# Pieces of Music to remember pitch - suggestions please



## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

First off, hello im new on these forums 

second off Ive been searching for some suggestions to pieces of music that are memorable and can help me achieve my goal to get perfect pitch. sadly I havnt found any yet. So i thought it might be a good idea if people threw in some suggestions to pieces of music that are memorable, but most importantly, have a dominant pitch or note attached to them, so I can always just cycle through references to name the note.


so far my list is like so:
lowest c - Nas - One Mic (the opening from the song, really obvious when you hear it)

c - dave 202 - torrent (i dont like using this as a reference since its very digital and alot of chorus on it, but its all ive got right now that sticks)

c# - franz liszt - hungarian rhapsody 2 (the beginning makes it so easy to memorize this note)



g - franz schubert - der erlkonig (althought im having alot of problems identifying g for some reason, might be to do with the pitch that the piece was written in (A4??) so it always sounds either sharp or flat when i compare it to a g on my keyboard.



my list is pretty empty right now but if someone has any good pieces of music that all have their memorable note to them I would appreciate it (and im sure others would as well)


cheers


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## Ernie (Jun 6, 2010)

Save your energy... it can't be done. You either have it or you don't. Enjoy the music, with or without perfect pitch.


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

id rather not, i know it can be done because i can partially reference it now. So obviously im gonna continue to train myself to master it.


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## the_emptier (Jan 27, 2011)

....

perfect pitch is something innate, you can "learn" pitches after time, but it will never be PERFECT like perfect pitch is, being able to identify harmonic/melodic intervals, name a quality of scale/chord type etc. etc. is one thing that is easy to grasp but being able to know the exact notes, or being able to sing a particular note without hearing it is something much harder. and although you may get to a point where it's pretty good, it will never be perfect.


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## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

What works for me is the simplest one - just singing do / re / mi / fa / so / la / ti / do. I don't have perfect pitch but I can always find a note by comparing it to that. Whether it's through repetition or some other agency, I can start that at C every time. Also, E also seems very easy to pick out on its own. It has a ring to it that "rhymes" with the letter E, if that makes sense.


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## Ernie (Jun 6, 2010)

Igneous01 said:


> id rather not, i know it can be done because i can partially reference it now. So obviously im gonna continue to train myself to master it.


Not to be unkind... but if you can "partially" reference it now, you probably don't have perfect pitch. People have spent a lot of money on ear training courses that supposedly will let you develop perfect pitch. None do. This is not to say that ear training is not worthwhile - it is. You can develop of very good sense of relative pitch which is even more important to a musician. Perfect pitch is the ability to remember the pitch of a tone without any external help. Many violinists can accurately tune their A string without a pitch source, but unless they have perfect pitch, they are reacting to external aids like the tone quality of that particular note on their instrument.

The reason you can't seem to find a memorable piece to help you memorize pitch is simply because there isn't one. What can be more memorable than the first four notes of Beethoven's 5th symphony? How does that work for you?


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Ernie said:


> Not to be unkind... but if you can "partially" reference it now, you probably don't have perfect pitch. People have spent a lot of money on ear training courses that supposedly will let you develop perfect pitch. None do. This is not to say that ear training is not worthwhile - it is. You can develop of very good sense of relative pitch which is even more important to a musician. Perfect pitch is the ability to remember the pitch of a tone without any external help. Many violinists can accurately tune their A string without a pitch source, but unless they have perfect pitch, they are reacting to external aids like the tone quality of that particular note on their instrument.
> 
> The reason you can't seem to find a memorable piece to help you memorize pitch is simply because there isn't one. What can be more memorable than the first four notes of Beethoven's 5th symphony? How does that work for you?


it works extremely well for me, i can memorize any piece of music that I like and can play it back in its original key i heard it from, I can also transpose it in my head to some degree.

why it works is because when i hear the note c sharp/d flat, a piece of music automatically fires off in my head - the opening to hungarian rhapsody - so I know what it is.

i dont know how it works for other people but I find as long as I can get a piece to fire off when a particular note is played, i can identify it. I can also break down chords in my head to single notes as well, only thing holding me back is my ability to not remember all of them individually (hence i need to break them again)

plus it seems im getting the hang of it, played random notes on my piano blindfolded and was able to name 7/10 notes most of the time.

so theres my reason, i hope you guys understand what i mean


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

From whats been explained to me perfect pitch hasn't been really correlated with compositional genius or genius in musicianship. It just seems to be a certain trait innate to some individuals which can help in ways but pose problems in other ways - for example listening to music, if one instrument is even slightly off pitch it can really bother an individual with perfect pitch, where others may not even notice.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I understand what you mean. I know many notes that "fire off in my head," to quote you. I hear a note, and I immediately go back to a song in my memory. C, B, A, A-flat and E-flat have that kind of effect on me.

Personally, I use obscure pieces of music that you've probably never heard of to recognize notes, so no use mentioning them. And A is just stuck in my head from tuning my instrument to it so much.

But for A-flat, think of Clair de Lune (Debussy), the first note of the melody.


