# David L Burge Perfect Pitch Course



## Quikblade (Mar 24, 2012)

I was just wondering if anyone has tried this, what sort of results they got and if its worth it. 

Its fairly expensive at $200 but I guess that's not much in return for pitch perfect hearing (if it works).

Perfect Pitch Ear Training: About Us


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## Hollowway (Mar 24, 2012)

Oooh, good question! I never thought to ask that on here, but I'm curious if anyone has tried it. I'd even settle for a really good sense of relative pitch, at this point!

EDIT: I did find this guy, who's reviewed a number of lessons like this: http://www.richardbosworth.org/perfect-pitch-ear-training-supercourse-review.htm


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## Quikblade (Mar 24, 2012)

EDIT: I did find this guy said:


> Review: Perfect Pitch Ear Training SuperCourse A+[/url]



Yeh I did see that one myself but it doesn't really tell you much about the program or how its delivered, just kinda repeats what it says on the website and recommends it.


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## Maniacal (Mar 24, 2012)

I have the entire course except the first cd, I can sell you it.
It does work but tekes about 45 minutes study a day


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## Quikblade (Mar 24, 2012)

Maniacal said:


> I have the entire course except the first cd, I can sell you it.
> It does work but tekes about 45 minutes study a day



Was wondering if you wouldn't mind giving me a bit more information on how it works and to what degree it is effective?

Ive been having a look at another thread on a different forum and some people seem to be of the opinion that it might allow you to memorize notes better but not really offer perfect pitch. Of course its not much help that none of them have used the program.


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## Hollowway (Mar 24, 2012)

Maniacal said:


> I have the entire course except the first cd, I can sell you it.
> It does work but tekes about 45 minutes study a day



And once you learn it does it stick with you, or do need to constantly be doing the exercises to keep it fresh?


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## SpaceDock (Mar 24, 2012)

I had this and it didn't really work out for me. He plays intervals like a fifth using tons of notes,then you try to memorize the sound difference. There are quizzes you must complete before you're supposed to go to the next round. So it goes fifth, third, second, seventh or whatnot. Then it works into chord types using the same approach and finally individual tone recognition. It went really slow and was painful as hell for me to tolerate listening to. 

There are a ton of similar apps and programs that do the same thing but cost much less. I got a free app for my iPad that does the same thing but let's you grade with buttons instead of writing everything out like the CDs make you do. 

I used it more than five years ago so maybe it's upgraded by now, I don't know.


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## Hollowway (Mar 24, 2012)

^that sounds like the relative pitch lesson, yeah? I'm wondering how he teaches the perfect pitch lesson.


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## SpaceDock (Mar 24, 2012)

It was the whole course, so it had all of them. The perfect works just like them all. He plays a note, A for example, in several octaves and then compares them to other notes. Then plays the A more and you take aquiz to see if you can recall it well enough to differentiate from other notes. There isn't a trick to it, it's just lots of practice listening to him play the notes a bunch and you trying to make your brain recognize them effectively. It does work but you need to practice a lot and his delivery wasn't very fun for me. I have that "ear trainer" app and it is better for me since I.dont have to listen to him, it plays like a game.


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## Osorio (Mar 25, 2012)

I'm pretty much just relying what my instructor of Music Theory 1 at Berklee (online course) said to me when I went into this subject with him:
Perfect pitch is not really a good goal to have. Knowing note names won't really get you anywhere, you should work on relative pitch.

Guthrie Govan's book of Creative Guitar, the first volume, also has an anecdote where he tells of a student of his that worked on acquiring perfect pitch, and he (Govan) could never catch him wrong on a particular note. But noted the student had ENORMOUS difficulty identifying chords types (which is the actually important part).
According to the student (as per the book), he was able to identify notes by making a sort of visual-colored-relation to each note, but this made every chord look "brown" to him.

This is how I, particularly, see this situation:
A note is just a dead sound in space. What makes it music is the relationship with other sounds, as regarded as harmonically, melodically and rhythmically. You gain more from acknowledging intervals or scale degrees, for instance, than note names.

