Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Hades
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

Post by Hades »

Lost to the Void wrote:Does it matter?
nope, not to me, I'm not exactly splitting hairs about the thing.
that's more adobe's point, I believe, though I do understand his point completely.
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

Post by Amøbe »

Hades I think you have what I usually call really good ears :D I would also like to admit I haven't dived very deep into the subject - I think I read only one or two articles about it :P (and then I know a few who sort of slides in and out of perfect pitch - it's actually a problem when their pitch isn't based on the relation to the other notes around them - I know of one girl who had to seek therapy for it :P)

The ones I know who has it are also people who grew up in very musical families (the therapy girl - to take an example - was used to sing her lullabies in harmony with her mother...) so I think you're right when it either has to be withborn or something you have to groom very early in children.

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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Amøbe wrote:Hades I think you have what I usually call really good ears :D I would also like to admit I haven't dived very deep into the subject - I think I read only one or two articles about it :P (and then I know a few who sort of slides in and out of perfect pitch - it's actually a problem when their pitch isn't based on the relation to the other notes around them - I know of one girl who had to seek therapy for it :P)

The ones I know who has it are also people who grew up in very musical families (the therapy girl - to take an example - was used to sing her lullabies in harmony with her mother...) so I think you're right when it either has to be withborn or something you have to groom very early in children.
like I said : I don't care what it is exactly that I have, I only started using the term "perfect pitch" when someone else pointed this out to me, and from reading a bit on perfect pitch and relative pitch, I would guess I'm a lot closer to what they describe as perfect pitch. But I honestly don't really care.

As a kid, I did grow up in a family where everybody played piano (apart from one of my sisters who played clarinet and gave up after 1 year).
But my mother for example, only had 1 or 2 sisters out of a family of 8, that had a musical training, and has it way more than me. It must be said her grandfather played clarinet (got a picture of him posing with his instrument hanging above my piano), her grandmother played piano in bars, and her father played clarinet for most part of his life as well. But yeah, just like me, she got yelled upon by her brothers and sisters whenever she tried to practice.

Anyway, none of that really matters.
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Hades wrote:
Amøbe wrote:Hades I think you have what I usually call really good ears :D I would also like to admit I haven't dived very deep into the subject - I think I read only one or two articles about it :P (and then I know a few who sort of slides in and out of perfect pitch - it's actually a problem when their pitch isn't based on the relation to the other notes around them - I know of one girl who had to seek therapy for it :P)

The ones I know who has it are also people who grew up in very musical families (the therapy girl - to take an example - was used to sing her lullabies in harmony with her mother...) so I think you're right when it either has to be withborn or something you have to groom very early in children.
like I said : I don't care what it is exactly that I have, I only started using the term "perfect pitch" when someone else pointed this out to me, and from reading a bit on perfect pitch and relative pitch, I would guess I'm a lot closer to what they describe as perfect pitch. But I honestly don't really care.

As a kid, I did grow up in a family where everybody played piano (apart from one of my sisters who played clarinet and gave up after 1 year).
But my mother for example, only had 1 or 2 sisters out of a family of 8, that had a musical training, and has it way more than me. It must be said her grandfather played clarinet (got a picture of him posing with his instrument hanging above my piano), her grandmother played piano in bars, and her father played clarinet for most part of his life as well. But yeah, just like me, she got yelled upon by her brothers and sisters whenever she tried to practice.

Anyway, none of that really matters.
Well it would make sense then that your ears are used to listen for pitch then (and if you can remember pitch I guess it is perfect pitch... hmm)

Maybe it doesn't matter, but it's an interesting phenomenon to witness :)

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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Amøbe wrote: Maybe it doesn't matter, but it's an interesting phenomenon to witness :)
what I mean with "it doesn't matter" is that I don't care what I have exactly,
and the problem is that when you mention this, it just seems as if you're bragging about your capabilities,
while this, from what I can sense, doesn't come from any training at all, so it's not like it's some sort of achievement.
It was just always there for as far as I can remember.

but yeah, you are totally right, I I find it extremely interesting to discuss and think about.
I found your remark that one can't possibly be born with it since depending on where you're born it can depend which type/kind of pitch you have/hear, extremely interesting !! I never even thought of that up till now. :)

Next time I visit my mom I will try to remember asking her a little more about how she experienced it in her life.
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Oh I definitely didn't mean to brag - I actually have a really crappy pitch detection, which become extremely sloppy if I don't excercise it!

