Perfect Pitch...!? (Jan-26-04)

[moved from old forum:]

"John,
I hope you are right, but I don't think so. I probably could
be trained to sing better than I do, but not well. After
40-some years of loving music, playing several instruments and
singing along with the radio I have become pretty convinced
that I can't sing."

Well, you may have done a lot of singing badly, but all that proves is that you have sung badly and don't know how to sing well, but not that you can't learn.


"I think it is a mental thing. To carry a tune you need to
intend a result."

Yes.

"I think my deficiency is in this intension -
I don't hear in my head correctly before I try to sing a note.
In hindsight (hindhear?) I can hear what I sang and know that
it does not match my memory of the song."

That sounds like an important insight into your process of singing. You can use that insight to improve what you do, by doing this:

1) Choose a song to sing, one that you like and can easily bring to memory.

2) Think of the first note of the song. In your imagination, hear both the pitch and the sound of the syllable.

3) Sing the first note of the song.

4) If you sing the note incorrectly, repeat steps 2 and 3. Otherwise continue.

5) Repeat steps 2 through 4 with each note of the song.

Let us know how it goes. Just be sure to follow the process I outlined which has you form a clear intention before you act. Once you'e done that I'm sure you'll have an idea about what to do next, and if you want suggestions I'll be happy to make some.

Have fun!
John

[moved from old forum:]

Hello Karla,

please excuse me, but I am wondering a little bit about your different statements.
Your wrote that you think you hear perhaps better than many others and your guitar teacher has confirmed this. This sounds good.
On the other side, tuning a guitar without the aid of a guitar tuner (e.g. only a tuning fork to have the reference A tone) but beeing in the range of the quality a guitar tuner produces I think is just the beginning into the area of thinking to hear quit good.

To your question: NO, I would not use a piano (perhaps a digital piano would work) for tuning, only perhaps to get the reference tone, e.g. for the A-String.
One key at the piano has 3 strings (not the bass strings). Only if they are in perfect tuning each other you don't hear any beat frequency of the 3 strings. If the piano is not just tuned it has very often some beat freqencies. This would confuse you in your work to get the guitar string in perfect synchronization with this tone. And next, even if the strings of one key are perfect tuned you don't know whether the keys you need for using as guitar reference tones are as exactly as you like to have. And next, I think the guitar can be tuned without piano aid and I think it is also a good ear training.

If I do not have a guitar tuner, I use the following method of tuning:
1. Put lightely a finger on the A-String on the 7th fret and pluck the string so to hear the overtone.
Do the same on the Bass-E-String on the 5th fret (flageolet tones). Watch for the overtones. In the first step, try to tune that the beat frequency is zero. This is good, but not good enough if you try to tune your guitar as exactly as it can be. Since the guitar strings beside the B-String are tuned in quints it would be better if you try not to set the beat frequency to zero, perhaps to about 0.4Hz for the E/A-Strings. That means, you hear the beat every ca. 2..3 seconds. Use fresh strings at first, this makes it much easier to check the beat frequencies. The A-String must be very lightely sharper than perfect overtone synchronization. This is because unfortunately no intervals beside octaves are in perfect synchronization. Of course quints and quarts have nearly no beat frequency in the well temperated tuning, or let us say better, in the equal temperated tuning, but even quints are nor really pure. An does not sound thirds really terrible if you listen to the beat frequencies, by the way?
For the guitar this means, using overtones, you can only tune both e-strings exactly to zero beat frequency if you use the flageolet tone on the bass string, 5th fret and the high e string, since the distance are perfect two octaves, exactly 4 times higher frequency. Of course an overdriven e-guitar is much easier to tune as a spanish acoustic guitar with the overtone method - you hear much more and much longer the beat frequencies. If you are used to it, it should also be possible with your acoustic guitars. Thousands other can do it also, it is no art, it is only a skill.

I do not like to tell you how to tune every string, but the principle for checking the overtones at one side and on the other side keeping the strings in the equal temperated tuning should help to tune without a guitar tuner. There are some internet sides for tuning as well.

Another chapter is to tune a guitar for an open tuning. I myself prefer to tune my dobro as exactly as I only can to zero beat frequency, and do not care for equal temperated tuning (personal taste).

But really, Karla, you are an audio engineer, you have the self-confidence to hear better than others, and you cannot tune the guitar without guitar tuner? I only wish I would have this self-confidence.
For instance, a "cis" is for me the same as a "des" because I am used to it on the piano - because it is the same key here. But every violinist makes a slight difference between "cis" and "des". I am sometimes surprised how much sensitivty some human can develop in this area, really.

