Absolute Pitch Education

[Lazy Vegan]

Hi Chris,

I've been following your website for several years now and I am excited about the most recent phase.

I've tried to teach myself perfect pitch using the melody method at ProLobe.com. Once I got the idea down, I was able to identify all seven notes of the C-Scale by the end of the day, and had learned the accidentals a few days later. Within a couple months I had gotten up to the very last levels before I quit due to octave identification proving too cumbersome a task.

I quickly learned when I started taking music classes at my local community college that while the melody method provided me with the tools to identify notes in isolated situations, I was very confused in any tonal context. Although I could effortlessly identify randomly played pitches for me before class, during our melodic dictation exercises I found myself as ill-equipped as any of my classmates. As soon as my teacher started playing our ascending warm-up scales, my sense of pitch was lost.

I was also frustrated that I was unable to reliably produce requested tones or to name the notes I could hear in my mind.

It's been all about a year and a half ago since I've stopped practicing and while I have retained most of my pitiful ability, there has been a decline.

I have to admit I have neglected all relative pitch training. I am unable to name anything more than a unison/octave, tri-tone, or fifth. Even so, I was able to pass my three Ear Training classes with an A grade using only the melody method. (Admittedly the teacher was very lenient.) And though I know there is much value in relative pitch, because many perfect pitchers claim to get along without it, I have opted to try that route. Unless (God forbid) it is determined that adults cannot learn AP.

Anyway, I look forward to reading more of your research as it comes and hope to someday learn the true ability of perfect pitch. And though I have not yet bought the ETC, expect to do so.

I am curious though... Even by using the latest feature of ETC, Absolute Pitch Blaster, do you think it is possible for an adult to learn all of the things considered to be a part of the full ability of perfect pitch such as:

-The ability to improvise on your instrument
-The ability to sing or produce a requested tone
-The ability to determine sharpness of flatness of a tone
-The ability to hear sheet music
-Etc

I suspect the first is a matter of individual fluency on one's instrument, and I assume that the last three are closely related.

I have to admit, my reason for wanting to learn perfect pitch is to one day be able to play on the piano whatever musical thoughts I can think as effortlessly as I can use the keyboard to convert my thoughts into text. And to be able to write out those thoughts on paper like I would compose a letter.

I realize that I could probably do such things without perfect pitch but I am fascinated by AP and after feeling like I've had just a taste of it, I can easily see how it is an integral part of musicianship. I think it would be great for all children to be taught AP so that society could find non-musical uses for this fascinating ability.

I apologize for the length of this message. I feel like it has been a long time coming and I wanted to be sure to include all relevant material.

BTW, Congratulations on the release of the We Hear and Play method. I am eager to see how this will impact the standard view that AP cannot be taught.

[aruffo]

Hey there..!

As you might apologize for having gone on long, I may apologize in advance for being overly brief-- if only because you raise a number of issues that I intend to cover in greater depth on the main site (but also because I could go on for hours about it anyway).

But before I say anything I'm quite curious to ask: can someone explain how the melodies are supposed to work on Prolobe? With that site down, I can't look it up myself.

The first thing I wanted to respond to is the common thought of absolute versus relative pitch. I wrote about that on May 10 of this year (http://www.aruffo.com/eartraining/research/phase11comment.htm); the main point there is that relative and absolute pitch skills are both essential to full musicianship. Here's a quote from that May 10 article: "Syllabic (relative) skill tells you how to combine sounds to create a desired meaning; only phonemic (absolute) skill tells you which specific sounds are "correct". If meaning is all, then absolute skill is totally, completely, utterly unimportant." Also, when music is whizzing by you, you won't be able to hear it pitch for pitch; just like language, you must know the chords (words) and infer the pitches (phonemes).

The next bit is your list of skills. I assert that YES, I think it is possible for an adult to learn all those things. I think that the ultimate goal of absolute pitch is true musical literacy-- reading, writing, and typing, where "typing" is the use of fingering on one's instrument. I agree with you that the first skill you list is a matter of fluency, and I'd point out that this comes not from mechanically relating a printed note with a finger movement, but from relating an imagined sound to a finger movement, so that when you see the printed note, it activates the sound, which causes the automatic hand movement (just as happens when you're typing). Theoretically, becoming a multi-instrumentalist would be a parallel task to learning both the QWERTY and Dvorak keyboards.