As far as I have seen, nobody really advises no one to go for Perfect Pitch, and then more I think about it, the more this seems logical. The general conscientious appears to be that working towards having great Relative Pitch is a much more worthwhile goal.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Mar 25, 2012)

^ Yeah, fuck perfect pitch. Relative pitch is where it's at. Also, learning relative pitch will help you to learn perfect pitch (if you decide it's worthwhile and do it the right way), but learning perfect pitch won't help you to learn relative pitch. In the end, perfect pitch is almost always unnecessary, unless you're an orchestral conductor doing some Webern piece or something.


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## stuglue (Mar 25, 2012)

This perfect pitch coursehas been available for a long time. My mate had the cassettes. To be honest, there's a lot of filler,a lot of "what you'll learn in this course is this......" Its takes a lot of patience to site through and get to the part where he equates notes to colors A = yellow etc I didn't find it useful or beneficial.work on relative pitch instead


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## Dayn (Mar 25, 2012)

This will save you two hundred bucks: Ricci Adams' Musictheory.net Go to the ear trainer under 'exercises' (I think it was).

Relative pitch, but I find perfect pitch unnecessary. Those exercises above and critically listening to a lot of music developed my relative pitch.


...And a fuck-tonne of listening to some songs over and over developed a 'perfect pitch' for some notes. Honestly, perfect pitch means nothing. I know the notes to the intro of DragonForce's 'Once in a Lifetime', and I can pick them out and tune to them easily. But knowing that isn't much.

Instead, what I _can_ do is hear that note in my head... then I can play another note (or imagine one) and hear the difference and pick out the interval. As everyone else has said, it's all about the relative pitch. If you want to memorise the sound of a note? Listen to it a lot!


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## Maniacal (Mar 25, 2012)

There is way too much talking on the CDs. He never just gets to the point. A 45 minute lesson could have 35 minutes of talking absolute shit and then a 10 minute lesson. 

I have both courses, and I have to say the relative pitch course is far better than perfect pitch. 

Do they work? Yes they do, I got pretty good at identifying chords/inversions/melodies. However, I did not finish the relative pitch course as it takes ages and gets really boring. 

I finished the perfect pitch course and could work out most notes on a piano but when it comes to actually hearing a string of notes in a piece of music, I can't do that. 

You don't really need this course, I'm sure there are plenty of cheaper/better courses that will train your ears in half the time. 

But if you want it cheaper, give me a pm.


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## phrygian12 (Mar 25, 2012)

I think the only thing that makes me curious about perfect pitch is if you're able to recall notes so easily, imagine writing compositions with out an instrument. Any idea you have randomly popping up in your head could be written down exactly how you heard in your head, of course it wouldn't be an off and on switch between relative and perfect pitch, you wouldn't suddenly hear everything just spelled out to you and not hear the relationship the intervals have if you deiced to just use perfect pitch, that'd be imposable if you have both. 

I think the people who just hear them as a series of notes rather than hearing the relationships between two notes or more, are born with perfect pitch. I think for those who work for it are a little different since they'd almost have to develop a solid relative pitch in first place they'd be able to hear the interval relationships and hear it "spelled out". 

I personally think unless you're trying to be a composer/conductor who'd be able to tell if 1 of the violinist out of 30 is slightly out of tune, or someone out of a 100 piece band hit an accidental like E# instead of F# in the key of E or you hear a chord that's not really working when collaborating with another musician, you can quickly identify which note it is and come up with a suggestion like, C natural sounds way better than A in the bass over Emaj#11 for something really tense,etc. Of course that could be done with relative pitch, but Perfect would probably make it a little easier by call out what note it is or when writing it down on paper with out an instrument present.

It's not necessary, but in that kind situation it'd probably wouldn't be a bad thing to have either. I guess the real answer is to try it and see if it's worth it once you get flawless with relative pitch.




Maniacal said:


> There is way too much talking on the CDs. He never just gets to the point. A 45 minute lesson could have 35 minutes of talking absolute shit and then a 10 minute lesson.



That's exactly how I felt when listening to his CDs.


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## nostealbucket (Mar 25, 2012)

Having perfect pitch is awesome.

BUT EVERY POSSIBLE THING IS OUT OF TUNE.