The good thing about the discussion about perfect pitch is, as it comes to such things like tuning the guitar: your result is measurable, it is not as subjective as a personal feeling about the own perfect pitch abilitiees. If you come into the region of about 3 percent of a half tone while checking the result with a cheap guitar tuner perhaps it is better to use a high quality guitar tuner with not only LEDs like e.g. KORG OT-12 because it is more precise than cheaper tuners.

-Olaf Schmidt

[moved from old forum:]

Oops, of course the strings in normal tuning are tuned as quarts (beside the G-B string distance) not quints as I wrote in my last statement, sorry for the mistake. But why not tune the guitar in quints instead and let it sound like a violin.

-Olaf Schmidt

[moved from old forum:]

"please excuse me, but I am wondering a little bit about your
different statements.
Your wrote that you think you hear perhaps better than many
others and your guitar teacher has confirmed this. This sounds
good."

Oh NO. Not better. I think I hear things differently. I don't know what this difference is except my teacher thinks I hear things in high definition whatever that means. I don't really care except for it explains why I have less tolerance for some music than others. More than the tones or frequency in this music, I think I am sensitive to the quality of the note. I am not really sure what it is at this point. I want to figure out what it is though so that I can work on opening my mind a bit more and expanding my musical boundaries.

"On the other side, tuning a guitar without the aid of a guitar
tuner (e.g. only a tuning fork to have the reference A tone)
but beeing in the range of the quality a guitar tuner produces
I think is just the beginning into the area of thinking to
hear quit good."

I'm sorry but I don't get this? Why? I always have a digital tuner with a plug in and a vibration thing that attaches to my pegs. Why would I learn any other way if I always have one of these with me? It is deadly simple and accurate.


"But really, Karla, you are an audio engineer, you have the
self-confidence to hear better than others, and you cannot
tune the guitar without guitar tuner? I only wish I would have
this self-confidence.
For instance, a "cis" is for me the same as a "des" because I
am used to it on the piano - because it is the same key here.
But every violinist makes a slight difference between "cis"
and "des". I am sometimes surprised how much sensitivty some
human can develop in this area, really."

Not quite sure where all this is coming from. You make some assumption that I presume to hear better and go from there. I appreciate you instructing me on how to tune and measure as I could come up with my own methods and they could be very different. I think this whole tuning thing is an area that I could study for quite many months and still not totally understand it as it pertains to this instrument. Because I am an audio engineer does not mean that I am a musician nor a tuning expert. I have only been studying music for a total of 13 months. How much could I possibly know of this stuff?


"The good thing about the discussion about perfect pitch is, as
it comes to such things like tuning the guitar: your result is
measurable, it is not as subjective as a personal feeling
about the own perfect pitch abilitiees. If you come into the
region of about 3 percent of a half tone while checking the
result with a cheap guitar tuner perhaps it is better to use a
high quality guitar tuner with not only LEDs like e.g. KORG
OT-12 because it is more precise than cheaper tuners."

Like I said above. I could care less about my personal abilities of perfect pitch. In fact I am quite sure now that I do not have this ability. Given the explanation of it and a clarification of the definition it has nothing to do with the ability to tune a guitar anyway. I am just satisfied to know that we all hear things differently and that the difference is okay.

Kfisherx

[moved from old forum:]

"I always have a digital
tuner with a plug in and a vibration thing that attaches to my
pegs. Why would I learn any other way if I always have one of
these with me? It is deadly simple and accurate."

Why should you learn this?

1. For instance if you come to someone who has a guitar in his corner and no guitar tuner. Will you say: "O - Great- I have already put tons of my songs in the internet, I can play for you too. But sorry, could you please tune the guitar for me, I forgot my guitar tuner" - Is this not very embarrasing? The same if you like to check out some guitars in the store. OK, you will have your guitar tuner always in the pocket or you have to ask the seller to do this for you.
But what if you take the guitar, tune it correctly first by ear and play a piece. Would this not be cool?

2. What do you do if it comes to jamming together with others, let's say together with an old piano which has a pitch loss of perhaps 50% of a half tone, not unusual. OK, you pull out your guitar tuner, try to find the description how to change the A-ground frequency until it fits the piano. At least this means you have to use your ears, by the way.

3. This is the main point of all. At least for me it is so that all things that can help to develop the ears to be more sensitive mean so much if it comes to play music. For instance, you like to bend a string for 2 Halftones in a blues solo - it is a good idea to train the ear to get the correct pitch of the target tone. The same if it comes to slide playing. Good slide players dont even need to have a look at the fretboard. They hit the correct pitch like violin players!
I think there are lot of arguments to try not be too lazy if it comes to the different fields of ear development.

Please understand me right, it is surely very good to use a guitar tuner - the ears are used to hear always the correct pitch. But I even would not care if the complete Forum here would say that guitar tuning by ear is not necessary, I believe it is good ear training.

