes out. This is perhaps why I dislike my own voice...I am far too critical.

Either way, I still believe with time and some training, I can teach anyone how to do it to at least a small extent.

Ron
 
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I also had a brief chat with our safety officer and nurse this week and he casually mentioned while we were talking about food, that he had no eaten meat in the last two months, and he also described the 'spring' in his step too, without me even mentioning it

Probably due to the vast amount of methane in his bowels!

I know I'm definitely a omnivore because when I went vegetablist for a couple of months I nearly blew the windows out and couldn't go near naked flame.

I don't have perfect pitch - but it sounded to me like my range was an impressive Eb to high C - which coincidently seemed to be the range that made the dog bark - or maybe that was more to do with volume rather than pitch .... :?
 
...I have a VERY VERY difficult time watching any of these music shakedowns (The Voice, X-Factor, etc) as I cannot help but wince each EVEN SLIGHTLY sour note comes out. This is perhaps why I dislike my own voice...I am far too critical.

Either way, I still believe with time and some training, I can teach anyone how to do it to at least a small extent.

Ron

I'm the same way as far as singing competitions. The slightest off pitch note I can detect. My favorite part of "Idol" was predicting when Randy Jackson was going to accuse the contestant of being "pitchy", and he had a good ear for even one note being slightly off. Out of tune guitars DRIVE ME NUTS. After using the Buzzy Feiten (sp?) system (actually a homemade version) I can't go back. I hate my own voice for exactly the same reason only with a DAW and multiple takes or software correction I can tolerate a recording of it.

I do think however some people will never be able to carry a tune let alone develop good relative or absolute pitch. It's not part of the brain necessary for survival, and my theory is that since that's the case, natural selection didn't eliminate people who lack the ability from the gene pool and therefore some people don't have it at all and some do.

All my opinion of course. It can be a curse when listening to those old recordings where the instruments are just slightly out of tune (probably 50% at least of recordings from the 60's and 70's in the classic rock genre).

And if a cover band tunes down a half step - later. I'd rather sit at home alone and listen to the recordings in the right pitch.
 
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