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> I understand what you mean. I know many notes that "fire off in my head," to quote you. I hear a note, and I immediately go back to a song in my memory. C, B, A, A-flat and E-flat have that kind of effect on me.
> 
> Personally, I use obscure pieces of music that you've probably never heard of to recognize notes, so no use mentioning them. And A is just stuck in my head from tuning my instrument to it so much.
> 
> But for A-flat, think of Clair de Lune (Debussy), the first note of the melody.


thank you, theres a piece ive never thought of. Looks ill be listening to that for quite a while ^^


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## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

@Ernie: Perfect pitch is not a musical ability per se, it is an extremely good memory of pitch. Note names are human concept anyways, so perfect pitch has nothing to do with notes.

@OP: You can save yourself a lot of time by remembering 1 or 2 pitches, and just referencing other ones by relative pitch.


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## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

Rasa, I always understood that perfect pitch was somewhat analogous to color vision. That is, for most people you can hold up a swatch of cloth and they can id it as red, blue, green, whatever. Color blind people can have difficulty with some or all colors. My understanding was that perfect pitch worked the same way, except that most people are the equivalent of color blind. Of course, it's not a perfect analogy because relative pitch doesn't really work in this analogy.


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## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

Pitch, and the associated note names are an entirely human concept (as is colour). If you have absolute pitch, you just have a very firm sense of pitch and a very firm memory of where that pitch is in relation to the human "standard" pitches.

So if you're not so firm with pitch, you can train yourself to remember one or two pitches through using a reference note you hear often (in conservatory solfege, we'd listen to A), or a piece that is distinct in your mind.


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## Ernie (Jun 6, 2010)

Rasa said:


> Pitch, and the associated note names are an entirely human concept (as is colour). If you have absolute pitch, you just have a very firm sense of pitch and a very firm memory of where that pitch is in relation to the human "standard" pitches.
> 
> _So if you're not so firm with pitch, you can train yourself to remember one or two pitches through using a reference note you hear often (in conservatory solfege, we'd listen to A), or a piece that is distinct in your mind._


Rasa

I hope you're right, but I doubt it. As a piano tech, I've listened to thousands of "A's" over a span of over 40 years. I still can't reliably sing an A, and when I hear an A I don't recognize it as such. People with perfect pitch don't seem to have to think about it - they hear a pitch and identify it. In the same manner, I can't listen to a piece of tonal music without the solfeg syllables popping into my head - no thought required. I realize that this happens because of training, but you would think that with my background as a tuner, and having taught music theory for 34 years, I would have been able to train myself to recognize pitch by now.


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## Yoshi (Jul 15, 2009)

Ernie said:


> Rasa
> 
> *I hope you're right, but I doubt it. As a piano tech, I've listened to thousands of "A's" over a span of over 40 years. I still can't reliably sing an A, and when I hear an A I don't recognize it as such.* People with perfect pitch don't seem to have to think about it - they hear a pitch and identify it. In the same manner, I can't listen to a piece of tonal music without the solfeg syllables popping into my head - no thought required. I realize that this happens because of training, but you would think that with my background as a tuner, and having taught music theory for 34 years, I would have been able to train myself to recognize pitch by now.


Well that's the thing. Not everyone has the hability to memorize sound frequences. People who can memorize pitches, may develop perfect pitch. But you're not exactly born with perfect pitch... no person is able to sing a G or a D if they are asked to, without having any sort of music knowledge.
The original poster seems to be able to memorize pitches, so yes I believe that he/she with alot of practise can get to perfect pitch (memorizing the pitch of all musical notes).


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## Ernie (Jun 6, 2010)

Jan said:


> Well that's the thing. _Not everyone has the hability to memorize sound frequences. People who can memorize pitches, may develop perfect pitch. But you're not exactly born with perfect pitch... no person is able to sing a G or a D if they are asked to, without having any sort of music knowledge_.
> The original poster seems to be able to memorize pitches, so yes I believe that he/she with alot of practise can get to perfect pitch (memorizing the pitch of all musical notes).


Respectfully, this seems confused to me. People (like myself), who don't have the ability to memorize sound frequencies, don't have perfect pitch. Those who have this ability do.

If you have the ability to memorize pitch, what is there to develop as far as perfect pitch is concerned? They may not be able to sing a G if asked to, but that is a matter of linking a name to a pitch which requires education. Back when the pitch standard was much lower (A-415) someone with perfect pitch would assign the name A to a pitch frequency of 415 cps. We would call that pitch G#. The perfect pitch stays the same - only the names assigned to the pitches change. If the original poster is able to memorize pitches, he has perfect pitch. I don't believe there is such a thing as "partial" perfect pitch, but who knows, maybe there is. I do know that there are different levels of perfect pitch sensitivity. I went to school with a girl who had such a refined sense of perfect pitch that she winced when hearing an A at 439 cps instead of 440 cps. I doubt that most people with perfect pitch have it to such a refined degree.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Ernie said:


> What can be more memorable than the first four notes of Beethoven's 5th symphony? How does that work for you?


Now, I can hear those notes in my head, and whistle or hum them at the correct pitch. Same with the opening trumpet notes in this:






Would that seem to indicate that I have absolute pitch? I don't know what the notes actually *are*, but I can hear them in my head, and I could find them on the piano if I was asked to.