"Because I am an audio engineer does not mean that I am a musician nor a tuning expert."

OK, it was only so that you mentioned you were an audio engineer and we are here in a discussion forum about perfect pitch. It was my mistake to draw a connection between both statements from you.

"I could care less about my personal
abilities of perfect pitch. In fact I am quite sure now that
I do not have this ability."

Oh no, you wrote that your teacher told you that you hit exactly the tones while singing - never sharp or flat, if I remember. This is a very, very big compliment, really. Because if you could sing in perfect pitch, you could also tune a guitar in perfect pitch, I am almost sure. If you sing in correct pitch means you have a correct imagination about the pitch in your head. This should also be the case then for guitar tuning. The point is, it is easy to quantify your stated compliment for beeing never too sharp or flat while singing. It takes not much time. Tune a guitar by ear and proof the result with a guitar tuner. Then you can proof the compliment yourself. And even AJ has said, try to proof your results. This is here perfect measurable.

"Given the explanation of it and a
clarification of the definition it has nothing to do with the
ability to tune a guitar anyway"

There is a big difference between perfect pitch and absolute pitch. Absolute pitch recognition has someone who has swallowed a tuning fork, so to say. Even this is very good measurable - proof with guitar tuner. I do not have this ability - perhaps one halftone or sometimes 2 halftones too sharp or too flat if I try to hit an "A" without having a reference for some time before.

But perfect pitch - what the discussion here is all about- is the ability to get exactly the same pitch as a given reference tone. This has to do a lot with listening to the frequency of the tone changes you here between the reference tone and the string you like to tune. So the development for getting perfect pitch ability has very much to do with the ability to tune a guitar by ear, in my opinion!

-Olaf Schmidt

[moved from old forum:]

"Why should you learn this?
1. For instance if you come to someone who has a guitar in his
corner and no guitar tuner. Will you say: "O - Great- I have
already put tons of my songs in the internet, I can play for
you too. But sorry, could you please tune the guitar for me, I
forgot my guitar tuner" - Is this not very embarrasing? The
same if you like to check out some guitars in the store. OK,
you will have your guitar tuner always in the pocket or you
have to ask the seller to do this for you.
But what if you take the guitar, tune it correctly first by
ear and play a piece. Would this not be cool?"

"2. What do you do if it comes to jamming together with others,
let's say together with an old piano which has a pitch loss of
perhaps 50% of a half tone, not unusual. OK, you pull out your
guitar tuner, try to find the description how to change the
A-ground frequency until it fits the piano. At least this
means you have to use your ears, by the way."

You know I've run into both these situations already actually and just never really felt bad about having someone else tune for me. I am pretty comfortable in my "beginner" shoes. That said, it is probably time I learned this little skill, eh?

I have a Sabine digital tuner model MT9000 and I detuned all my strings except for the 5th one and attempted to manually tune my guitar from that reference per your instructions. After some experimentation with overtones and relative noises, I began the experiment. I was able to tune all but string 1 within the green. (On string 2, I tuned slightly high and I had trouble getting string 1 then. Once I took string 2 down, I was able to hit string 1 right on the dot too. This took quite a bit of concentration on my part though. If I didn't really listen and work at it, I didn't get it. I guess I'm saying that it didn't just naturally come so it furthers states that I ain't all that. I also see that this tuner doesn't really measure in the same degrees of accuracy as yours. My reference dots are 5 cents (I think that is what my teacher called them) a piece.

Anyway, I don't have the proper guages to really measure this ability to tune for references, but that doesn't really seem so important anymore. The cool thing is that I learned I can tune manually the guitar!!

"3. This is the main point of all. At least for me it is so
that all things that can help to develop the ears to be more
sensitive mean so much if it comes to play music. For
instance, you like to bend a string for 2 Halftones in a blues
solo - it is a good idea to train the ear to get the correct
pitch of the target tone. The same if it comes to slide
playing. Good slide players dont even need to have a look at
the fretboard. They hit the correct pitch like violin
players!
I think there are lot of arguments to try not be too lazy if
it comes to the different fields of ear development."

I am actually thinking of detuning my ears as opposed to making them better. I haven't learned about bendingn yet for pitch, but I am learning that I have a problem listening to various music and opening my mind because some of the music that I hear just hurts my ears and makes my bottom pucker. I want to understand this and try to not obey the reaction of that music to my senses so that I can be a better student.

"Oh no, you wrote that your teacher told you that you hit
exactly the tones while singing - never sharp or flat, if I
remember. This is a very, very big compliment, really. Because
if you could sing in perfect pitch, you could also tune a
guitar in perfect pitch, I am almost sure. If you sing in
correct pitch means you have a correct imagination about the
pitch in your head. This should also be the case then for
guitar tuning. The point is, it is easy to quantify your
stated compliment for beeing never too sharp or flat while
singing. It takes not much time. Tune a guitar by ear and
proof the result with a guitar tuner. Then you can proof the
compliment yourself. And even AJ has said, try to proof your
results. This is here perfect measurable."