[aruffo]

Okay.. some additional stuff to mention after running an errand..

I'm delighted to read your account of your experience trying to learn absolute pitch. This is the result I've theorized, and it's exactly why I don't think it's an adequate test for absolute pitch to ask people to name tones in isolation, as most tests for absolute pitch will do.

For two reasons, I'm fascinated by the fact that you said you successfully reached the very last levels. One is how it demonstrates how you can become extremely competent at naming notes and yet not have absolute pitch ability; this was demonstrated by the subjects in Rush's 1989 study but yours is the first real-life example I've encountered.

The other reason is that you say you had trouble identifying the octaves. If I'm understanding you correctly, this strongly suggests that you were indeed memorizing tone objects instead of learning to hear absolutely. People with absolute pitch will judge chroma with complete disregard for octave-- and this is cool, because it's been reported to me that Absolute Pitch Blaster successfully renders the octave irrelevant. I haven't experienced this yet within the game, because I'm still at the one-octave level, but I've had success in producing octaves while singing by thinking about them as the same tone with a different quality (I wrote about that at the end of Phase 11).

I'd still like to find out how the Prolobe melodies are supposed to work; from your report, they can't work the same way as the way I use 'em, so I have to wonder what that way is.

And, as a bit of an addendum.. I deeply appreciate the support that people have shown for my work. Sometimes, when a person writes to me with a question or comment, they'll assure me that they intend to buy the ETC software at some point. This has happened often enough that I've wondered that maybe people think that, if they haven't bought the software, I'll be less interested in taking the time to share ideas with them. But the whole point of the work is the research and the sharing of ideas.

The reasons I'm selling the ETC software instead of giving it away are twofold. The main purpose is so I don't have to take some irrelevant wage job; the time I would've wasted at that job I can use instead to continue this research. The second reason is your ownership of the process. "That which we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly." I figure that if you buy something, you want to get your money's worth out of that thing. If the price is $0, then you won't care if you don't ever use it. I put a price tag on it because that way, I can feel confident that the people who receive the program are actually using it and benefiting from it in their own musicianship.

[Lazy Vegan]

Thanks for your replies,

To your question of how the ProLobe melodies work, I'm not sure if you're asking how that program's inbuilt melodies work or if you're asking for my experience of the melody method.

I cannot answer the first one because I have never used the inbuilt melodies, but the answer to the second one is simple: You associate the first note of a well-known melody with a pitch-class. If I reach out and randomly play a note then the melody I've associated will start to play in my mind. Eventually with practice this whole process can go so fast as to appear to happen subconsciously.

My first experience with this method though comes long before I heard of ProLobe or even before I had heard of perfect pitch. When I first started playing the piano several years ago, I would sometimes play a certain chord inversion or melodic motif that reminded me of a song I knew. I would then check whether or not these were the same pitches as in the song. I was almost always correct.

I just assumed that one day, with enough practice; I would become so fluent on the piano that I would have abilities which I later learned belonged to the skill called absolute pitch.

Anyway, I thought nothing more of those experiences until I came to ProLobe and saw that the same basic idea was refined into what they called the melody method. Using that method I was highly successful and within months achieved a rank of 6 before the program started asking for octaves. The highest level I reached tested for all the 88 keys, different timbres and 4 note chords.

After I saw that my success there was not applicable to my real life musical training, I stopped.

I strongly recommend against training with the melody method. I am now left with this Frankenstein-esque ability of neither absolute nor relative pitch.

When I started I assumed that my reliance on melodies would subside and eventually pitches would carry only their inherent value, this has not happened. While not tortuous, it is somewhat annoying that I now play back these melodies in every day life. The squeak of someone's shoes, the tapping of a glass, any of these could evoke the memory of the melody associated with the pitch.

Thankfully this happens less and less as I've stopped practicing, but I figure if it's not going to produce perfect pitch anyway, why put yourself through the trouble?