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## Ernie (Jun 6, 2010)

Fsharpmajor said:


> Now, I can hear those notes in my head, and whistle or hum them at the correct pitch. Same with the opening trumpet notes in this:
> 
> Would that seem to indicate that I have absolute pitch? I don't know what the notes actually *are*, but I can hear them in my head, and I could find them on the piano if I was asked to.


Could be! The first three notes of Also Sprach Zarathustra are C, G, and C. Find those three notes on an in tune piano. Don't listen to the piece for a few hours - then go to the piano. Hum the first three notes as you hear them in your head. Then play the three notes on the piano. If your hummed notes and the notes on the piano are the same, you may well have perfect pitch. I would try the same experiment with increasing intervals of time between hearing the piece and checking yourself. If you indeed have perfect pitch, it shouldn't matter how long the interval is. You should be able to return to the piano after a month and still have the pianos notes coincide with your hummed notes. Good luck.

*
*


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

I cant believe i forgot about that piece by strauss, of all things ive heard that almost everywhere I go. Much more reliable method of remembering C and G, thanks for posting that ^^

so an update to my new list:

C - Richard Strauss Also Sprach Zarathustra

C#/Db - Liszt Hung Rhap 2

D#/Eb - 

E - Fur Elise

F - Vivaldi's Winter 1st mov

G - Also Sprach/Der Erlkonig

A#/Bb - Claire de Lune from Debussy

B - Love Story Theme - By Henry Mancini (altho the original is played a half step higher, I keep thinking of the one that was sampled by a rapper.)


Its now alot easier to name notes for me with this many references, kind of strange that no one has thought of this before, might be a good idea for people to make lists like these for themselves and listen to the music on a regular basis to keep up to date with their pitch in their head?

thanks for the responses guys, youve helped me a great deal


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Igneous01 said:


> might be a good idea for people to make lists like these for themselves and listen to the music on a regular basis to keep up to date with their pitch in their head?


For what purpose? What advantage do you think it gives a person?


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## Ernie (Jun 6, 2010)

Igneous01 said:


> I cant believe i forgot about that piece by strauss, of all things ive heard that almost everywhere I go. Much more reliable method of remembering C and G, thanks for posting that ^^
> 
> Its now alot easier to name notes for me with this many references, kind of strange that no one has thought of this before, might be a good idea for people to make lists like these for themselves and listen to the music on a regular basis to keep up to date with their pitch in their head?
> 
> thanks for the responses guys, youve helped me a great deal


This thread is becoming ridiculous. The reason "_no one has thought of this before_" is simple - it doesn't work. If "developing" perfect pitch was only a matter of knowing the starting notes of famous pieces, everyone on this forum would have it. So would every member of the NY Philharmonic, not to mention every other musician in the world. While listening to music on a regular basis is a great idea, thinking it will help you develop perfect pitch is delusional.


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## the_emptier (Jan 27, 2011)

for the most part, especially when i listen to opera, i can go "oh that's (probably) a Bb, or a C or a G# etc. and with experience playing music all of my life I can sing pitches or recognize them pretty easily sometimes but it's not perfect


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## jurianbai (Nov 23, 2008)

actually, our natural speaking voice has a pitch, just remember that, easiest. 

but pardon me, for those classical musician who never happen to do free style jamming, with no agreement of which tune to play, what is the practical purposes of having perfect pitch. for singer, I can understand, a lot of vocal piece may begin without any external "helper".


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## Igneous01 (Jan 27, 2011)

As much as this thread has derailed from its original purpose it has served my purposes well. We all have our opinions on this matter and I think its best we leave it at that. I suppose a musician would not need to know pitches without reference, but a composer would probably benefit from it. My reason is just to say it can be done, and nothing more.


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## Fsharpmajor (Dec 14, 2008)

Ernie said:


> This thread is becoming ridiculous. The reason "_no one has thought of this before_" is simple - it doesn't work. If "developing" perfect pitch was only a matter of knowing the starting notes of famous pieces, everyone on this forum would have it. So would every member of the NY Philharmonic, not to mention every other musician in the world. While listening to music on a regular basis is a great idea, thinking it will help you develop perfect pitch is delusional.


I agree, but if you *can* do it, you can. I can tune my guitar to concert pitch using nothing but the six notes in my head. It wouldn't matter if I hadn't heard a tuning fork in twenty years. The problem is explaining how to do it to anybody else.

Anyway, here's a test: what key is this piece in? I knew as soon as I heard it. It's a very simple piece--if you do, in fact, have absolute pitch, you should be able to get it easily:

*



*


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## shamisengirl (Feb 4, 2011)

In Japan, there are a lot of CDs and music courses designed to give your child perfect pitch. I haven't heard of any real success though. I think you're born with an innate ability to obtain it or not. Both my sister and I had the same musical upbringing, only my sister started learning at a younger age than I. I have perfect pitch and she does not. It is not really a hindrance if you can work out pitch relatively. In fact, perfect pitch can be a hindrance especially when playing transposed pieces.


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