[GuitarThemedName]

I've seen it advertised in guitar magazines. Has anyone tried it? Does it really work?

[scotty_b]

I own the course, it was given to me by someone who had purchased it and then decided not to pursue it - or music for that matter.
As to whether or not it can be learnt , I will say yes! Talk to a piano tuner and see what they have to say about it. I think a big part of our problem as guitarists is that we don't use our ears enough. I play sax as well, and that has really helped me with focussing on playing in tune consistently, and listening to the quality of the note produced.
A trumpeter I know was explaining the concept of tuning he uses, which is listening to the harmonic overtones. This is essentially what David Berge's course teaches.
The best thing I ever found for ear training was putting on the radio and trying to play along with anything that came on, or trying to work out music from a TV ad in 30 seconds.

[deezhammer]

I could be wrong and if I am I apologize in advance
BUT I think what everyone here is talking about is RELATIVE pitch and not perfect.
Being able to pick off very complexed chords or quickly figuring out songs from the TV assumes that you have some sort of starting point.
ie: f#m7b5th#13 fives you the F# to start with and if you done it enough even if you dont have the f# you can derive if from the sounds of the b5th or the #13 and you will come up with "X" b5th#13
It's all based on knowing intervals cross referenced with a given chord progression.

Now i'm sounding like a snooty know-it-all trust me FAR FROM IT.

Perfect pitch is the ability to hear a run of chords or notes and nail them in your head before your instrument is even in hand. - Few people have it and yes some are born with it and some can learn it but many try and lots fail. -- Me too
I do know a keyboard player who has it and she can't figure what's the big deal.
For guitarists Relative is the way to go and knowing simple I-IV-V in ANY KEY WILL GET YOU MILES DOWN THE ROAD.
Again I could be wrong

[allthumbs]

This guy used to offer tapes in both. Perfect and relative pitch. I didn't do well with either of them.

[scotty_b]

Originally Posted by blarneypilgrim

I recently read about perfect pitch i think it was on the Martin guitar forum where people had said that having perfect pitch was a curse rather than a blessing.One guy said his brother had perfect pitch and could not enjoy any music especially groups and ensembles playing because he could hear instruments that were out of tune ALL THE TIME!!!!!.

I have heard comments like this, and I think that people who make comments like that are being a bit pretentious. I do not have perfect pitch, though I can often hear a song and name the key straight away, or I can hear a phrase played by someone and play it back. Due to the nature of our imperfect tuning system (equal tempered tuning) we are going to be out of tune most of the time. As your ear develops you notice this. Have a chat to horn players, and they will talk to you about pitch and the subtleties of playing in tune. As a sax player I have learnt far more about the concept of pitch than as a guitar player - I started to realise how much the pitch deviated when my embourchre was off. We don't seem to have to many guitar players thinking in terms of fingering for a chord or note to see how it affects the tuning to that extent.
My high school guitar teacher was a guy who was born with cancer in his eyes, and so the doctors removed his eyes at three weeks to stop the spread of the disease. Geoff has the most amazing sense of pitch that I have ever encountered. He would listen to his footsteps reflect of walls to know where a door way was, or clap and know the shape and size of a room. He was mixing once for my band and was walking around the church we were playing in, and had someone else adjusting the desk controls for him. At one stage he called out that one of the sliders on the graphic EQ was at +10DB and it should be pulled back to +5DB. The guy at the desk was amazed to look at the EQ and see that Geoff had described it accurately.
Geoff never once complained about music being always out of tune. In my opinion, and nothing else, that issue comes down to attitude. The people I have met who whinge about music being out, or show off by naming chord tones to everyone, irrespective of whether or not their audience cares to know, are not the sort of musicians or people I generally like being around.
That is only my experience, and so not all individuals with perfect pitch are going to be like that, but quite a few of the ones I have met are that.

[Cedric01]

Originally Posted by scotty_b

As a sax player I have learnt far more about the concept of pitch than as a guitar player - I started to realise how much the pitch deviated when my embourchre was off. We don't seem to have to many guitar players thinking in terms of fingering for a chord or note to see how it affects the tuning to that extent.

Not true! A man named Buzz Feiten is a guitar player that study this situation as you you described and remedied this on guitar with the Feiten tuning system.

[scotty_b]

Hey
I didn't say it applied to every guitar player, I said we don't see too many players thinking that way.

[Dugal]

I think that both relative pitch and absolute pitch recognition can be learnt.

I am learning relative pitch at the moment. That's absolutely doable for anyone with practice. Just like learning a melody, given a starting point.

I do not know anyone who was born with perfect absolute pitch. All the muso's I know at the local conservatorium that can pick absolute pitches, say they know one or two tones by heart (they can sing, or whistle them first thing in the morning, without a reference) and then use relative pitch to extrapolate the others.

"A" seems to be a common known pitch among violinists. I think they have to tune to it at the start of each lesson and so they learnt it over time.

