04 Apr
Hi everyone,
Well, I realised I was just kind of assuming that you knew that there is in fact a difference between learning relative and perfect pitch. So I thought I would go over the differences in this post. Firstly, perfect pitch (also known as absolute pitch) is the ability to name or reproduce a note without reference to any instrument. It is simply hearing a note and being able to name it! This is what I have trained myself to do. (And you can too!!) Perfect Pitch is like hearing notes in your mind.
So, what is Relative Pitch…?
Well, I had pretty good relative pitch to begin with before I started training my ear to develop perfect pitch. Relative pitch is the ability to identify a note by relating it to another note. It’s how most musicians “play by ear”, like when you are improvising or having a jam session. You can do this by finding the root note/chord/key (whatever you like really) and then all the improvised notes relate back to “the anchor” note/chord/key. So it all sounds good because you’re using relative pitch to choose the next note.
I would say that most if not all professional musicians would have really good relative pitch. (But that’s not a scientific study or anything!! Just my feeling…
You could try this exercise -it’s a variation of the other way I showed you below to get you started:
The simplest way to begin is to play a note (on a piano or another instrument you are used to hearing), close your eyes and the first thing that comes to mind is how you will remember this note. It could be anything it doesn’t matter. Everyone is going to have different impressions. The idea is to train your brain to recognise that sound and make the connection between your brain and your ear. Then, you just go through your scales or even random notes (look at the keyboard for this), and everytime your play your note, make a deliberate point of picturing whatever you pictured the first time.
This method may take a little while to get but give it a good chance especially if you don’t play an instrument.
OK. That’s it 
. If you want: click here to check out the course that helped me fine tune my relative pitch and perfect my absolute pitch.
Rebecca
03 Apr
Hi everyone,
Happy easter. Here’s an exercise I used which really helped me. You need an instrument for this, a piano is ideal.
So basically for every white tone on the keyboard you find a song. If you can’t find a song that starts on that note then you can just make up a memorable little melody of your own. Then, everytime you sit down by the piano or play the guitar or whatever instrument you play then you just play one of those songs. Then what will happen is that when you hear a tone, you’ll think about one of those songs that you picked. You will be saying “Isn’t that the first tone of blabla”. When you get one tone the others will come fast.
The next step is that when you can identify all the white tones, find a song for each of the black tones as well (the chromatic scale) Before you know it, you will be able to identify all the tones.
This is just one exercise. For more, take a look at this perfect pitch course, it has loads of exercises…
Cheers,
Rebecca
02 Apr
Hi,
So probably the first thing that I learnt in developing perfect pitch was interval recognition, pitch recognition, rhythm and chord recognition.
Interval recognition is an ear training exercise that helps you identify intervals (two-note combinations) in music or a melody. It’s pretty basic, but really important to be able to do this in terms of your sight reading ability, especially when singing. The way I initially did this was by associating intervals with very familiar songs that I knew. For example, the Major 2nd interval with the song ‘Happy Birthday’ or the perfect fifth with the nursery rhyme ‘Twinkle, twinkle.’ Perfect 4th – Star Wars or Amazing Grace. Descending perfect 4th “Come all ye faithful”. You can make up your own songs, but the key is that you instantly can copy the interval regardless of which note or key you’re working in.
Don’t forget in your quest for perfect pitch, rhythm recognition practice is also important in being able to sing well and play musical instruments by ear. Tapping your hands or feet is often a technique that can really help in identifying the rhythm of the music. And this in turn can be really useful in being able to play a melody by ear because the rhythm is like a memory hook that the melody fits on top of.
Another thing that you can learn in ear training is identifying chords. Of course, being able to recognize chords is important to play by ear and to play easily with other musicians as well. It also helps a lot in making your own improvisations, in composing music as well as in improvising. Actually, I’ll talk about that later…just work on your interval recognition for now. For a whole heap of exercises, you could check out the course I did here.
Bye,
Rebecca
01 Apr
Hi everyone,
I just wanted to share with you that if you play an instrument or sing, then you can also develop perfect pitch and relative pitch. I play the violin and piano and I also sing (but not that good) and I really want to get into music school at college when I graduate. One of my friends has absolute pitch and she can really sight read well and I think it makes her a better all round musician, so I wanted to see if I could learn. Anyway a bunch of people told me that it was like an innate ability and you either had absolute pitch or you didn’t, but I just thought well I’ll look online and sure enough there was loads of info on how to develop perfect pitch and I thought I would share some of the tips I learnt with you. Plus I found an awesome course that totally was step by step and now I have perfect pitch!!!
It feels like now when I’m singing or playing it’s like they are MY notes instead of somebody else’s notes – it’s more ‘my own music.’ That feels pretty cool. You can click here to take a look at the course that I used to train myself.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the tips I give you.
Rebecca
