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I've played the bass guitar for about three years. Been in two bands in that time and I practice on two of mine at least an hour or two per day. It's a great way to relax, since the bass is such a mellow instrument. Jazz doesn't sound right without a nice bass line.

I play the keyboard, the electric organ, the thousand-sounds-on-one-piano-device. It's such a shame the quality of the sound is not to my satisfaction. I really need to hear that tone dying away slowly instead of ending relatively abruptly. The sound of long-vibrating snares makes the Moonlight Sonata sound so much better.

Also, I don't practice enough.

Do you play a musical instrument? Which one?

Like CE I started playing classical piano at the age of 4. I come from (on my mother's side) a long line of musicians, and I'm ashamed to say that I was somewhat of a "wunderkind." Which really stinks if you have ambitious parents and you want to grow up up normally. Like all the males on my mother's side I've got an "absolute ear" for the lack of a better translation. I'll leave it to CE to explain what it means... Anyway, you sit there for 4-6 hours a day doing "remarkably adult and inovative" versions of classical pieces, being hyped as freaks-r-us when all you want to do is to be out with the guys playing cowboys and indians.

Today, to make a long story short, I play guitar, sax (poorly) drums, piano and the accordion, just for the heck of it. I did it professionally for the most important part of my life, and I'M NOT GOING BACK THERE! That was my Vietnam, and the aftereffects of it will haunt me 'till they nail me down.

I still love to sit down by the piano and do my thing, though...

"Absolute ear"

@Moonbiter, 'Perfect Pitch' is the accepted English term. I have often wondered about this phenomenon. I always thought I had a good ear for notes, but until I started learning musical theory (at which I am still only the most uninformed novice) I would not be able to even begin to guess at what a note was - so, is a good knowledge of music (chords and notes) essential to having what they call 'perfect pitch'? Is it the case that the ability can go unnoticed if one doesn't engage in music, or is it the case that it is simply impossible for a non-musician to have perfect pitch?

I've known a couple of people with perfect pitch. They've claimed that it's partially inate, but that you also have to be musically trained from childhood to perceive pitch correctly.

The opposite is the person who naturally has poor pitch, and no training to correct this: tone-deaf.

Nope. According to my tutors, and to scientists in general, it's perfectly possible to train to have a "perfect ear" later in life, if you basically have an ear for music, pitches, tuning and such. However, being born with that "malady" is both a blessing and a distinct drawback.

[QUOTE=frogus23]I wonder if 1/4 of all musicians play didgeridoo or if this is just a SYM thing [/QUOTE]

Lol! i play it too or, i did for some time ago, but gave up(f.... sircular breathing!)

Now i am a guitar addict! i play for about 1 hour a day, and never grow tired.
play whatever is fun, but mostly metall!

[QUOTE=Moonbiter]Nope. According to my tutors, and to scientists in general, it's perfectly possible to train to have a "perfect ear" later in life, if you basically have an ear for music, pitches, tuning and such. However, being born with that "malady" is both a blessing and a distinct drawback.[/QUOTE]

Afraid we'll have to disagree; I've yet to meet or hear about anybody who trained to this late in life.

I'm afraid there's only one way to settle this:

Rob, grab that didgeridoo and give us a perfect high C.

*listens intently*

[QUOTE=frogus23]I'm afraid there's only one way to settle this:

Rob, grab that didgeridoo and give us a perfect high C.

*listens intently*[/QUOTE]
uh, would a sort of gutteral 'broawararowarp' do? I could try to get high c but it might take a while and everyone else is trying to sleep. I suppose I could try hitting another instrument with it?

Heretics! You all forgot the kazoo! Everyone can play the kazoo!

I'm a drummer (cue drummer jokes) But I'm trying my utmost to learn the bagpipes.

[QUOTE=frogus23]I'm afraid there's only one way to settle this:

Rob, grab that didgeridoo and give us a perfect high C.

*listens intently*[/QUOTE]

Yeah, sounded like a high C, to me, too.

Did you all get that?

Afraid we'll have to disagree; I've yet to meet or hear about anybody who trained to this late in life.

Sorry, but that's bollocks. A parrot or a dolphin can be trained to claim A+ is out of tune, and not according to the presented chord. That's basic training. I myself am in the unfortunate position that I can have a buddy sit his considerable behind down on a piano, and I can name every single note/key in that disroted chord.Which means I'm pretty nasty when it comes to sound impulses. "Queen Of The Night" is a personal pet peeve for me. While people are standing up applauding some tart who has just sung that piece, I'm usually more worried about the milk in my fridge curdling six miles away!

Which brings me back to Frogus's original question: I have a Mother of a Steinway standing as a centerpiece in my living room. That's my personal fave when it comes to playing for(with) myself. A whole band put into a single ancient piece of equipment. I collect vintage guitars, but they're NOTHING cokmpared to that old masterpiece.

[QUOTE=giles337] Heretics! You all forgot the kazoo! Everyone can play the kazoo! [QUOTE]
Wrong! I mentioned about my musical talent with the kazoo on the first page. OWNED!

[QUOTE=Moonbiter]Sorry, but that's bollocks. A parrot or a dolphin can be trained to claim A+ is out of tune, and not according to the presented chord. That's basic training. I myself am in the unfortunate position that I can have a buddy sit his considerable behind down on a piano, and I can name every single note/key in that disroted chord.Which means I'm pretty nasty when it comes to sound impulses. "Queen Of The Night" is a personal pet peeve for me. While people are standing up applauding some tart who has just sung that piece, I'm usually more worried about the milk in my fridge curdling six miles away![/quote]

Where's your evidence that people can be trained late in life to have perfect pitch? Or are you saying (as you haven't, thus far) that you were trained at age 50 to have perfect pitch? And that parrots "learn" and "know" things the same way humans do?

