#labbook

[11rohit-blog]

A Longing Start

Into the third year of my PhD, many pieces of paper to integrate

[hectic-haley]

Writing a lab entry for a lab I did freaking weeks ago is not fun.  I should have done this before break.

[makiaea]

learning absolute(perfect) pitch

So why would anyone want to learn absolute(perfect) pitch?

Here are the reasons that matter most to me:

I'd like to tune a guitar and other instruments

It's a fun challenge

I'd like to show my friends so they can learn it too

Here's what I'm starting from:

I don't mind if things are out of tune

I think challenges are never as difficult as people sometimes believe

I can sing and play the piano and I'd like to do this with more friends

Diana Deutsch found that although only about one in ten thousand Western people have absolute pitch, if you speak a tone–language, you are much more likely to do so!

This is very interesting to me — I speak Cantonese (a tone language) well but am not fluent; and I am passionate about music but never trained myself to name notes. So I actually am just outside of the group which Diana predicts will be most likely to have absolute pitch.

However, I might be able to train myself, and I made (I am told) an interesting way to do this:

I found the lowest tone I normally speak in Cantonese is F♯ (174.6Hz, F♯3)

The lowest open string on a normal guitar is E, one octave and two semitones below that F♯. Once you tune one string, it's easy to tune the rest of the guitar (82.41Hz, E2)

In a week, I can go straight to the E instead of via F♯

But how can this be adapted for speakers of non–tone languages? Here's how:

Everybody has a lowest note that they can sing

Find out what your lowest note is

Remember that note!

The rest is just practice (i.e. guts and hard work) Here are some fun ways I learned more notes:

A is the note I from which I start playing "Puff the magic dragon" on the piano (880Hz, A5). Many orchestras tune to A one octave below (440Hz, A4).

C♯ is the normal highest spoken tone for me in Cantonese (277.2Hz, C♯4). This is an octave minus a semitone above the third open string of a guitar (146.83Hz, D3) This is almost middle C (261.63Hz, C4)

E is the lowest note on the chord of the right hand when I start playing "Imagine" on the piano

To help learn some more notes (A2 to A7, 110 to 1760Hz), and to test I really can remember and reproduce the notes, I've made some test cards using a tone generator and a flash card program (Anki). But it seems an easy way so far for me is when a song I play uses a note.

download jpg 20101010 released under creative commons by-nc-sa licence 3.0

[shockboard]

Life with my chemistry professor:

Student: "so, where are the electrons?" Professor: "yes." Student: "when are they there?" Professor: "all the time. well, 99.9% of the time." Student: "where are they the other .1% of the time?" Professor: "exactly."

It's seriously like Abbott and Costello, I swear.