Developing Absolute Pitch Resource Page
E-Mail address listed at bottom of page. Please help me with corrections and additions, etc.
This is a links page for those interested in acquiring absolute pitch (a.k.a. "perfect pitch" or "pitch memory" or "color hearing").
- Link to developing absolute pitch FAQ will go here if I ever get one going...
- Link to my fascinating personal practice journal will go here... maybe...
The Categories below are: General; Methods; Discussion Lists; Software for Practice; and the all-important Inspiration File
General
- Perfect Pitch Page Peter de Vetten's page on developing absolute pitch. The original (and still the best dressed) such resource. Includes some info on the David L. Burge "Perfect Pitch SuperCourse" audio course, and also on the rare Byron Duckwall "Perfect Pitch Developer" audio course.
- Perfect Pitch on the Internet
A general absolute pitch links page. Of limited interest to those whose primary interest is in developing the skill, rather than in studying it.
Methods
- The David Burge method This should be your starting point, Burge's method seems to be the standard, to the extent that there is a standard. It is by far the most discussed method. It is therefore very controversial. It also seems to be the most successful. My understanding of the history is very sketchy at best: it all started in the early 80's with Burge's original short book, Perfect Pitch: Color-Hearing for Expanded Musical Awareness (ISBN: 0942542975 Amazon.com listing). This book is long out of print. The publication date listed on Amazon is Feb 1983. It can be found from time to time on eBay or through Amazon's network of used book dealers. It tends to be pretty pricey. Next, if my surmises are correct, the same book was published along with a set of two cassette tapes. Later, Burge created a full-blown tape course with six tapes. Amazon lists two other books by Burge, The Official Transcript of the Perfect Pitch Workshop (ISBN: 0942542983 Amazon.com listing) and The Official Transcript of the Perfect Pitch Master Class (ISBN: 0942542991 Amazon.com listing). I have never seen either book and for all I know they may be different printings of that same book. Amazon lists both as published Feb 1984, but they do have different ISBN numbers. I don't know. One or both may have been included in the large tape course. Finally, sometime in the last few years, Burge has come out with a second and, he claims, final version of his course, "Burge 2.0" as some call it. It is officially called The Perfect Pitch Ear Training SuperCourse, Version 2.0. It has a small booklet and 8 cassettes or compact discs. This last is the only absolute pitch training product currently sold by Burge's outfit at the link above. There is a very short review of Burge 2.0 on a site listing perfect pitch posessors ("PPPs").
- Byron Duckwall's method. There used to be a two-tape course (ISBN: 1883617014 Amazon.com listing). It seems to be very hard to find now. I have no real idea what is on the tapes. See Peter de Vetten's page (see above under "General" for more info).
- ProLobe Online ProLobe used to be an absolute pitch practice program. Then it was a JavaScript version online, then a program again (I think). Now it is a big website with a Java program that runs you through practice (based on Burge, I believe) and keeps track of your progress.
- Kirk Whipple's tonal memory hypothesis This is an article by a "born with" absolute pitch possessor. The last part of the article has a system he believes could work for developing absolute pitch. It is interesting, but pretty unproven so far, I believe.
- The Lola Cuddy method. Anyone care to provide an explaination/links?
- Zoltán Kodály's "method" (?) I don't know anything, really, about Kodály's famous pedagogical system, but I have a little book I was issued in school of solfege exercises called 333 Reading Exercises (Boosey & Hawkes). Half of the exercises just have rhythms and solfege syllables above the notes. In the preface to the 1961 edition Kodály refers to this as sol-fa notation, and writes:
"The children should sing the music in staff notation to sol-fa, and the music in sol-fa to the fixed pitch letter-names (A-B-C) always in different but predetermined keys and invariably at the actual pitch level; if we say C it should really be C.
"This is the way towards acquiring the sense of absolute pitch."
So the method is to pick a key and give the starting pitch, see just rhythms written out along with solfege syllables, then sight-sing this, but don't sing the syllables, sing the actual pitch names. So, if you see a quarter note with the word la over it, and you are singing in the key of F# major, you sing "dee-sharp" as you hit the note, which, because you gave yourself the correct starting pitch, you know really is a D#. As of this writing I haven't tried it and have no idea if it is useful.
- monosonic.com. David M. Griswold's recordings of pop songs all in the same key. I have no idea if this sort of thing works.
- Tuning fork methods. Here's one example. I will be looking for some links on this (any help?). Basically there are a number of flavors of "grandma's recipes" for developing absolute pitch. Most involve a pitch pipe or a tuning fork, or hitting random notes on a piano. There are rumored to have been methods used by Nadia Boulanger and/or Paul Hindemith either or both of which likely fall into this category. Whenever the subject of Burge's course comes up on Usenet, someone usually pipes up with a story about their college professor (or childhood piano teacher, etc.) having them (or someone they know) memorize the sound of A440 with a tuning fork (try to sing it every hour, then check with the fork, etc.), or telling them to hit a key on the piano whenever happening by and trying to name it. People have gotten pretty creative with this, actually.
- A brief abstract of an obscure study. Part way down the page.
- A course listing from the New England Conservatory for a class on developing absolute pitch. I'd like to find out if there are any other courses or seminars around.
Discussion Lists
- Yahoo! Groups: Developing_AP Most active. This is the main source for information. You can spend hours reading the archives.
- Yahoo! Groups: perfect_pitch This list is more active than Developing_AP, but is not at all exclusively devoted to developing absolute pitch. There are lots of people who developed absolute pitch young ("I was born with it"). Discussion of issues pertaining to the development of absolute pitch are welcome on the list, but will invariably get the usual "you have to be born with it" line from some active members of the list. If you can cope with that, though, it is a useful list.
- Yahoo! Groups: davidlburgesperfectpitch A tiny, almost totally inactive list.
- Yahoo! Groups: pp_for_dummies Evidently a dummy list set up for some purpose other than real discussion. Literally totally useless. I list it here only in order to let you know not to waste your time.
Software for practice
I personally don't use any of these. I would welcome intelligent reviews of any or all, and better links (some links are just to a download page, with no real information).
Inspiration File
I am looking to create a kind of a database of links to Usenet and other similar posts. Every month or so someone gets on some newsgroup and there is a thread that looks like this (in essence)
PERSON A: "What about this Burge guy and his perfect pitch course? Has anyone actually succeeded with it?"
PERSON B: "Well, I had this sister who had a teacher who had a penpal who's father had an imaginary friend..."
PERSON C: "Yeah, I worked on it for a while. I really think it would have worked, but I just didn't have time and..."
PERSON D: "Yeah? Well, that don't prove nuthin'. I say you have to be born with it. I just feeeeeeeeeel that I'm right."
PERSON E: "Why would you want perfect pitch, anyway? I knew this guy once who had it and he couldn't stand it when [insert some normal musical event here]."
But it is rare that someone just comes out and says, "Yes, me. I did it. I have absolute pitch now, but I didn't when I was 20," or whatever. So what I would like to do is create a database of just such posts. They are rare, but I haven't even sifted through 1% of the stuff out there on Usenet about Burge, let alone on absolute pitch in general. I call it the absolute pitch inspiration file. It's what I wish had been out there for me a few months ago. Anyway, anyone want to help? It's small so far, but here it is:
USENET:
RANDOM BITS AND PIECES:
Last Update that I remembered to note here: July 1 2002
E-mail me with help, additions, corrections, broken links, leads to new info, etc.. My address is: evans_winner at mail dot com
Yes, this means you.
Netscape users: Er, sorry. I'll try to fix the whole stylesheet color thing soon.