M2M Day 225: Is this cheating?
This post is part of Month to Master, a 12-month accelerated learning project. For June, my goal is to develop perfect pitch.
Yesterday, to my surprise, I was able to correctly identify 17 out of 20 chromatic notes (chromatic = all twelve of the musical notes).
While this certainly demonstrates forward progress in some capacity, I don’t think it actually represents strong progress towards genuine perfect pitch.
To explain what I mean, I think it makes sense to share what was happening in my brain during the filming of the video.
First, here’s the video…
For the first seven notes, I’m able to maintain my mental reference in the key of C, and, as a result, I’m able to identify all seven without a problem: Bb, E, A, C, B, Eb, Ab.
Although I correctly identify the Ab, it messes me up — I accidentally resolve the Ab in my brain as if it were an A, which means that I unknowingly shifted my mental reference frame down one note to a B (but I still think it’s C… In other words, I now think every note is one note higher than it actually is).
As a result, note #8 sounds like a B to me, but it’s actually a Bb, costing me my first mistake. Nevertheless, I sometimes confuse B and Bb anyway, so I didn’t think much of it.
However, then, note #9 sounds like a C to me, but is actually a B.
At this point, recognizing the pattern, I realize that my brain has shifted into the key of B, and that I need to do something about it.
Normally, during my non-videoed training sessions, I would sing the correct resolve from B to C, to reset my mental reference frame back to C. But, in the video, I choose not to sing (since this seemed like cheating), and instead, I decided to just “pick the note that’s one lower than the one it sounds like”. (As far as perfect pitch is concerned, this also seems like cheating).
I should probably stop singing all together. I need to practice like it’s game time.
Anyway, after accepting B as the new reference tone, I proceeded to correctly identify all eleven remaining notes: F#, B, F#, E, Bb, Ab, A, B, Bb, Ab, Eb.
Technically, in the video, I incorrectly select F instead of E (bolded above). However, this was a genuine misclick. So, technically, in my mind, I actually identified 18 out of 20 notes (but, I didn’t want to get into this misclick excuse-making yesterday, so I decided to simplify the story and just stick with 17).
While I’m pleased with this performance, and quite happy that my mental reference only shifted once during the session, I don’t think this kind of behavior is exactly equivalent to perfect pitch.
No one with perfect pitch wakes up one morning and says “Hmm… All notes seem a bit sharp today. Let me just correct for this by shifting all the names of the notes down by one.”
I mean, maybe this happens. I don’t know. But, it doesn’t seem likely.
More likely, someone with perfect pitch just hears a Bb, and says “Oh, that’s a Bb”. Not because they have some sort of C reference frame, but because that’s what a Bb sounds like.
Interesting, I’ve noticed that the notes A and E are starting to take on this quality for me. Sometimes, during my practicing, my mental reference is shifting all around (and I’m trying to keep up), but then, an A or E is played, and I instantly just recognize them by sound. Not only that, but then my brain immediately shifts back into the key of C.
Other times, even A and E don’t sound like A and E. Still, occasionally, they are breaking through the relativeness and I can hear them just based on their musical color.
If only I could gain this power for all other notes, I’d be good to go.
I’m interested to see if this happens in time, or if I will need to continue playing the “chase the mental reference tone” game.
Read the next post. Read the previous post.
