YTSEJAM Digest 4536
Today's Topics:
1) some cool relative pitch tricks
by Joshua Rasiel <jrasi@bigfoot.com>
2) Whew!!
by AnalogGal@aol.com
3) Argh! You're making my brain bleed!
by Christopher Ptacek <someone@enteract.com>
4) Re:St.Andrews & Pine Knob
by ETebo323@aol.com
5) colors?
by Chris Oates <aspect@tinagh.org>
6) NBC Gong Trivia
by Andrew Coutermarsh <a_couter@oz.plymouth.edu>
7) Perfect Pitch
by Fernando Rauber <ferer@conex.com.br>
8) Utopia and CDNow prices
by Luke Bateup <slslb@winshop.com.au>
9) Re: Cursed Perfect Pitch!"
by AyameYuki@aol.com
10) Re: YTSEJAM digest 4535
by AyameYuki@aol.com
11) Re: YTSEJAM digest 4535
by Lisa Marie <ytsegirl@pacbell.net>
12) Re: Argh! You're making my brain bleed!
by Jens Johansson <jens@panix.com>
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 19:02:19 -0500
From: Joshua Rasiel <jrasi@bigfoot.com>
To: ytsejam@axnet.net
Subject: some cool relative pitch tricks
Message-ID: <368EB38B.38802599@bigfoot.com>
Here are some neat-o mnumonics(sp?) I learned in theory 101 for
beginners to quickly hone their relative pitch.
]From your given note, one step up should be easy, and thirds(two notes
up is called a third, three notes up is a fourth, and so on) should also
be pretty distinguishable.
fouths: think of the first two notes of the wedding song.
sixths: you know the NBC gong? the 'B' is a sixth. This was typically
the hardest to learn, until we were told of this trick.
sevenths: the "Oh" part of 'over' in "somewhere over a rainbow".
For your half-steps, You get as close as you can and note the
appropriate flat or sharp.
I took this class many, many years ago, when I was a clarinet player at
a military school. It was required for all band members. I'm glad I took
it, too.
-- Joshua Rasiel jrasi@bigfoot.com www.j51.com/~mrasiel "Shop Smart. Shop...S-Mart!"------------------------------
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 18:55:45 EST From: AnalogGal@aol.com To: ytsejam@axnet.net Subject: Whew!! Message-ID: <3e257056.368eb201@aol.com>
Happy New Year everyone!
Well, after driving all over a good part of the east coast and putting close to 700 miles on my car, I'm finally rested enough to post my two cents about the DT holiday shows. Whoopie!
To sum it up in just a few words.... WOW!! What an amazing five days!! I had the best time meeting and hanging out with so many jammers: Matt, Skadz, D- Man, Bogie, Syrinx (The best looking single guys in the place! Whoo-hoo!!!); Madsman and his lovely lady, Maddy; Mike (the other Mike!), Maraya, Pete, Mark, Rick, Damon, and everyone else I had the pleasure of meeting. It was a blast! Next time, we're all staying at the same hotel so we can crank call Derek's room at 5 am!! ;)
As for the shows, once again... WOW!! Each night was different from the next. The Birch Hill show was probably the roughest, seeing as how the guys hadn't seen one another in two or three months, but they did not fail to deliver the goods. It was particularly rough for me after I cut my knee in the photographers' pit and had to hear "Different Strings" from the ladies room as I cleaned up. But, what are ya gonna do, huh? :) Philly's show saw the "reunion" of Nightmare Cinema as well as a performance of the Elton John classic, "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and the addition of "Hell's Kitchen." YES!!! The Toad's Place show made everyone warm and happy on a very wet and chilly evening. Irving Plaza was a wonderful homecoming and it was packed to capacity, as usual! It also featured an impromptu performance of Van Halen's "Ice Cream Man" with Derek on vocals. (Where the hell was the feather boa, D?!?!) Poughkeepsie was an amazing fifth and final show, with the band pulling out all the stops. In addition to the Rush, Van Halen, and LTE snippets of the previous nights, we were also treated to a bit of "Won't Get Fooled Again" by the Who, and a whole lotta Floyd's "Run Like Hell," which blended seemlessly with "The Way It Used To Be." The evening also featured the "re-reunion" of Nightmare Cinema and a very spiritied version (not virgin, Mike!) of "Peruvian Skies" in honor of a German fan's 56th Dream Theater show.
In all, a great time was had. I shot 10 (yes, 10!!) rolls of film, collected much hotel memorabilia, and came back with some great memories of time spent with some very cool friends.
We now return to our regularly scheduled ytsejam digest already in progress......