[scotty_b]

It is like a trumpeter hearing Bb, and I think guitar players should be able to learn to hear an E over time as well

[Jove d'Ark]

No Expert but I have heard these. And even though David Primarily uses the Piano there is No reason these principles cannot be adapted to Guitar. After all Music is Music and its Vibrations We interperate as certain Notes are ALL Scientifically quantafiable PITCHES. Meaning every NOTE we Hear or Play has a definitive frequency. The only thing that changes between intruments is the Timbre or "Colour" Of the sound. And no one needs anyone else. As I try to impart to my students what is really needed is Dedicated Listening. Use your mind as a sponge to Absorb every qaulity you can to every note you play. Picture in Your Mind what the the Sound and colour of the NOTE invoke. Is it happy, sad, Bright. dull, tense, fluid, etc. etc.Do you think of red blue. pink or some scene from a movie or song. Try to connect each Pitch with some emotion within Yourself.
As an example. play a simple C scale and become acutely aware of the iterval structure. And as you reproduce each New interval, try to absorb and picure the complete nuance of the 'Note of The Moment' You will note that the further you move from Original C there is a slight quickening, an urgency if you will, that becomes almost madening at Major 7 B that screams to return to C. And all the way through this process each note has its own unique signature.
As I also try to impart to my students:- How many times have you picked up a phone and INSTANTLY recocognised the callers voice? Music is the same. Give each note dedicated listening and eventually it will just become an Old Friends Voice.

[Fong]

I would love to learn any pitch let alone perfect pitch.

I can tune a guitar, so it sounds ok on its own, but its usually miles off the 440hz its supposed to be on the A, usually very flat or sometimes even very sharp.

Getting that GNU Solfege software now and will check it out, will post if it makes any difference to my tone deafness.

Damn i am soo rubbish. There are only two options on the first set of practice goes on the Solfege and I am getting 90% of them wrong ;(

[Fretsource]

Originally Posted by Fong

I can tune a guitar, so it sounds ok on its own, but its usually miles off the 440hz its supposed to be on the A, usually very flat or sometimes even very sharp.

Getting that GNU Solfege software now and will check it out, will post if it makes any difference to my tone deafness.

Fong - If you can tune a guitar so that it sounds good on its own, then you are definitely NOT tone deaf. So what if your A doesn't equal 440hz? It just means that, like most musicians, you don't have perfect pitch, but have good relative pitch. Most of the world's greatest musicians DON'T have perfect pitch so you're in good company.

[Fong]

Originally Posted by Fretsource

Fong - If you can tune a guitar so that it sounds good on its own, then you are definitely NOT tone deaf. So what if your A doesn't equal 440hz? It just means that, like most musicians, you don't have perfect pitch, but have good relative pitch. Most of the world's greatest musicians DON'T have perfect pitch so you're in good company.

Tell you how bad it is for me.

My mate tested me, cause he couldn't believe I could play guitar and be so utterly useless at hearing tones.

He played a note on a guitar, and I tried to find it on a keyboard, not at the same time, he played the note, I had to find it.

I found the sharp of it, which was pretty close, but not really.

The other thing about tuning a guitar is, it isn't about the 'sound' of the notes, but about the way the harmonics ring together and create a 'cycle' of sound, when the guitar is in tune those cycles are in sync, when they are not in tune they are out of sync and if you listen really closely, you can hear they are not in sync so you can tell if they are out of tune, this also helps if the string is flat or sharp as the sharps tend to cycle faster then the flats so you know you need to tune down slightly.

16 years of playing the guitar and being tone deaf, I had to find a way of tuning the guitar somehow.

[737blues]

Hey Fong, I grew up thinking I was tone deaf, mostly because people kept telling me I was. In later years I learnt that real 'tone deafness' is actually pretty rare and usually only happens if you have physiological problem with your ears. Learned about the harmonic tuning thing from a music teacher in school, did the David Lucas Burge tapes later in life, (much later) Finally, I got smart and bought an electronic tuner.

What I have come to personally believe is that my biggest problem is that of never learning to listen properly. Some players just seem to be able to do this without effort but for me I have to constantly remind myself. I refined this conclusion when I started trying to record takes over backing tracks and would not notice, for example, that the BT had changed. I would however, still be merrily twanging away in a little world of my own blissfully unaware of it. Kirk was the first person to point this out to me on the PT forum (thx. a bundle Kirk) and I've been working at it ever since. I still have a lot of difficulty with it, particularly on bad tinnitus days, (an affliction which definitely doesn't help matters!) but every now and then I find I can actually listen to two things at once, what I'm trying to accompany and what I'm playing myself. Doesn't happen all the time but it's a great feeling when it does. So don't convince yourself that you're tone deaf Fong, because you are probably not.

[Fong]

I am not too bad at improvisation over peices, I can usually find a decent sounding scale without any prior knowledge, but I can never work out what people are actually playing, a friend of mine used to be able to work stuff out by ear from the radio and stuff, but I could never do that, and I still can't.

Like you tho, I also have ear 'problems' mine is a recurring otis media which is an ear infection, I have had it since I was a kid and it come and goes all the time, currently I have it at the moment in my right ear and to give you an idea its a bit like having your ear full of water.

Unless I have prior knowledge of a tune, i can never tell if I am hitting the right note. What i mean is, if I know the tune and am playing along, I can tell I hit the wrong note, but if I am looking for the right note without knowing what it is, I can never tell when I find it.

I don't think I am completely tone deaf, but I think I am pretty close

[737blues]

Originally Posted by Fong

a friend of mine used to be able to work stuff out by ear from the radio and stuff, but I could never do that, and I still can't.

I had a friend like that once too. I beat him to death with his own guitar and fed him to his dog .... Well, I thought about it anyway, he was one of the people who used to tell me I am tone deaf.