I would also like to say that I always liked the melodic coherence (maybe that's a bad way to put it!) of your tracks, so it would make sense if you have somewhat perfect pitch - I was actually just curious about the way you experience it (and then I know of a few people who has it, which was just me trying to add to the conversation) :)

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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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can you tell me more about the people you know who have some sort of this perfect pitch thing ?
I personally don't know any, and I'd be really interested to hear how they have it, how they can use it,
what they can't do, whatever...
I'd be happy for the info :)
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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So there's three people, where I've seen it in action - and it's actually quite different for each of them:

The woman that grew up with an over-the-top-musical-coach of a mother start to get strange ticks if you change the pitch a little bit on a record. For her there's one pitch that's the correct one (and that's 440 hz). I was told that she actually struggles with this a bit, because a lot of music sound "off"

Then there's a conductor I know. One time she came back from a tour (she conducts among other the danish broadcasting girls choir) and accidentally had picked it up. She has had it from time to time, but deliberately tries to loose it. After that tour - where she had sung a lot of material that was similar - she began to hear her tuning forks as if they were off (because her brain wanted each note to be on a specific frequency), so she had to use an entire weekend listening to different tuning forks, so that her pitch would turn back to be relative to a given frequency.

The last one I know isn't sure if it's pefect pitch. For him nothing ever sounds off without being off relative to something else, but if you ask him what note someone is playing out of the blue he can tell it. I think he might have a bigger margin, but he's the one who also find it easier with chords - he once mentioned to me, that chords are more "coloured" and therefore easier to recognize :)

How do you experience it? if you heard a melody on the radio, would you be pretty clear about where to start it as you sat down by the piano? :) I am personally often an octave off, when I should guess where to start a melody :D

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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

Post by Lost to the Void »

Yeah I'm not sure about the natural\unnatural thing.
Notes are a created thing, middle C is an arbitrary measurement of sound vibrations so you need some musical knowledge to identify a pitch as a specific note.

I've always had a relatively good ear and can pick out a note on a keyboard and be right most of the time, and I have near perfect mastering ears in that I can identify a frequency by Hz, by say, tidying a problem sound in a mix when mastering and knowing the fundamental of, let's say a ringing snare, needs attenuation at 500hz or whatever, and on reaching for the EQ, the problem frequency will be on or near the frequency I identified.
That's mostly learned by experience. But I identify by Hertz and not chromatic notes.
You can buy ear training software that can help you get to or near perfect pitch detection.
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Think it's the same with rhythm. You know when you see that one guy that just hasn't got a clue how to keep time and is just going off on his own little shakes?!! It can be funny as fuck sometimes.
Dunno. Do you have *it, develop it? Hard to know...
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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I had a bit of a musical childhood and identify decent melodies and harmonies but couldn't do the blind note thing. Always considered that as part of piano training, which I never did (prob part of most classic instrument training, violin, cello, etc, dunno).

The hertz thing is more rational to me and I think my ear is improving that way, over time, but it's a wider spectrum to start with in ways as it's a wider range so I guess you would make more inroads in the beginning ..

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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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intrusav wrote:Think it's the same with rhythm. You know when you see that one guy that just hasn't got a clue how to keep time and is just going off on his own little shakes?!! It can be funny as fuck sometimes.
Dunno. Do you have *it, develop it? Hard to know...

I love it when people have no rhythm but dance like fuck anyway, it's both funny but also a sign of abandon that I love.
In was having this conversation with my missus a couple weeks back.. An old mate put on a rave in warehouse in the east end. He had 80k of Void Incubus out.
I did a pa there, and when I finished I was chatting to my missus, and she said "see that guy dancing?" And pointed to a guy dancing out of time.
"He was dancing in front of the speakers all the way through your set, it was so loud the beats were literally making your bones vibrate in time with the music, and he still couldn't find the beat".

I find that behaviour applaudable.
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Without a doubt. There's always one ..

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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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intrusav wrote:I had a bit of a musical childhood and identify decent melodies and harmonies but couldn't do the blind note thing. Always considered that as part of piano training, which I never did (prob part of most classic instrument training, violin, cello, etc, dunno).
it's not part of piano training. at least not over here.
they do teach you musical notation in general music class (not the instrument lessons but the general music theory) so they do try to make you recognize notes by ear, but yeah, it's (as far as I remember) a lot easier, because in general they do give you the first note, or even a few notes in-between as well.

I watched The Sound Of Music about 500x as a child, though I even hate musicals.
As stupid as this might sound, but I still believe that part of my ear for melodies and harmony comes from that film. The music in there is extremely well written.
intrusav wrote: The hertz thing is more rational to me and I think my ear is improving that way, over time, but it's a wider spectrum to start with in ways as it's a wider range so I guess you would make more inroads in the beginning ..
I'm really glad I rolled into piano through my family.
There are many beautiful instruments, but piano really has a ton of advantages.
Of course there's the practical thing that you can play keys when you get a synth, but piano's also have an extremely wide frequency range, so I think that if your hearing improves over the years, you will benefit more if you play piano than if you play for example a flute or a clarinet or something because they have a much more limited range in octaves.
Also, there are many piano pieces that have different melodies and harmony going on at the same time, like for example Bach's 4 part inventions or whatever. I never cared for Bach that much, but I do think it's once again a nice extra for your ears.
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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Amøbe wrote:
How do you experience it? if you heard a melody on the radio, would you be pretty clear about where to start it as you sat down by the piano? :) I am personally often an octave off, when I should guess where to start a melody :D
yeah, I started playing on the piano what I heard on the radio even before I started taking any piano or music lessons.
My mom says I started playing stuff on the piano when I was 4, obviously I don't remember any of that, but I do remember playing stuff on the piano after I heard something on the radio, or the opening tune of series that I liked, or playing The Raiders Of The Lost Ark theme, or... all the time.
I even remember once hearing a Satie song and playing it on the piano, but not the left hand, always the lead parts because the left hand would usually be more chords and I usually can't do it that easily with chords. I think this is also because we basically learned very little about chords in my education so I still know only the basic stuff.
Though I have improved a bit on the chords thing over the years.