I have to admit that learning relative pitch the traditional way was much harder. In my Ear Training classes we were expected to memorize different intervals and to tell whether chords are major/minor/augmented/diminished/etc... The latter was easy enough, the first was very difficult. Of course with my previous training, I found myself much more equipped than my fellow students. It was only difficult if I tried to do it the normal way. Using the melody method I could identify the individual notes and name the interval that way. Naturally this was counter-productive to my education but hey you do what you can to pass.

Because of those experiences, I have not yet tried to learn RP. After my experience with the melody method I am wary of following my teacher’s suggestion of memorizing melodies for the intervals. Plus I think I remember something in your research saying that memorizing melodies for relative pitch is about as useless as for perfect pitch.

Well, again it appears this message has also turned out longer than I anticipated. I hope you will find some of this babble to be of use.

Edit: Upon closer inspection of your previous post I noticed the bit about octaves. I am able to identify a pitch in any octave with about the same accuracy except for the lowest two or three notes on the piano. At the very last levels, ProLobe asks you which octave the played pitch is from. I could not do this with enough accuracy to pass.

In any case, if I hear the pitch of A no matter if it's A1, A2, A3, A4, A5... It will trigger the same melody and I can identify it based on that.

Hope this clears it up.

[aruffo]

Fascinating! I need to be sure, then, to write a comment about the "melody words" employed by Absolute Pitch Blaster; they're meant to be used differently from what you're describing.

The way you were using them is what Fletcher calls a "vicious little trick"-- the trick gives the illusion of knowledge, but you've actually learned the trick and not the knowledge itself; without the trick, you have no knowledge. I would have to agree that it's equally useless to know intervals only via evocative melodies; however, I think that melodies can be extremely helpful when used appropriately, and definitely should be used in that appropriate way. (I'll be sure to write more about that later.)

Thanks for the clarification about octaves. In that case, your result shouldn't be too surprising. Chroma and tone height are separate and separable, and absolute listeners are infamous for making octave errors. It could be, I suppose, further evidence of the need for both absolute and relative pitch skills; on the other hand, if only because of Griffith's research, I wonder if the entire concept of "octaves" is eventually going to be exploded.

And one thing we agree on: if there's no application to your musicianship, then any kind of pitch/interval identification is useless-- and worthless. I became keenly aware of that when I first started this process, and had the same experience you did (to a more limited degree, with only three tones), and that's been a strong influence on my efforts. That's also why I'm thrilled each time someone writes to me to say how ETC has directly helped them improve as a musician. That's the point. Not some random sound-naming ability.

[aruffo]

Ooh! I just realized that I was overlooking a potentially important question I should be asking you.

In your opinion, why do you suppose your skill was not musically useful? Or to put it another way-- you say that as soon as you heard an ascending warm-up scale, your sense of pitch was lost. Never mind my theories; in your actual experience, what happened in your mind? Can you describe it? I'd love to know.

[paul-donnelly]

Chris, you mentioned the melody words in Absolute Pitch Blaster. I'm curious to know what their purpose is. I figured that they were there to give some context, but I'd like to know for sure.

By the way, I'm the guy who emailed you a while ago (a month or so, I think) about how absolute pitch might work when applied in microtonal music. I've since moved to a different email address, so if you happened to save mine, it's now useless .

[Lazy Vegan]

Hmm, that's an interesting question. If I knew the exact answer I would have applied that knowledge to my training. I will try my best to provide answers.

I would say that the most obvious reason for my sense of pitch failing while warming up was that my melodies no longer triggered, and all tones started to sound the same. The warm-up scales were always played going up a half-step at a time. If I would try to get the name of the scale we were currently on my mind would be blank. I have a feeling that part of my ability is actually a form of harmonic relative pitch; unfortunately it only works in the C-Major context. However I can say with reasonable certainty that in the instances I can easily name randomly played notes, it is purely a function of the melody method.

This reminds me; in our melodic dictation exercises I was most comfortable in C-Major. The more accidentals that were added the worse I would do.

Even though I mentioned that I have difficulty singing requested notes, it is not completely aimless. If I can clearly remember the melody I've assigned to that pitch I can usually hit the note within a semitone. But for some reason I am able to sing the pitches of C D F and G and maybe A with greater accuracy than the other tones. There are definitely differences in my ability to produce the individual pitches. In general the accidentals are harder.