Christina http://www.dereksherinian.com "C, I fucked up....." DS, 12/27/98
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 18:20:33 -0600 (CST) From: Christopher Ptacek <someone@enteract.com> To: ytsejam@axnet.net Subject: Argh! You're making my brain bleed! Message-ID: <199901030020.SAA25074@adam.enteract.com>
> Perfect Pitch is genetic.
It is NOT entirely genetic! As with all things, there are people with a genetic predisposition to excell at this or that. Michael Jordan and basketball, Coltrane and jazz, Michaelangelo and painting, MICHAEL.ANGELO. and shred... but not one of these people developed their abilities as a natural process of maturing alone. It's intense work, and lots of it. It's not something you'd consider to be work, as a child listening to music, but it's a very active state of listening. I've read studies on perfect pitch. It's explained to be very similar to learning a language. Humans for the most part are MUCH more apt to learn a new language (or develop Perfect Pitch) before the age of 5-7 (depending on who you ask). Somehow, just as with learning to speak fluently, this ability sort of turns off as we mature. There are ways of accessing this form of learning again, though I doubt to the full extent we could as children learning to speak the languages of our parents, etc. More importantly though, why do you insist that something has only the genetic component, without researching any other possibility? Why do you insist that perfect pitch could not be learned via a course, when I have an example of at least one person who has, and you haven't even listened to the course. That is akin to saying "Metropolis II Sucks" even though you haven't heard it yet. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.
> Now, I know this kid sure as hell hasn't done ear training excercise > every day for his entire life.
Refer to the explaination above. You're not born speaking English, or Swahili or whatever. I sincerely DOUBT anyone is born thinking "That's a C#!" though I certainly envy anyone who was.
> For example, in the middle of a tune, they can transcribe a many bars of > a solo at a time without having to play it on their instruments. This is
If they are transcribing the notes, note for note, without seeing it performed, and without their instruments, that's either the fastest relative pitch (sort of a comparative listening) on earth or evidence of the development of some level of perfect pitch.
> From: AyameYuki@aol.com
I sincerely hope Skadz saw your last posts, and decides to boot your ass off the list. Your presence on this planet makes my skin crawl.
> hey...by the way < ive seen the advertisements for the perfect pitch > videos. i never have ( and never will ) have the urge to buy one of > those videos. my perfect pitch is natural
If you do have perfect pitch, which I have begun to doubt, just on a hunch, it's no more natural than anyone who gains it from careful study. I suppose my cynicism may have something to do with the fact that I'm still waiting for the names of those two German composers who wrote music with 12th notes.
> ..and to the CD's in the cold thing..yeah...any type > of weather ( in my opinion ) can screw up a CD compared to the first time you > listened to it...take for example...youre riding down I65, > on your way to a college expo., and youre jamming to a cool song on your CD > and all of a sudden that chord souds wayyyy too high. you glance out the > window and hey...its raining all of a sudden. and then, you decide to stop > the CD and relisten to a passage,and suddenly..the song seems to change your > mood, and you get angry and ask " WHY wont the fucking CD play right! it > sounded lower before! what's up with this CD? "
I'm not the list scientist. I need Rogerio and Al and a couple other folks to back me up here... but that can't occur according to my understanding. The sound quality can arguably be different, but speeding a cd's spin up or slowing it down will not change the pitch. Why doesn't your 8 X CD Rom play awake in about 9 minutes flat? Why doesn't ESP protection change the pitch of hand held disc players? Slowing the spin down enough will cause the cd to not play at all, but I don't think you can change the pitch. Anyone back me up on this with some scientific mumbo jumbo?
> From: "g-HosT" <g-host@geocities.com> > Subject: Re: It's a B!
> Hey wait a minuite. From what i have learned, Perfect Pitch is a genetic > thing, And Realative pitch is the learned version of it, but it's not quite > as strong, who knows?
They're actually seperate abilities. Relative pitch allows you to sing intervals, scales, etc or hear and name harmonies (or sing a harmony to one of JLB's vocal lines, where you wish it existed, as in the recent performances of TLF) chord types blah blah blah. It's a learned ability, just like perfect pitch, but also like perfect pitch, it'll come easier to some people, and it's easier to develop when you're really young. Perfect pitch is really helpful, but relative pitch is essential. We all have some level of relative pitch. If you can sing a song without accompaniment, you're using relative pitch.
> From: Jens Johansson <jens@panix.com> > Subject: Re: Perfect Pitch.
