A Question For Jordan

[Hjalmar.jakobsson@telia.c]

Hi J
You said in an interview that you had perfect pitch and that you sometimes composed whilst dreaming.
So my question is therefor: Can play whatever first comes in to your mind? I mean can you just sit down and play everything you want to play from just hearing it in your mind?

Thanks

Hjalmar

[orphe]

Hi J
You said in an interview that you had perfect pitch and that you sometimes composed whilst dreaming.
So my question is therefor: Can play whatever first comes in to your mind? I mean can you just sit down and play everything you want to play from just hearing it in your mind?

Thanks

Hjalmar

Perfect pitch is when you hear a note and can tell what it is without having had a reference.

Playing what is in your head is only a matter of practicing

[Delta-1]

Perfect pitch is when you hear a note and can tell what it is without having had a reference.

Playing what is in your head is only a matter of practicing

I have the perfect pitch too...
And yes, that it means that you can write and hear the perfect pitch of any note just in your head, even with perfect pitch you can make "ear" solfege exercises and write every each note without fail. (Well, without fail at least many of the notes) and hear an instrument note and say, that's a E sharp..., but it doesn't means that you can play everything exactly on the keyboard if you doesn't have the proper skills...


Cheers.
Izmael.

[gylfih]

hear an instrument note and say, that's a E sharp

You'd hear E#?! Personally I'd just hear an F:tongue:

[Bigs]

You'd hear E#?! Personally I'd just hear an F:tongue:

Well, of course perfect pitch doesn't give you perfect knowledge musical theory :smile:

As I understand, with perfect pitch you can sign notes at will because you have the correct reference in your mind. So that would mean that you can play anything you think of in your head, as long as you have the skills of course :smile:

[Enigma™]

Obviously having perfect pitch doesn't mean you can just play anything that comes to mind.

However, I think with sufficient musical theory, experience and practice, you don't need perfect pitch to play what you hear in your head.

Arcadi Volodos I think is a good example: Watch him improvise. He plays crazy jazz stuff, with little regard for technique; he plays exactly what he hears in his head.

I personally am the opposite. I can play lots of stuff (I have a reasonable technique) but I don't have very good musical ideas.

So it's hard to say... I think probably for the most part though if he hears something in his head, he can probably play it or if not, it doesn't take much practice to be able to play it.

[PinkFloydDudi]

You'd hear E#?! Personally I'd just hear an F:tongue:

I knew I was missing something somewhere!!! lol.


A good way to relate perfect pitch to non-perfect pitch people is through colors!! (I don't have perfect pitch).

If I were to line up 12 different colors in front of you, and then show you a specific color on a flash card...would you be able to point to which color it matched? Perfect pitch people can do that with notes.

(this is also assuming one is not color blind!)

Just as there are degrees of perfect pitch, so are there degrees of sight.

If all 12 of those varying colors were all shades of blue, very close to the same as the one before it, you might have a bit of difficulty. Similarly, while it may be easy for someone with perfect pitch to pick notes out, they may have more difficulty distinguishing between semitones and such.

Another way to look at it, is if I told you that I was going to play a "C", in one of 4 octaves, do you think you could pick the ocatve correctly? Most musicians probably could.

Now back to the color thing, if I showed you a list of 10 colors in random order, you may not be able to point to the colors in order for all 10. Not because you don't know the individual color, but because your memory of those 10 colors has nothing to do with your ability to actually point to an individual color.

I'll stop there, but you can take that example and run with it for a looong time.

[P-dur]

A good recipe for acquiring perfect pitch:

1. get your hands on a time machine
2. travel back to your day of birth or something similar
3. make sure you have some kind of talent for music
4. cut out the eyes on the infant-you
5. with a bit of luck, you now have perfect pitch as a grown-up.

jokes aside, there is a blind girl at my school who is a year younger than me. She picks single notes with 100% perfection (at least very very close), and she also usually get it right if you play two notes at a time or even chords. Amazing.

[Bigs]

A good recipe for acquiring perfect pitch:

1. get your hands on a time machine
2. travel back to your day of birth or something similar
3. make sure you have some kind of talent for music
4. cut out the eyes on the infant-you
5. with a bit of luck, you now have perfect pitch as a grown-up.

jokes aside, there is a blind girl at my school who is a year younger than me. She picks single notes with 100% perfection (at least very very close), and she also usually get it right if you play two notes at a time or even chords. Amazing.

Or you could dedicate 6 weeks of your life to this (http://www.perfectpitch.com/). I started the course some time ago and I have full trust that it works. It just requires a lot of (relaxed, no-pressure) practice and I didn't have the time to finish it. I can already a F# and Eb on piano now, though :biggrin: (as long as no other notes are played).

[P-dur]

Hmm, isn't perfect pitch impossible to acquire if you're not born with it? Of course you can practice and get better, but it'll never be "perfect".

