Specific Purposes of Muse-eek Workbooks
Specific Purposes of Muse-eek Workbooks
Specific Purposes of Muse-eek Workbooks
Q: Thank you so much for your help, Bruce. I really appreciate it.
I think the statement about perfect pitch students working with relative pitch was telling them to continue with the relative pitch course, not stating it was an ideal order.
I am certainly not in question about your recommendations. I truly appreciate your concern. I actually had several reasons for interest in perfect pitch first though, none of them having to do with preference per se.
- 1. I found the perfect pitch bundle listed as 8 instruments, & I thought this might be a limited time deal. Initially piqued my interest.
- 2. I have a tendency to jump into too many projects at once. I am currently about 3 months from finishing a Spanish course (which I do have some background in). Not that I plan on mastering perfect pitch in that time, but from descriptions I thought that perfect pitch training might be easier for “background” listening. I have heard about finding music in whatever tone center you are working with, pitch / tuning MP3s, to help develop perfect pitch. Like a week or 2 of each pitch (mostly). Point of this: I listen to classical-esque / instrumental music in the background (low volume) while going through my Spanish course. Although I have never been a listen to music while studying type, this course is a bit different than most. Thought a combination of your perfect pitch course (which sounds like it is less time consuming than relative pitch) & tone-centered music listening, it might work at the present. POSSIBLY a good fit at the time.
I only recently learned that interval-based training fails a lot of people. I always thought the problem was just me. I have had several eye-opening moments lately for all of my short-comings.
Best example, the one that rekindled my interest about 2 months ago.
Background: I always thought improvising was a form of playing by ear. The specific goal was basically to scat sing on my horn (for lack of better wording). I was supposed to have melodies flowing in my head & be able to play them in real time on my instrument.
I initially (for an exceptionally brief period), tried to think of very simple note patterns. I never got into it enough – my mom was convinced honking 1, 2, 3 notes at a time was terrible, sounded nothing like what the other students were doing, it was the wrong way to learn to improvise, & I needed to listen to the professionals.
I had an improv class at school & took saxophone improv lessons, figuring this is what I was learning to do. I was taught to hit chord changes, hitting tonic, third, whatever or to get books & learn licks to fit into the chord changes. Plus, of course one needs to transcribe. Yet, we were supposed to transcribe technical jazz pieces, Charlie Parker, etc. I knew there was something really wrong with me – I knew full well I would have semi-struggled to transcribe Home on the Range!
But, I was no expert. The main disadvantage I see in retrospect was the problem of the wrong methods. It’s more than wasted time & money. When you are following professional, expert advice, you feel there is nothing more you can do. You are honestly working hard & long yet getting nowhere. You think you are just lacking something major.
Onto what was a profound moment for me…A couple of months ago, I somehow happened upon an online writing that made a lot of things make sense. I don’t know where, can’t really use the story “officially,” but it rang a bell for me nonetheless. A while back, Wynton Marsalis was conducting a class of advanced high school jazz students. The article emphasized these were no ordinary high school musicians – they were great instrumentalists, amazing soloists, award-winning players, best of the best. Not as a test, but Wynton had them do a call & response pattern, giving them the first pitch. They failed miserably. He simplified it. Still couldn’t do it. He was shocked. (I think this went on several times.)
It shocked me too, but I think I probably knew a lot of players like this. I saw what I was being taught to do, what others were doing, & it was nothing like what I was trying to learn. Granted, I never mastered the art of plug & play improvisation, so I must give a lot of kudos to them, but I honestly never understood what I was doing. I was operating on a completely different wavelength, but I honestly had no idea I was.
I know this story might not directly relate to your courses, but to me it is quite poignant. I feel like I spent years at an English language course entitled “Learn to Cook Authentic Hong Kong Cuisine,” & eating Chinese food at every meal when I wanted to learn (& thought I was being taught) how to speak fluent Cantonese. The course goal & my goal were totally incompatible.
I have currently been working a bit on a scale-degree ear training course. I like the course overall, like the idea, but I searched you out because it is pretty much all recreating the pitch & not really recognition. More importantly, it leads you through each degree to 100% mastery before moving on to the next. It sounds great in theory, & I think that idea works for a majority of people, but I have often struggled with too much sequential learning.
I wouldn’t swear to it now that I am sort of musically rusty, but as I said earlier, I developed Active Perfect Pitch instantly after being introduced to the pitches in David Lucas Burge’s Perfect Pitch Course. I never had tried this before, so I was shocked I could do this. I didn’t use tune associations either. The idea was to put a little sheet of paper with each pitch & randomly pick one first thing each morning, sing it, & check yourself. I made sure I did this without repeating the same pitch over before finishing the 12. I was 100% for the 2 months I did this.
I did it again for 2 weeks a couple of years later & was still 100%.
But unless I am having a really on day, I can’t recognize them. I have actually compared a specific pitch I heard one at a time with each pitch mentally!