I have to buy a better tuner to prove this. My voice teacher may well have said what he said to make me confident.

"But perfect pitch - what the discussion here is all about- is
the ability to get exactly the same pitch as a given reference
tone. This has to do a lot with listening to the frequency of
the tone changes you here between the reference tone and the
string you like to tune. So the development for getting
perfect pitch ability has very much to do with the ability to
tune a guitar by ear, in my opinion!"

Perfect pitch (what this discussion is all about) is the ability to recognize a tone as a note NOT to be able to replicate that tone give a reference tone. At least that is what I am reading everywhere else. So our little sidebar here is really not pertainent to the real discussion I think. Though I don't mind it and am even learning from it.

-Kfisherx

[moved from old forum:]

Hello Karla,

congratulation - you are able to tune a guitar within the accuracy of your digital tuner! For this you have my respect, because this is unusual for a player with that short experience you have!

String 1 is rel. easy to tune because you can use String6, 5th fret as flageolet tone for reference. But the string 2 is for me too the most difficult string to tune by ear. The problem is, the errors add if you tune a string after another so it is good to check the end string with the start string.
And I think the accuracy of your Sabine tuner is really good enough for guitar tuning. I would not discuss whether it should be accurat within 5 cents or 3 cents. There are so much influences on the tuning. E.g. it is a big difference if you tune the guitar with weak picking or strong picking (strong pick: sharper, weak pick: flater). To get the best result, perhaps tune the guitar with the average picking force you have while practising.

Regarding "Perfect Pitch" there seem to be different definitions. But all ear related things are worth to consider. To recognize an "A" as an "A" is good, to recognize chords and so on of course if it comes to listen to guitar music and develop the capability to write down the tabs by ear, or even if you jam with others.
The other definition to get a string tuned to a reference tone is good for the capability to tune the guitar by ear. An intermediate step can also be to use the guitar tuner and tune the guitar with the reference tones coming out of the tuner instead of using the microphone of the tuner (your Sabine tuner has this possibility too)

-Olaf Schmidt

[moved from old forum:]

I can't get these web sites to work - have they changed or disappeared?

-Alin

[moved from old forum:]

I attempted to gain perfect pitch using the Burge course for about 6 months, but eventually "gave up" so that I could concentrate on practising guitar. But Burge's explanation of perfect pitch makes a lot of sense: perfect pitch is basically the equivilent of visual colors. Now thats not to say that each note is associated with a visual color or anything like that, but rather that the human ear is naturally able to distinguish very subtle, unexplainable, qualities or "pitch colors" of different frequencies just as the eyes for some reason see one frequency of light as blue and another as red. This natural human ability, however, is not developed in our youth to hear this refined detail and we simply overlook it.

While I was able to distinguish some colors, (the F# is the most distinguishable for me and many others) I never was able to "let go" and fully develop it, but I plan to try again some day. Anyway for anyone wishing to develop it, I would highly recommend Burge's course.

-Kyp4

[moved from old forum:]

Burge's explanation of perfect pitch in terms of color would be appealing if it were true but makes no sense to me at all. Human beings see color because, if I'm remembering correctly, we have cones in our eyes that perceive light in that way while the rods in our eyes see ony black and white and shades of grey. The physical structures have been identified and are understood. As far as I know there is no such similar structure in human anatomy for color in sound perception, and although Burge talks about color in hearing I don't think he has identified any such structure and I doubt that any anatomist could tell you what that structure is.

Of course it could be that the structure of human anatomy involved in color perception in hearing has not yet been discovered. My personal opinion is that there is no such structure. This is not to deny that some people have perfect pitch, only to say that the explanation must lie elsewhere. I also don't claim that Burge's course would not develop one's perfect pitch, only that if it does his color explanation has nothing to do with it. If the frequency of a light source is continuously varied we will all (except those who are color-blind) identify changes in color, and there will be pretty good agreement about where the colors change. But if the frequency of a sound source is varied continuously I suspect that even those with perfect pitch would not identify any discrete changes in "color", except in reference to instruments tuned, by convention, to a certain standard. If the instruments were tuned to a different standard (for example, A=425 instead of A=440, or just intonation instead of equal temperament), the identified "color" bondaries would all change according to the new standard.

If I'm correct that there is no color in sound perception then there is still some interesting research to be done to explain perfect pitch. Although I don't claim to have perfect pitch, there are times when I can remember quite accurately the pitch of a song I've been working on, and it seems amazing that I can do that. I suspect that there some sort of hearing memory at work.

-John Link