Perfect Pitch Courses?
st...@aol.com
I have seen thes "David L. Burge" method perfect and relative pitch
courses in the music magazines for years now, and I was wondering if
anyone had ever actually sent the money to buy the course? If so, did you
have any sucess?
My ear is pretty bad, and if these courses have even produced modest
results for some people out there, I feel like it would be a good
investment.
I don't want to get burned if it is a scam--tell me what you know.
Thanks
ST4D
Richard Marcellus
er
I have tried both of his courses over the years because I also have
a pretty bad ear. I feel that both of the tape sets are well done and
worth the money with the following cautions.
1. You really need a partner to do the perfect pitch course. I tried
to do it by myself and it just didn't work. One day I will hopefully
convince my wife to do it with me 8-).
2. For the perfect pitch course you will have to work at it for quite
a while before you see any progress. This can be a bit frustrating.
According to David L. Burge, some people have an easier time with
the perfect pitch course after having done the relative pitch course.
This may be especially true for those of us with poor ears.
3. The tapes provided with the relative pitch course allow you to
do everything by yourself solving problem #1; however, don't expect
to blow through this stuff quickly. 30 minutes per day of practive
for many months may be enough to master the material, though for
many, I suspect that it takes even longer. You have to be fairly
dedicated.
I currently am working through the relative pitch course, after
having given up a couple times in the past. Personally I think that
it is worth the effort (hence I am giving it another try) but you
should be prepared to be taking 30 minutes out of your playing
time each day to do this. In the end though, I think that you will
progress further as a musician once you have a good ear.
You may want to just order the first set of relative pitch tapes
to see if you are going to stick with it, and only order the remainder
if you feel that it is worth the effort. If you get through the
relative pitch course and wish to continue ear training, find
a friend who also wants to develop perfect pitch and get that
course as well.
With the relative pitch course, don't be concerned about not being
able to develop the skill. If you enjoy music/melodies your ear is
capable of developing a high level of relative pitch. I have seen
quite an improvement with my own ear. Very few people are
actually tone deaf, and they would have no interest in music.
According to Burge this is also try for perfect pitch. Anyone
who likes music can develop the skill (with enough practice).
--Richard
Paul Campbell
Richard Marcellus wrote:
>
> er
> > I have seen thes "David L. Burge" method perfect and relative pitch
> > courses in the music magazines for years now, and I was wondering if
> > anyone had ever actually sent the money to buy the course? If so, did
> > you
> > have any sucess?
> > My ear is pretty bad, and if these courses have even produced modest
> > results for some people out there, I feel like it would be a good
> > investment.
> > I don't want to get burned if it is a scam--tell me what you know.
> >
> > Thanks
> > ST4D
> >
>
> I have tried both of his courses over the years because I also have
> a pretty bad ear. I feel that both of the tape sets are well done and
> worth the money with the following cautions.
Neither of these courses are the "magic bullet" that the adds would
have you believe.
However the relative pitch course ,at least, does work but in direct
proportion to how much effort you put into it. This course (the
relative one) is hard work but does yeild modest results quite early
on so there is some incentive to keep going but Burge's estimates
of 90 days for the whole 4 (or 5 ?) levels is far too optimistic - more
like 6 months to a year for each level.
The perfect pitch course requires a level of tenacity that I think
most people (like me) are just not up to, so your cash is
probably better spent on the relative pitch course. Also the
principles on which it is based are not scientificly proven
to the same degree as those used in the relative pitch course.
Paul C.
UK.
Kronin (Steven Marx)
I don't know about any of these courses, but I myself have "almost"
perfect pitch... I play violin as well as guitar, and after years of
tuning an open A string, I can pick out an A perfectly now. I can pick
out most open-string notes on the violin, and can count up a little from
a string to get any other note. I don't have "perfect" pitch, but I'm
getting there, and this was all on my own without trying to. (Maybe I
have a better ear than most, however, I don't know) So if you're looking
for perfect pitch, just simple stuff like that might be as effective as a
course.
Jason Barry
In article <32ACA5...@twd.net> "Kronin (Steven Marx)" <dm...@twd.net>
writes:
With respect my friend, .............Oh, contrare...
Perfect pitch is something I have and also teach at a Major
University in the Toronto area. To briefly eduacate you on the matter,
one cannot have "almost perfect" pitch. You either have it or you don't.
You may on the other hand have a grip on relative pitch. Those are the
three levels of pitch competence, relative, perfect and absolute.
Relative are people like yourself who have been hearing an open A or
someone who tunes their guitar starting from open E for years. They've
trained they're ears simply based on memory, that is relative pitch.