Beforehand, I would have thought Active Perfect Pitch indicated you had really mastered something. I know people can generally start a well-known song on pitch. But I am curious as to this “talent” I accidentally developed. Although the David Lucas Burge courses convinced me I was deficient, from reviews I feel I am not alone with this. Almost no one develops true perfect pitch just like I didn’t, but it doesn’t sound like the average person develops Active Perfect Pitch like I did. I have actually been a bit baffled by this.
I am not looking to develop perfect pitch now, but I want to know if my assessment is right on this fact…Even if one has true perfect pitch, both active & passive, multiple instruments, chords, vacuum cleaner, car horn, etc. they still can greatly benefit from relative pitch training. Would it be like a person with good color vision trying to describe fabric patterns without knowing specific words like paisley, stripes, polka dots, floral, plaid, etc.?
And am I right on this…Ear Training One Note Complete teaches you to recognize specific scale degrees whereas Contextual Ear Training & Fanatic’s Guide to Ear Training and Sight Singing teaches you to sing them?
Sorry my letter got so long. I really appreciate all of your help & just wanted to share where I was coming from. Have a wonderful day!
A: Nice to hear from you and thank you for your history that helps me understand what’s going on in your head and what has happened in the past. First the answers to your overall questions is Ear Training One Note Complete does teach you to recognize scale degrees from sound you are hearing from an external source while Contextual Ear Training & Fanatic’s Guide to Ear Training and Sight Singing teaches you to hear these sounds inside your head and then sing them. You could think of Ear Training One Note Complete as a method to help you hear what others are playing and help you transcribe music. Contextual Ear Training and Fanatic’s Guide to Ear Training and Sight Singing teaches you how to recognize the sounds you hear in your head if you are improvising, composing and just singing a song.
It sounds like you do have a an affinity to perfect pitch based on your remarks but one thing to remember about both relative pitch and perfect pitch ear training is there are two processes that need to happen. I call them the “clinical” and the “direct application.” The clinical is books like:
- Ear Training One Note Complete
- Contextual Ear Training
- Fanatic’s Guide to Ear Training and Sight Singing
- Key Note Recognition
- Perfect Pitch 8 Instrument Bundle
These specific books teach you what to listen for and how to develop your aural skills so that you understand what you are trying to learn and help you get to a basic level of comprehension. The next level is applying this newly learned skill to real music because your mind learns “Contextually.” In other words just because you master Ear Training One Note Complete doesn’t mean you automatically can hear every note anyone is playing. It just means you can do it within one “context” and that context is not “Real music.” So you need to work on the Direct Application products when you get to around 50% correct notes with the Ear Training One Note Complete or the Contextual Ear Training so that you begin to apply this to real music. Not only are these direct application courses fun but they will help you get over the hump of applying your new skill to real music which in turns makes you much better at using the ear training in a way that will truly benefit your musicianship.
I hope that helps you understand the process. My personal recommendation if you want to stock up because of the current sale and you have a few hours of day to dedicate to practicing plus another hour or more to listening while walking, shopping, riding on a train or bus etc… is the following books:
- Ear Training One Note Complete or Ear Training One Note Intermediate and Advanced
- Contextual Ear Training
- Fanatic’s Guide to Ear Training and Sight Singing
Key Note Recognition - Perfect Pitch 8 Instrument Bundle
- Direct Application Volume One,
- Direct Application CD Volume One Major
- Direct Application CD Volume One Dorian
You might also consider 25 Ear Training Tips Video Course so that you learn more about the over ear training process and more specific information about how the method works from these highly informative videos
I would also like to get your started on understanding specific scales and how they relate to ear training so I would recommend this book:
If you do get this book then I also recommend getting MetroDrone because we will use that to help you hear each scale in the right key as you practice them.
If you are interested in then using these scales to improvise I’d also get Jam Tracks Volume One so that you can apply these scales to real music.
If you Music Theory Knowledge is rusty and you don’t instantly know how to spell specific complicated chords I’d get this: (You will need a printer to print out some of the exercises because I’ve given you a digital download link)
Music Theory Workbook for all Instruments
Also if you don’t instantly know intervals above any given note. Like what is the Sharp 5 of Bb. If you don’t know that is F# quickly then you should get:
Music Theory Interval Recognition
This is a lot of stuff but with all this information I think we can get you to see a whole new way to learn music and once we get your fundamentals going there is no limit to your musicianship and soon even the detailed specifics will become simple.
Let me know if you have further questions.
The 20% off sale will last till the 23 of January. To get this discount if use the promo code
sandy
when you check out. We won’t have a sale like that for a long time so now is the right now. But most importantly you need to stay in touch and we need to set up a practice schedule for you and just tackle one thing at a time or at least a schedule of multiple things that allows you to see progress quickly.
Hope all this helps. Let me know if you have further specific questions.
Best Regards,
Bruce
It is also recommended that you read Bruce Arnold’s Blog at his artist site. It contains more discussion of the musical topics found in these FAQs as well as other subjects of interest. You will also find the “Music Education Genealogy Chart” located here which shows you the historic significance of the music education products found on the Muse Eek Publishing Company Website.