Perfect Pitch...anyone?

[Fretz]

Hey Guys

I'm starting to really get into some ear training and transcribing songs.
And I have to say I'm really seeing the benefit of it already!!

So, was wondering if any of you guys ever tried out one of the "Perfect Pitch systems". Like this one for example:
http://www.discount.perfectpitch.com/

And if so did you find that it actually worked or at least helped in some way?

[woodchuk]

Yes, I have that course. I think it is worth the money, but let me share a few points first that may save you some disillusionment later, since I don't know how familiar you might be with this. Perfect pitch is a very abstract and subtle idea. The basic premise is that each pitch has a "sound color" just as each color of the spectrum has a "visual color." But these "sound colors" cannot really be described concretely, since everything about music is subjective. I may not hear things the same way as someone else, so I may describe a particular tone differently. With that in mind, do not expect the course to give you individual descriptions of all the tone colors for each of the 12 notes in the chromatic scale. What would be the point, really? It's all about internalizing what you hear. And you will hear that over and over and OVER throughout the course

However, I can share that I find some of the descriptions that David Lucas Burge gives to be very accurate. For example, I agree that an Eb is "mellow" and an F# is "twangy." And there are different "levels" of perfect pitch as well. For example, I can identify the key of a song by ear alone a majority of the time, and I'm pretty good at figuring out chords if they are relatively simple (i.e., no chords like Cmaj7#5b9). If they have a lot of notes clustered together, sometimes I have trouble "unlocking" them to get the individual notes (another level of perfect pitch). But assuming my voice is warmed up and doesn't crack, my aural recall (singing a tone on command, considered to be the highest level of PP) is fairly well developed. So there are many aspects of PP to develop, as the course will teach you. Note also that having PP alone will not make you a good singer, as I can attest to. :D

I would also strongly suggest that you invest in the Relative Pitch course by DLB. The 2 abilities go hand in hand with each other, and one can never replace the other. PP tells you the individual notes in the chord, RP tells you the chord type based on the relations between the pitches. The RP course is far more involved, containing about 40 classes of material compared to 25 or so for PP. However, it is much more "concrete" than PP, and may be more in line with how you might expect an ear training course to be. If you're a serious musician, as long as you keep an open mind and really put DLB's exercises to work, I don't see how you could go wrong with either course. Let me know what you decide to do, and I hope that I've helped you out. :)