Where perfect pitch comes in is the ability to adapt yourself to what is
called "Color Hearing". You look at a color and immediatley your brain
reacts to it as red or green etc. Perfect pitch is the same reaction.
Hearing tones and immediatley knowing they're nature in a scale. As
well, not only single notes, but serious chord configurations. I have
people in my course who never thought they'd have perfect pitch notating
for me the Chords I play on the piano. Even with altered chords when in
the chord is a minor 3rd and a major 3rd. You try on your own to break
down that type of chord in your head, its tough. But I believe its
possible to be a learned technique. Now the people with Absolute pitch,
they're the annoying ones, they sit in your house and when your phone
rings they say, "oh man!! that phone ring is a really flat F sharp !!!
AARRGGHHH!!!!
Anyways, that be it....
keep workin on your pitch, and pick up a home study course on tape of
this topic, they're out there...
good luck,
Jay...
Jeff
Is there a home study course that you would recommend?
Also what is the success rate of your students? How long does it take?
Thanks
Jeff
Howard Roberts
In article <12-09-1...@worldchat.com>, Jason Barry
<jaz...@worldchat.com> writes
>Now the people with Absolute pitch,
>they're the annoying ones, they sit in your house and when your phone
>rings they say, "oh man!! that phone ring is a really flat F sharp !!!
I knew a girl at college who was like that. She was able to pitch a
squeaky shoe and I once heard her claim that someone's fart was a Bb!
--
Howard
http://www.vocks.demon.co.uk/ - Jokes, rude & otherwise
JTM, band homepage, lyrics & samples
Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied "You see, wire
telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New
York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this?
And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they
receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat."
Bill L.
What exactly do these courses involve - do you just listen to different
notes and intervals over and over?
What's the basic method?
Richard Marcellus <marc...@medcor.mcgill.ca> wrote in article
<AECF1F7...@132.206.101.189>...
Richard Marcellus
In article <01bbe6c2$8eb39bc0$9cc595ce@wtl2796005>, "Bill L."
<bal...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> What exactly do these courses involve - do you just listen to different
> notes and intervals over and over?
> What's the basic method?
>
For the David L. Burge Perfect Pitch course you start off with Eb and F#,
which according to
him have very different "sound colors". The Eb is very soft and mellow,
while the F# is
bright and vibrant. This is completely independent of the timbre of your
instrument. I can't
explain this in any more detail, but perhaps someone with perfect pitch
will elaborate. What
you do at the beginning is just have someone play you these two notes over
and over until
after a period of days to weeks you can tell them apart and can recognize
them blind.
From this point on you just keep adding new notes one at a time until you
can recognize them
all. The tapes and booklet provided with the course simply tell you in what
order to learn the
tones and give you a basic description of what they sound like (ie. their
color). Hearing these
differences is not supposed to difficult once you have *got* it. Burge
compares it to recognizing
colors--very simple. I suspect that the time frame in which one can develop
perfect pitch will
vary quite a bit among people, but Burge claims that any musician can
deveop the skill with
practice.
The Relative pitch course works through all of the intervals, chords,
scales etc. with a lot of
the tape time bein used up with tests. With this course you start with the
perfect fifth interval
and the general technique of learning the intervals is the same for all of
them. There are 3 basic
drills that you practice on your own to learn each interval.
(1) Grand Rounds: Play and sing as follows
A-E, A-E, perfect fifth, perfect fifth, E-A, E-A, perfect fifth, perfect
fifth. When you sing
perfect fifth you sing the interval as well. You then do A#-E#, B-F#, C-G
etc. until you hit A-E again
(one octave up), then you work your way back down again. (Start the round
at the lowest interval
that you can comfortably sing and work up from there.)
(2) Sound Rounds: Play and sing the full octave of intervals up and down
again in the same way,
but this time sing perfect-fifth, perfect-fifth, la-la, la-la (going up)
then perfect-fifth, perfect-fifth, la-la, la-la (going down).
(3) Random Rounds:
Play any note then sing up a fifth or down a fifth without the instrument
then play the
note on your instument to see if you were correct.
These drills have two purposes. The first is to imprint the sound of the
interval on your ear well
enough so that you can sing it, and secondly to teach you the spelling of
the intervals.
You could do this yourself, but for the testing you would need another
person to help you. The tapes
are very useful this way and there are hints and suggestions which can help.
--Richard
--
Richard Marcellus
Dept. of Biochemistry
McGill University
Montreal, Canada
marc...@medcor.mcgill.ca