To my blog about perfect pitch and auditive perception.
Absolute Pitch, widely referred to as Perfect Pitch, is a phenomenon that has several definitions. The profane and most known is: “ Absolute Pitch is the ability to identify or sing a musical note properly without comparing its tone to any external reference.”
However, the phenomenon of Absolute Pitch is much more fascinating and complex. The M.A.P. method has its ultimate goal in exploring and learning to use different aspects of this wonderful ability.
Many musicians, composers in particular, have developed it. Techniques for such development are not very known but some of the methods existed well before the M.A.P. method was created. Universal or not, there are people who state that these methods helped them to advance.
Absolutely. Anyone can do it regardless his current level of musicianship. From time to time I have people with no previous musical training at all, they mostly come because they are interested in auditive perception.
In the beginning an amateur might even have a slight advantage because it is in general easier to learn new ways than to change the old ones. The advantage of being a trained musician manifests itself a little later, when the mind begins to integrate the new knowledge into the whole developed system of the previous musical training.
Hi,
There’s another 2 great videos that I found on YouTube:
- doctor Jill Taylor’s story -
- an extraordinary movie “The Fall” by Tarsem -
Maybe you’ve seen these already, they have been circulating in the social and freinds’ networks lately, yet, it’s worthwhile to see them again keeping in mind a little question:
How on Earth these two are connected to Absolute Pitch development?
Let me give you a hint:
Jill Taylor talks about the right and left brain hemispheres’ functioning and the M.A.P. method I’ve created is largely based on the idea that Absolute Pitch is a right brain’s activity, while naming the notes (as well as Relative Pitch and other applications) is a left brain’s functioning. The best is obviously to make the two go together.
“The Fall”, apart from being a cinematic masterpiece in itself, pictures an amasing child, Alexandra, whose creative mind turns a little story which her friend tells her into a magnificent and beautiful saga. I daresay to develop Absolute Pitch as an adult is about re-awakening the creative mind to its full capacity. That is what M.A.P. is all about. And watching The Fall gives plenty of emotional (and intellectual!) fuel to this process as well as sheer aesthetic pleasure to the eye and thought-provoking material to the soul.
So, enjoy..
Katja
Hope you like it.
Imagine, I asked you to sing an interval, for ex. G – C#. How would you do it? I would have to give you the first tone (G), then you’d construct a tritone in your head and then you’ll be able to sing the C#, right?
With absolute pitch you know instantly and can sing the G, then the C#. So, you omit the mental construction and comparison.
At the moment, your Relative Pitch is overloaded because you are using your logical, for most people left, side of the brain to do several operations, one at a time: keep track on the 1 comparison tone, doing actual comparison (here, the right side of the brain comes into the play since it has to recognize a pattern, but then the left side takes over again as the recognized pattern has to be compared to the “installed” interval prototype), calculating the second tone.
For a well trained musician this process is fast, yet, it is observable in speed (not instant) AND demanding in terms of concentrating on the 1st rate “arithmetical” calculation. Often, one has to do the second rate calculation at the same time (functional degree analysis, that is, calculating harmonies).
As you begin using your absolute pitch, you gradually release yourself from the 1st degree calculation since you do not do any comparison. You RECOGNIZE, audiolize and recall (thus can reproduce) a sound as a C, an F or whatever pitch it is. Just as you recognize a face of a friend, instantly.
The amount of energy which you spend now on the 1st degree of relative pitch analysis, when released, can be used for more advanced things, like for example comprehensive analysis of the composition on the whole or analysis of the compositional language, or analysis of the orchestration. Just now, you hardly have time and energy for all these things.
For example, I used to think that Dave Brubeck’s music was complicated when I only had to go by the relative pitch. Now, when my AP took over most of that unnecessary work, I see that this music is very transparent and simple in terms of harmonies. (This does not make me appreciate the beauty of the music less than before!)
The way M.A.P. method is build, you will train yourself not to switch from relative pitch to absolute pitch, but to make the two go together.