> In my opinion: Partly true, there's a heavy genetic component. By the way, > I've seen situations where perfect pitch can be a bit of a curse. Seeing > Symphony X's stand-in bass player (Andy DeLuca) re-notate a whole set of > SX songs "one flat" qualifies. "it just doesn't sound right if I transpose > it on sight..." :) I got the impression that Pinella has PP as well..
Andy was standing there about to play some riff in E, forgetting that Symphony X is tuned down to D. So there he is on stage all amped and ready to play what he considered to be an easy bass line, and he hits his open 4th string instead of his 2nd fret, and just freaks out. He said he'll never forget that feeling. :) It made me realize how amazingly helpful Perfect Pitch would be on instruments like guitar or bass, where it isn't as immediate and easy to see what note you're playing. You just reference the fret with the note name you're HEARING instead of trying to make visual scale patterns. Wow... that would rule. Andy saw it backfire... sort of like if someone transposed Jens' keyboard down a tritone and expected him to play Twilight Symphony in key with the band. :) I suppose if someone did that during the recording of Heavy Machinery it would have just sounded like he's doing some crazy Holdsworth lines!
Andrew: > I know what you're saying. My French Horn teacher also tells me that I > don't have "perfect" pitch. My voice teacher uses the term "absolute" > pitch (as I said before), because it's not the traditional form of perfect > pitch, with colors, but rather a different method, yet at the same time, I > can find a pitch 19 times of out 20. So I use the term perfect pitch > rather loosely, because yes, in reality, it's not actually perfect, but I > just use the term because the term "relative pitch", for some reason, is > frowned upon at my school. Like it's not authentic or something. But I > don't really want to use the term relative pitch either, because I don't > have to HEAR a pitch first before being able to relate it to another pitch > to determine it.
I'm rather surprised that your teachers frown upon relative pitch. What's more important to you, being able to paint a sky blue, and the grass green, or being able to create something beautiful. Perfect pitch is not a necessity, else we'd probably have only about a tenth of the music we have to listen to. Relative pitch is an element used by all of the artists on all of the albums we listen to.
> And yes, I was not born with it, either, to answer a comment somebody else > made on the jam. I learned it, or rather, realized one day that when I > sang a song in my head it was on-pitch.
I just realized that last night. Seriously. With this Mirror debate, I can hear the Mirror in my head. When I put on the cd, the pitches are identical. I think it's a product of listening closely and repetitively. I hope it doesn't fade away... I'd like to be able to tune the low B on my 7 string off of that pitch by memory. :)
> To answer the "colors" thing, I don't see colors when I hear music
I didn't mean to imply that you actually see colors in the music. I meant that you recognize "shades of C" as versions of the note C, in the same way we recognize shades of red or whatever. There isn't necessarily a visual element to music (Ask Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder, or half of the syphilitic classical composers we're forced to study in school, etc) I have a friend who sees colors and patterns in an animated state in his head when he listens to music. It's dictated by the timbre of the instrument and what's being played. Works sort of like a spectrum analyzer, and it's always the same kind of pattern each time he hears a particular song. THAT is weird.
- Chris
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 19:29:38 EST From: ETebo323@aol.com To: ytsejam@axnet.net Subject: Re:St.Andrews & Pine Knob Message-ID: <ac666bdf.368eb9f2@aol.com>
>Keith, the first time I saw Dream Theater (St. Andrews Hall in Detroit, >on the FII tour), I had the EXACT same experience. The sound was >unbelievably awful. I (honestly) could barely tell what song they were >playing at times
I don't know if the sound was that bad. I was up on the balcony right on top of the P.A on Petrucci's side. But then again it was my first DT concerts o i probably did notice.
> I also saw them open for ELP/DP, and they >sounded good then also (although the sound was too quiet).
I hear you on this one. Deep Purple was so much louder compared to DT and that's with the pavilion filled. When DT played they didn't have half as many people there.
Eric Thibaut
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 16:35:14 -0800 From: Chris Oates <aspect@tinagh.org> To: ytsejam@axnet.net Subject: colors? Message-ID: <199901030041.SAA03696@dfw-ix9.ix.netcom.com>
someone said:
>You don't see Blue and then think "That's a >few wavelengths off from violet, and it's a ways away from green."