I've read a couple of texts by Zoltan Kodaly that touch on the subject of perfect pitch. It was his belief that it was combination of natural inclination and training, very early in life, though excellent training at that point could make a reasonably good musician out of practically anyone. Kodaly had decades of experience educating and training an entire generation of children and adults, so I give his remarks some credence; as well as the Royal Schools of Music, who found that some people were born with perfect pitch, and that others developed it early in life with training. As the Davidson Institute also noted, "Authorities in this field disagree about whether or not it may be an unlearned characteristic for some children while for other children it may be the result of early learning experiences."

I'll take any of the above over somebody who offers parrots as corollaries of learned elderly human behavior and tosses aside whatever remarks are made that disagree with theirs using the extremely informative, "sorry, that's bollocks."

[QUOTE=giles337] Heretics! You all forgot the kazoo! Everyone can play the kazoo!

I'm a drummer (cue drummer jokes) But I'm trying my utmost to learn the bagpipes. [/QUOTE]
You're learning to play the bagpipes and you're worried about drummer jokes?

I do have a bagpipe joke, however:

Do you know the joke about the Irish actually inventing the bagpipes?

They gave the pipes to the Scottish, but the Scots never got the joke! zing!

@Fable & Moonbiter: I can't elaborate on this right now because I have a deadline for grant's applications but are you two sure you are talking about the same perfect pitch? You can have absolute perfect pitch, as I have and as Moonbiter describes he has, which means you can identify a tone without reference and you can also hear if something is out of tune even though it is relatively on tune (ie if an instrument is pitched let's say 10% off, in witch case the error will be systematic and therefore the tones will be relatively correct but off pitch absolutely). It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for an adult to train up absolute perfect pitch. Children can aquire it through training though if they start early, but some children are also born with it.
You can also have relative perfect pitch, which means you can identify tones correctly if you have a reference, and very often people can be trained to keep an "internal" reference tone, so they don't need to hear a tone, they keep it in their memory. This can be learned, I think also among adults although it requires a lot of training.
You can also have relative perfect pitch without an internalised reference tone, in which case you need to hear a tone, for instance from a pitch fork or the 1st violinist in the orchestra or something else you use to pitch your instrument.

Then, you can of course have no pitch at all

[QUOTE=C Elegans]@Fable & Moonbiter: I can't elaborate on this right now because I have a deadline for grant's applications but are you two sure you are talking about the same perfect pitch? You can have absolute perfect pitch, as I have and as Moonbiter describes he has, which means you can identify a tone without reference and you can also hear if something is out of tune even though it is relatively on tune (ie if an instrument is pitched let's say 10% off, in witch case the error will be systematic and therefore the tones will be relatively correct but off pitch absolutely).[/quote]

Here's what Grove's (the standard reference work on classical music in English) has to say about absolute/perfect: "The ability to name the pitch of a note without reference to any previously sounded one (recognition), or to sing a named note without reference to a previously sounded one (recall)."

It sounds to me as though Moonbiter is describing relative pitch. This is Grove's, again: "With relative pitch (ie, knowing the pitch of a reference note...and using it as a fixed point for calculating other notes or tonalities)..." I've got that, just as you do. It is extremely irritating to hear somebody sing a small fraction of a tone off, or for there to be loud noises in the background that accomplish this in relation to music or other sounds.

As you say, CE, relative pitch is relatively easy to train, given sufficient time and effort. Perfect pitch is another matter, and I've yet to encounter anybody who was able to train perfect pitch late in life.

PS: Georgi, I revised my post when I realized I'd misread CE's. But you'd already quoted me, below.

[QUOTE=fable]That's not perfect/absolute pitch, at least as I've heard it defined. Here's what Grove's (the standard reference work on classical music in English) has to say: "The ability to name the pitch of a note without reference to any previously sounded one (recognition), or to sing a named note without reference to a previously sounded one (recall)."

What you're describing is referred to in English, CE, as relative pitch. This is Grove's, again: "With relative pitch (ie, knowing the pitch of a reference note...and using it as a fixed point for calculating other notes or tonalities)..." I've got that, just as you do. It is extremely irritating to hear somebody sing a small fraction of a tone off, or for there to be loud noises in the background that accomplish this in relation to music or other sounds. If this is what you mean, Monolith, then we have no grounds for disagreement. Here.[/QUOTE]

Those are the standard definitions, as I believe Frogus pointed out already. As far as I'm aware, perfect pitch can't be taught, whereas relative pitch can. Pretty much all musicians would have good relative pitch.

@Frogus posting old topics, eh? No inspiration?

I used to play tenor horn in various brass bands, but haven't played for about five years, because there was no band to play in at uni, then I was travelling for a year, and then I got a job when I wouldn't be able to attend regular rehearsals, even if there was a local band I could join, and I think practising in my flat would probably annoy the neighbours somewhat.

I play the piano too, but since I don't have a piano in my flat I don't really play often. I have a keyboard, but it's not the same.

I can strum a few chords on a guitar. I prefer nylon acoustic, steel strings kill my fingers.

@Georgi,

Well I was gonna post the new spiritual revelation of Krsna that I was moved to write while in an ecstatic trance last night, but there was a character limit.

So yeah, I post old topics

What is a tenor horn?