Interestingly, in between exercises my teacher would play all kinds of random notes and chords, basically banging on the piano. His intent seemed to be to confuse us and make us lose any reference pitch we had. This would be the opposite for me, it would actually reset my tonal context and would give me the foundation I needed for naming notes again. Now that I think of it, when I needed to identify pitches in a musical context I often relied on my ability to produce a C to compare it with. This is most certainly a function of relative pitch but I wonder why it is I cannot do the same thing with any other scale.

The main concern I have is my inability to name the notes I hear in my mind. This was most apparent in my melodic dictation exercises. Using the melody method I could write the first three or four notes with little trouble but once the music would get ahead of me and I could not hear the melody in real life I would have very limited success in writing the rest of the notes from memory. I would eventually have to think of the tonic and count up or down to pass the assignment.

I hope this clears up some of your questions. If you have any more I am more than happy to help as best I can.

[losvedir]

[Me]

Hey, i'm not a member on here, but i thought i'd say some things. First of all, you should check out Bruce Arnold's relative pitch eartraining stuff. It's great. To really improve your functional musical ear, the way you hear has to be in line with the way music actually works. You have to learn to hear scale degrees. You have to sort out what's perfect pitch from what's relative pitch. In order to do this, you gotta work on relative pitch. And I don't mean intervals. You gotta learn to hear pitches in tonal context. Each of the twelve pitches has a unique sound in relationship to a particular tonal center. In the key of C:

C is I
Db is bII
D is II
Eb is bIII
E is III
F is IV
F# is #IV (or enharmonically, Gb is bV)
G is V
Ab is bVI
A is VI
Bb is bVII
B is VII

Each one of these is a particular relationship and each of these 12 sounds is the same in every key. The reason AP is hard to learn is because your mind mixes the absolute location of a pitch with the position relative to some other pitches (like with the melody method). So, you recognize the pitch based on TWO factors instead of the one absolute sound. This is why you get messed up when you try to identify pitches in relative context. Because you can only identify specific pitches in specific relative contexts. When those pitches show up in other relative contexts, you can't identify them.

You have to study RP in order to understand exactly what it is so that you can tell when you're using it instead of AP. I would recommend studying RP and AP at the same time. Use Bruce Arnold's method for RP, but do it in one key until you memorize JUST the key center absolutely. The other notes, just learn them scale degrees. When you can sing that particular key center from memory and identify each of the twelve scale degrees in relationship to that key center, go on to a new key. Maybe go in the circle of 5ths until you have learned each key. With each new key, you'll start to sort out what part of the sound is its relationship to the key center and what part is its absolute 'color'.

C always sounds like "C" in any context absolutely, but it ALSO sounds like the I, the bVII, the V, etc., depending on what key you're in. You have to be able to recognize the "C-ness" in any context and in order to do that you have to be able to recognize each of the 12 possible contextual sounds.

Learn to hear each pitch in each key. Then music itself will make a lot more sense when heard. You will be able to hear not only what key things are in, but you can FEEL the movement of pitches in context.

BTW, this is something I am currently working on, in case you're curious. I have not completed this mission myself yet, but I am on the way and making progress - progress that extends quite easily into my actual musical playing experience. Actually, what I do is a little different than what I recommended, but it takes time to explain, so maybe I'll explain it some other time.

Hope this helps,
Rob
email: amonkeyinabox@hotmail.com

[Me]

oops, i meant to say that my post was to Lazy Vegan's August 22nd post.

[aruffo]

I feel a bit silly suggesting it, but I have to wonder if "Me" has taken the time to check out Interval Loader and Functional Ear Trainer, or... um... read anything that I've written about relative pitch on the main website...?

Regardless, everything that adds to the pot is worth knowing about, to be sure.

[Lazy Vegan]

Thanks for the reply. Since I've been reading the other posts here I've become more and more aware of the need for functional relative pitch as a part of complete musicianship...

[petew83]

I agree...also, relative pitch awareness eliminates confusion between tonal gravity and chroma, because you are aware of what tonal gravity sounds like. What I am trying to improve on is hearing the difference between timbral cues and chroma.

[Guest]