Actually, I do that for a lot of colors. Then again, I'm red/green colorblind, so I have to rely on relative color sense, as my absolute is messed up (thanks mom)
then someone else said:
>I believe the beginning chord structure for Lie is as follows: >A B B A (played once) >DABBA (repeat 6 times, said the monkey to the tree)
I always thought it was
Y A B B A D A B B A D O O
~Chris
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 20:50:23 -0500 (EST) From: Andrew Coutermarsh <a_couter@oz.plymouth.edu> To: Multiple recipients of list <ytsejam@axnet.net> Subject: NBC Gong Trivia Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.990102204856.19778A-100000@oz.plymouth.edu>
On Sat, 2 Jan 1999, Joshua Rasiel wrote:
> sixths: you know the NBC gong? the 'B' is a sixth. This was typically > the hardest to learn, until we were told of this trick. > > > Joshua Rasiel jrasi@bigfoot.com www.j51.com/~mrasiel > "Shop Smart. Shop...S-Mart!"
You know where the NBC gong came from? It was originally owned by the General Electric Company, so the notes that they played were: GEC.
------------------------------------------- Andrew Coutermarsh a_couter@oz.plymouth.edu http://oz.plymouth.edu/~a_couter/ ICQ: 2513441 ------------------------------------------- "In the New Year, hold your right hand out always in friendship, but never in want." -- Irish toast -------------------------------------------
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 03 Jan 1999 00:36:15 -0200 From: Fernando Rauber <ferer@conex.com.br> To: ytsejam@axnet.net Subject: Perfect Pitch Message-ID: <368ED79F.5624C8EC@conex.com.br>
> > Well, although the rest of his post was most accurate.....at > this point > >I think I must disagree with the mighty Ptacek. > > > > Perfect Pitch is genetic. I know because the two people I know > who have > >it just happen to be from the same family. One of them is a 12 year old > > >kid who was in the school play this year. There was one point in the > >play where he would have to start singing a song without ANY reference > >note and he would sing the EXACT note every single time. Later on we > >decided to start testing him with the piano and sure enough he would > get > >the right note immediately.
I must agree with you. Perfect pitch is in my opinion genetic. I am 14 and I have perfect pitch and my grandmother has it too. I never trained to get this, and I just started playing piano at 9.
[]s Fernando Rauber ICQ: 2281311 http://fast.to/frmp - Lots of progressive metal Real Audios and MP3s
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 03 Jan 1999 12:41:21 +1000 From: Luke Bateup <slslb@winshop.com.au> To: Ytsejam <ytsejam@axnet.net> Subject: Utopia and CDNow prices Message-ID: <368ED8D1.AF5A28EA@winshop.com.au>
Gaz wrote in reference to CDNow:
> Plus the really lousy exchange rate means > it really ain't worth buying from CDnow or any > US online store
True, the exchange rate sux, but if you hang out for the right time to shop at CDNow, like when they have a 30% OFF sale plus $10 OFF, you can pick up discs like OIAL, like I did, for $7.48 US like I did which (along with postage) converts to about $20 Aus. Way better than the $45 to $50 you pay for it on shelf over here.
> The best place to buy prog is right here in > Sydney at Utopia records, they are cheap enough > and you don't have to wait a week or so for your > stuff.
Damn right! When CDNow won't do, Utopia are awesome. A little $$$ on some of their Jap imports, but when you just have to have a disc, phoning these guys up, buying the disc over the phone and having them mail it express overnight post to you so it's waiting for you in your letter box the next day... well, you just can't beat.
So do you US citizens... whoops, sorry - YANKS, have anything CD stores that stock all the hard to find prog on shelf? We've got two of them here in Australia.
Luke.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 21:54:49 EST From: AyameYuki@aol.com To: ytsejam@axnet.net Subject: Re: Cursed Perfect Pitch!" Message-ID: <13d50422.368edbf9@aol.com>
yadda yadda yadda,
hey jammers...i am fortunate to have perfect pitch ( and i was forced to take tests from 9 different teachers to prove it ) and from experience, its a real curse when some random person comes up after you do a in house school performance for class credit and they come face to face and whine " sing a B flat for me PLEEEAAASSSE ", even after youve sung in front of a school youve never heard of. and so what if the teacher points you out on stage and brag " nicole here has perfect pitch. and here's my idea. Nicole, hum a B natural for us! " and there i was...mortified at the age of 9, at this request. i mumble " mrs. davis? just play the piano. NOW! " and she was like " ok, i guess she wont be sharing her talent with us today ".
anyway, after that experience, i ended up doing weekly assemblies for the next 6 years. and yes, i have done things like performing a standing room only concert in yellow or green sweats ( school colors...so i was a little weird..still am). While they do seem odd, ive got many more. and e mail me privately ( AyameYuki@aol.com ) if you wanna know the easiest ways out of getting through a botched performance.
enough story time... back to your original programming.