[PinkFloydDudi]

Hmm, isn't perfect pitch impossible to acquire if you're not born with it? Of course you can practice and get better, but it'll never be "perfect".

Most that have perfect pitch don't truly have it "perfect". The line is usually drawn with notes on a piano.

I'd guess that actual and true "perfect pitch" would be able to distinguish quite a bit in between E and E#, not just the 2 notes alone.

[orphe]

Most that have perfect pitch don't truly have it "perfect". The line is usually drawn with notes on a piano.

I'd guess that actual and true "perfect pitch" would be able to distinguish quite a bit in between E and E#, not just the 2 notes alone.

i had a music teacher that was able to tune us up only by ear at 3-5hz near

[Premetheus37]

You can't learn perfect pitch. You just can't. Those programs and things online will really help improve your relative pitch, which, when highly developed, is probably just about as good. But perfect pitch, by definition, can NOT be learned.

I can sing a perfect E any time I want. Do I have perfect pitch? No, I just know what key "About to Crash" is in. So I play it in my head and I get it right every time. That's having good relative pitch.

I'll just say this again so people don't waste their time. You can't learn perfect pitch. You can only improve your own relative pitch, which is a MUCH better use of your time.

~Premetheus

[Gianni]

I guess those programs will just give you a very very good relative pitch. All I know is that my children are going to listen to those as soon as they're born, the most popular scientific view this days is that perfect pitch is most likely a mix of genetic heritage and early stimulation.

Personally, I'm happy with an efficient relative pitch.

[Delta-1]

Hmm, isn't perfect pitch impossible to acquire if you're not born with it? Of course you can practice and get better, but it'll never be "perfect".
Maybe you're right about that... :frown:
But there's a lot of courses, cd's, exercises, well... a lot of things that could improve "really" much your pitch. Even, I know some musicians that doesn't have perfect pitch, but they improved their pitch in a way that you couldn't recognize that they doesn't have the "perfect pitch"... :cool:

So don't worry, Although "maybe" you don't have the perfect pitch, there's a lot of ways for fix that... :biggrin:

[idp]

You cannot born with perfect pitch. Its a thing the brain must learn. People, whose brain are better in recognition might seem as they are born with perfect pitch, but the thing is that they had developed their brain to be much capable and open to recognize things better or faster, therefore they reach perfect pitch with less excercise. A human being must learn all the things we can do nowadays, except the basic vegetative things. People are not born to be able to walk, speek, etc, so can you imagine someone who is born with perfect pitch? :)

[P-dur]

In fact, I can :tongue: Just toss your eyes on the owner of this page. He was born skilled at the piano :wink:

[Bigs]

You can't learn perfect pitch. You just can't. Those programs and things online will really help improve your relative pitch, which, when highly developed, is probably just about as good. But perfect pitch, by definition, can NOT be learned.

I can sing a perfect E any time I want. Do I have perfect pitch? No, I just know what key "About to Crash" is in. So I play it in my head and I get it right every time. That's having good relative pitch.

I'll just say this again so people don't waste their time. You can't learn perfect pitch. You can only improve your own relative pitch, which is a MUCH better use of your time.

~Premetheus

Absolute pitch has absolutely nothing to do with relative pitch. In fact, if you would only have absolute pitch and no relative pitch, transcribing a song would take for ever. The two go hand in hand. So no, perfect pitch programs do not improve your relative pitch.

Just sit behind a piano (relaxed) and strike the F# a few times. Notice how it sounds a bit 'twangy', harsh even. Then strike the Eb.. notice how it's softer, more mellow? This is the case in every octave. Those 'pitch colors' are what you're listening for with perfect pitch, as PinkFloydDudi described. It has nothing to do with one note being higher or lower then the other.

Those programs are just a matter of 'opening up' your ears, listening intensively and deeply to individual notes in chords so you can discover the pitch colors for yourself.

[PinkFloydDudi]

You cannot born with perfect pitch. Its a thing the brain must learn. People, whose brain are better in recognition might seem as they are born with perfect pitch, but the thing is that they had developed their brain to be much capable and open to recognize things better or faster, therefore they reach perfect pitch with less excercise. A human being must learn all the things we can do nowadays, except the basic vegetative things. People are not born to be able to walk, speek, etc, so can you imagine someone who is born with perfect pitch? :)

You can, in a sense. Some are born with the ABILITY to have perfect pitch, others are not.

No matter how hard I train, I can not be a world-class sprinter. No amount of training, learning, or early experience with it could take over the fact that some are born to be incredibly fast.

The same is true with things like piano prodigies as well as perfect pitch. Genetics most definitely play a factor.


p.s. People are born being ABLE to walk, speak, etc...they just can't do it yet.

To be able to walk you need balance, legs, feet, etc...people are born with that
To be able to speak you need vocal chords, a mouth, tongue, etc..On that note, babies speak nearly the second they are out! Its just not english!