Interesting thing about the octaves. I recently sang along in an improvised choir for my oldest music school recital,
(the kids from her class together with a few dads) and when I had practiced my part, I sat by the piano while singing along. Then I arrived at the rehearsals and when we all started singing, the teacher immediately said afterwards : I think I hear someone singing an octave too low. So she had instantly spotted me in there.
This was interesting though : even though I had practiced at the piano, playing the notes on the correct pitch, I had practiced my singing an octave too low. :lol:
But I do think that also comes from the fact that I'm a bariton, and she had put me in the tenor department, so the notes I had to sing (in this case) were with my head voice and that never feels that comfortable which is probably why I instinctively started singing them an octave lower and never even noticed it.
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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What I also wonder about with that pitch thing (whatever the correct name for it is for what I have).
I learned to improvise on the piano, which was at first extremely hard because I literally felt "blocked", just because I was drilled so hard in my piano classes to only play what was on the sheet music. This is completely dumb, in my opinion, and it just makes you more of a robot instead of opening your own creativity.
I'm still mad at any piano teacher that teaches his/her pupils that way (and it still happens far too often)
But anyway, I'm happy I hung in there (started practicing that when I was 16), but I wonder how much of that comes together with the pitch thing. I mean, if I hit notes on "instinct" and they hardly sound wrong, how much comes from the pitch thing ?
I know you do get back to certain parts, and you also just somewhere start from songs you played or chords or arpeggio's you know, so it's not like you're playing something new every time, of course not. But yeah, how does that work for people, and how much advantage do you have when you do have "the pitch thing". :)
I'd love to talk about that with some other people who improvise, but the only other guy I know is my cousin, and I only see him a few times a year. (I know he used to play all kinds of difficult piano pieces, and he was actually the one who dragged me back to classical piano pieces when I once heard him play a nocturne from Chopin, but last time I saw him he told me he hardly ever plays sheet music any more, just improvisation now)

anyway, rambled enough...
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Re: Coherence in non-harmonic sounds

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It serves no useful purpose ( at least to me ) whether I have any sort of pitch detection or not, it can't be applied to what I am interested in from a music making perspective but then I do find the subject quite interesting in itself. I think the general accepted notion is that you cannot develop perfect pitch after about 1year of age or something but that's not even relevant here.

I can pick out chords from within songs but that's not because I can 'detect them' with pitch recognition, it's because when I got into music, I spent ages jamming along with records I liked and was also mimicing them and focused on the chords in those records as the single notes were easy to figure out. Then after a period of time, you just get to recognise the sound of certain tonal clusters - which is essentially what they are, but I'd be hard pushed telling you what root note they were built on but obviously the intervals that comprise a specific chord remain the same regardless of root note and that's what I go on, memory & over-familiarity is a better name. If I had grew up with 2 dozen drum machines, I could name the sounds of them when they appeared in records the same way.

Going back to the original post a bit, the thread title would probably make more sense if it read, 'functional vs non-functional harmony'. It was almost like it was going down the path of 'making a track without it sounding like a song'. Instinctively by ear, it's easy to follow where the music is pulling your ear but often, at least for me, that leads to an almost 'song-like' quality esp when using chords. There's a natural tendency to follow a particular chord with another to somewhere it 'wants' to go, whether that's resolution from a tense feeling or just to another chord or back to the tonic chord etc. By all accounts, that would be functional harmony.

Non-functional harmony could be considered rebelling against that to some degree, and it's where a lot of people want to be musically for underground type stuff. IE: You want some music in there obviously but you don't want it to sound cliched or euro dance and if you remove the setting up of tension and release, you can get a bit more abstract where chords don't 'want to' flow from one place to the next. Some people who come from a theoretical background can struggle with this, it's evident when you hear someone who writes traditional music effectively suddenly try and make something that sounds 'underground'. You can't help but edge on theory when talking about this stuff but I dunno man, I think sometimes it can help to remain 'innocent' in terms of your ear and if you have learnt theory, try to un-learn it.
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