Nicole
END OF STORY> OH NO WAY!~
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1999 21:55:45 EST From: AyameYuki@aol.com To: ytsejam@axnet.net Subject: Re: YTSEJAM digest 4535 Message-ID: <b85b3ba1.368edc31@aol.com>
Crackpot ? why lisa, i didnt know you cared~! what's a mosh crackpot anyway> roadkill on ice >
one baffled jammer,
Nicole
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1999 19:19:30 -0800 From: Lisa Marie <ytsegirl@pacbell.net> To: ytsejam@axnet.net Subject: Re: YTSEJAM digest 4535 Message-ID: <3.0.32.19990102191907.00a431f4@postoffice.pacbell.net>
At 07:14 PM 1/2/99 -0800, you wrote: > >Crackpot ? why lisa, i didnt know you cared~! what's a mosh crackpot anyway> >roadkill on ice > > >one baffled jammer, > >Nicole
Hehe, I care more than you think, so I'll clue you in.
As well as being a first-class pimp, Dr. Mosh is also our resident crack supplier. So welcome to the family, and give Mosh back his crack pipe already! ;o)
I think Korg needs to borrow it after that Campbell's Mystery Soup encounter.
Lisa Marie "Jessie" ytsegirl@pacbell.net http://www.dreamt.org/jessie _______________________________ Ytsejam Radio Broadcast http://www.dreamt.org/ytseradio
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1999 00:00:27 -0500 (EST) From: Jens Johansson <jens@panix.com> To: Multiple recipients of list <ytsejam@axnet.net> Subject: Re: Argh! You're making my brain bleed! Message-ID: <Pine.GSU.4.03.9901022335190.27387-100000@panix2.panix.com>
On Sat, 2 Jan 1999, Christopher Ptacek wrote:
> More importantly though, why do you insist that something has only > the genetic component, without researching any other possibility?
It's a common fallacy. People need to read up on their science.. sigh.
> If you do have perfect pitch, which I have begun to doubt, just on > a hunch, it's no more natural than anyone who gains it from careful study.
There's an interesting issue regarding perception at the bottom of this, but it's already extremely off topic.. (I'd recommend Dennett's "Conscioussness Explained" or many of Oliver Sacks' great books...)
> I suppose my cynicism may have something to do with the fact that I'm > still waiting for the names of those two German composers who wrote music > with 12th notes.
. what!?
(I filter this list and may have missed a thing or two)
> > ..and to the CD's in the cold thing..yeah...any type > > of weather ( in my opinion ) can screw up a CD compared to the first time > > you listened to it...
True if it concerns heat damage that renders it unplayable, false otherwise.
> > mood, and you get angry and ask " WHY wont the fucking CD play right! it > > sounded lower before! what's up with this CD? "
That would be the player malfunctioning, not the CD.
> I'm not the list scientist. I need Rogerio and Al and a couple > other folks to back me up here... but that can't occur according to my > understanding. The sound quality can arguably be different, but speeding > a cd's spin up or slowing it down will not change the pitch.
Right. Speeding it up or speeding it down in a way it's not supposed to be sped up or down will simply cause it to misread the data, lose the tracking and mute the sound.
But, as a matter of fact, during normal play, the rotation speed has to be adjusted continually.. the pits on the CD are recorded at a constant tangential velocity. (That's why it spins slower in the beginning of the CD.. when the head is closer to the center)
> Perfect pitch is really helpful, but relative pitch is essential. We > all have some level of relative pitch. If you can sing a song without > accompaniment, you're using relative pitch.
I find perfect pitch overrated, relative pitch invaluable. But then I can't claim to have perfect pitch, at the most a good guess now and then! :) My brother does -- mainly plays the drums, a pitchless instrument -- ouch, such a waste. ;)
> he'll never forget that feeling. :) It made me realize how amazingly > helpful Perfect Pitch would be on instruments like guitar or bass, where > it isn't as immediate and easy to see what note you're playing.
Right, it also gets confusing when it comes to communication note names when you play with drop-tuned string players.. "no, then it goes to, ahem, I guess it would be A flat for you"
> I have a friend who sees colors and patterns in an animated state > in his head when he listens to music. It's dictated by the timbre of the > instrument and what's being played. Works sort of like a spectrum > analyzer, and it's always the same kind of pattern each time he hears a > particular song. THAT is weird.
They call it 'synaesthesia', there was some discussion about it on the music-dsp list yesterday.. :)
(I think you can induce this type of effect with certain drugs.)
Jens. <jens@panix.com> (http://www.panix.com/~jens/)
------------------------------
End of YTSEJAM Digest 4536 **************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Thu Apr 01 2004 - 18:09:36 EST