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## Grimbold (Mar 25, 2012)

Dayn said:


> This will save you two hundred bucks: Ricci Adams' Musictheory.net Go to the ear trainer under 'exercises' (I think it was).
> 
> Relative pitch, but I find perfect pitch unnecessary. Those exercises above and critically listening to a lot of music developed my relative pitch.
> 
> ...


this man is on point


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## Trespass (Mar 25, 2012)

Hollowway said:


> Oooh, good question! I never thought to ask that on here, but I'm curious if anyone has tried it. I'd even settle for a really good sense of relative pitch, at this point!
> 
> EDIT: I did find this guy, who's reviewed a number of lessons like this: Review: Perfect Pitch Ear Training SuperCourse A+



This is so obviously a plant that it's not funny.

It's distasteful.


I've tried the course. I do believe there is some validity in listening to a guy play notes and listening to the colors, intervals and octaves of that note. But his Perfect Pitch course is so incredibly full of non-essential filler (like him saying that drinking and drugs inhibit your musicality, as well as the drawn out manner of speech he uses on the actual content itself).

I do believe in the validity of anchor notes to a certain degree (like identifying E, A, D, G, B or E because of how frequently a guitar player tunes to them) but believe that for it to be reliable in a perfect pitch sense, you'd have to refresh your memory of EADGBE daily.


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## noUser01 (Mar 26, 2012)

To be be completely honest with you I think it's a good idea, and I think it does work. I do NOT think it's worth $200.

Here's what I think is the best way to develop a good ear:

You need to combine theory and ear training, and you will get very close to perfect pitch in a way. If you learn your intervals very well by using an interval trainer then you can combine that with theory. If you're in the key of D and you can figure that out, then when you follow the melody line you can hear a fifth, and know a fifth from D is A, then hear a major 2nd and know a major 2nd above A is B, and so on and so forth. 

Quick interval recognition along with theory can be just as useful as perfect pitch.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Mar 26, 2012)

ConnorGilks said:


> Quick interval recognition along with theory is infinitely more useful than perfect pitch.


Fixed.


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## highlordmugfug (Mar 26, 2012)

Ha cha cha!


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## Quikblade (Mar 26, 2012)

Thanks guys for all the info and advice.

From what your saying I think I might just leave this one.

I actually have a pretty good ear for the intervals already when Im just working away, but i dont tend to think aaahh yes i recognize that as a perfect 5th even. I just hear that its ascending/decending and can play that on the guitar so youve given me an idea of where to focus. 

So is there any particular resources out there in addition to the ricci adams musictheory that anyone would suggest for this, or is it just a case of working on it on your own?

Thanks


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## Osorio (Mar 26, 2012)

If you are not already doing it, transcribing songs is a great way to improve your hearing as a whole. Aside that, I've had considerable improvement simply by trying to be conscious of what I'm doing, or at least stopping every know and then and doing some thinking.


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## Quikblade (Mar 26, 2012)

venneer said:


> If you are not already doing it, transcribing songs is a great way to improve your hearing as a whole. Aside that, I've had considerable improvement simply by trying to be conscious of what I'm doing, or at least stopping every know and then and doing some thinking.


 
Yeh Ive been learning to play songs by ear (the easier ones anyway) for about the past year but ive not really writen much of them down, I think mainly because Its taken me a while to get used to writing out the rythms. But Ill give it a try


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## TREYAZAGHTOTH (Mar 26, 2012)

hey,
there is a site called 'eartraininghq.com'.
I have subscribed to his courses...and so far i have been happy with the results.

He stresses the use of pitch recognition within the context of the key.
The approach is also systematic, wherein concepts are introduced gradually as one progresses through the course.

Having also undertaken Mr. Burge's relative pitch course( though not completely...it gets terribly annoying after some time), i'd say the eartraining hq is 'more friendly'

you might also want to check out muse-eek 's material.
They also stress note recognition within the context of a key center.
regards
dinesh


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## Quikblade (Mar 26, 2012)

Thanks Ill check it out.


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## m3l-mrq3z (Mar 26, 2012)

A friend of mine bought that course and I got to listen to some lessons.


Probably the most annoying voice ever used on an audio lessons CD...


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