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Links for 2007-01-26

By on January 25, 2007 in Ear Training, Links, Songwriting

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5 Responses to Links for 2007-01-26

  1. Andrew Munger January 30, 2007 at 12:23 pm #

    Thanks for all the updates, Graham. I always enjoy checking your site.
    Regarding the “earplane” site – it seems a bit overly complicated, wouldn’t you say? I mean, the whole flight crew team thing seems to get in the way of just practicing! Personally, my fave for online eartraining is http://www.teoria.com – quick and easy interface (as long as you pick the right language!), and effective training tools. Check it out!

  2. Neil February 5, 2007 at 10:05 pm #

    Hi! Great links. Thank you. I’ve just discovered some thought provoking information about memory that I think is highly related to absolute pitch. I’m interested in hearing some second opinions on this.

    Okay. Our English word “remember” means – “to recall an experience/idea” the german word for remember is “erinneren”

    Translated it means “to remember”. Literally however it means “to place inside one’s self”. or – *to internalize*. This differs from the english literalization of the word which literally is “to piece together a memory or to undo analysis”. The difference I want to point out is these two varying schools of thought. Our culture typically deals with memory as externalization. A good example of this would be taking notes. The literal german word implies that memory should be an internalization – taking the entire experience and placing it “inside” of you. Wikipedia has further definitions of internalization and externalization that are rather useful. Language is an example of something that is internalized. You would never forget how to speak English would you? Probably not. Even if you were locked up in a solitary cell for the rest of your life. If you imagine what “3 inches” looks like on a ruler, you can probably picture the image of the ruler in your mind with the markings 1, 2, and 3 inches. The entire ruler, and the experience of that measurement has been internalized. Its not something that would be forgotten. (This is all opposed to our cultural definition of memory that involves memorization)

    How does this connect to AP? I was thinking about the entire “Journey Method” and using the experience of pitch as a mnemonic memory technique. It makes perfect sense in relation to these ideas of internalization. If you can internalize the experience of pitch then you will probably never forget it. Since we internalize languages naturally, the comparison between language and music is even more evident. AP would be like speaking music as a language.

    Food for thought. This was so fascinating that I had to Share.

  3. Graham English February 6, 2007 at 1:10 am #

    Thanks for sharing, Neil. I believe that what holds many absolute pitch students back is that they turn the experience of absolute pitch into an abstraction. Trying to think yourself through it or intellectualize the experience might be necessary for the journey, but when you reach the destination, it’s really just another type of experience. It’s something that you feel inside your body as well as know in your mind. After all, we’re dealing with a sense here. It’s a physical experience, unlike language. But the experience of language or learning a language, as you pointed out, is very useful to help explain the acquisition of absolute pitch.

    I tell people to take a wine tasting class or one of those perfume making kits that you can get out of a SkyMall catalogue and then use that experience as a metaphor for listening and pitch refinement. It helps bring the process of learning back into the body and not just in the head.

    @Andrew: Yeah, I wasn’t crazy about that ear training site. The motivation curve to figure it all out was too high for me so I didn’t mess around with it much. The easiest thing to do in this day and age is to figure out what your weaknesses are and then create a song or sequence using something like GarageBand to help you memorize the sounds. I do that all the time. I open up Logic, play a scale or chord or pattern over and over again in various different sequences and speeds and then just listen to it repeatedly. It works like a charm.

  4. Neil February 10, 2007 at 9:03 pm #

    I think i understand what you mean about the whole idea of intellectualizing things with absolute pitch, because when i’ve tried to “think” about the note, it became even harder to identify it.

    I’ve been using your brainwave flasher during my review of the journey. I set it for 7 Hz and usually i close my eyes, because i can still see the flash through my eyelids. Sometimes i’ll get drowsy or even fall asleep during this. Does this mean i need to raise the frequency level to something higher up in the alpha range?

    Also my calendar tells me to listen to the week five coaching call. Where do i find that?

    Thanks

  5. Graham English February 11, 2007 at 12:26 pm #

    Getting drowsy can be a natural side effect of going into an altered state. But you might want to try experimenting with different frequencies if you’re falling asleep.

    But make sure you’re doing the ‘image streaming’ and not just listening because you won’t be exercising your brain and firing your neurons like we need you to.

    There is no week five coaching call. That’s a typo in the journal that needs to be corrected. Sorry for the mix-up.