M2M Day 222: Reversing the way my brain interprets musical notes
This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For June, my goal is to develop perfect pitch.
Yesterday, I demonstrated my ability to consistently identify the notes within the key of C, presumably validating my training approach.
However, after trying to extend this approach to the notes outside of the key of C, I immediately started to struggle. In particular, once I introduced out-of-key notes, I found it nearly impossible to maintain a steady mental reference frame: The musical key of my brain continued to shift as it attempted to make harmonic sense of the most recently played notes.
As a result, I quickly became musically disoriented, losing all ability to identify pitch.
Clearly, I need to figure out a better way to maintain my mental reference frame of C.
“Resolve, not solve”
To combat this problem, I’ve developed a new way to hear and interpret each note.
Previously, I was trying to solve the following musical equation: Given that this note is a C, what is this other note?
In other words, I started my “mental calculation” from C, and then tried to work my way from there to the note being played.
For example, if I was trying to identify an F, I would first mentally play a C, hear the F, work out the tonal relationship (based on my mnemonics), and then label the F as “an F” if successful.
Here’s what that would sound like in my head…
However, after doing this exercise, my brain would find itself settled on F (since this was the last note I heard), priming my brain to relate the next note to F, instead of C.
It’s not too challenging to overcome this priming if the note being played is in the key of C. If it is, I can usually find my way back to C, preparing myself for the next note.
However, if the last-played note is outside of the key, I seem to struggle to find my way back.
Thus, rather than trying to solve my way to the note, I’ve instead decided that I will try to resolve my way back to C.
In other words, when I hear a note, rather than layering it on top of a C for comparison, instead, I want to try to hear how that note resolves back to a C.
In this way, I will learn to identify each note based on the way it yearns for musical resolution towards C. And, at the same time, because I’m resolving each note to C, I will be able to more easily maintain a consistent tonal reference frame.
So, using this new “Resolve, not solve” method, I would hear an F in the following way…
Similarly, rather than hearing a D like this:
I would hear a D like this:
Rather than hearing an A like this:
I would hear it resolve like this:
The above resolution of A isn’t necessarily the resolution of A. It’s just the one that I hear.
Anyway, this method becomes particularly important when introducing notes outside of the key of C. For example, here’s how an Ab would sound using the previous method:
And, here’s how I hear it with the new “Resolve, not solve” method:
As a final example, here is how I would process an Eb previously…
And, here’s how I hear it resolve to C:
While I still need significantly more practice with this new method, so far, it seems very promising.
Read the next post. Read the previous post.
