Relative and Absolute Pitch training??

[Trevor Bjorklund]

This.

The real question may not be where is "A", but where is "A" in relation to "E" or "F" and in what relationship within the harmonic structure, 5th, 3rd or 7th.

I totally agree that the piano is a VERY imperfect instrument and actually I dislike the sound of certain kinds of music played on it. But it is usually the only instrument that most of us (and certainly most of my students) can get our hands on that can accurately and consistently reproduce intervals and chords. We don't have professional ensembles sitting around in our practice rooms ready to play notes and chords for us. I, personally, hate computer-produced "musical sounds" as they tend to sound quite sterile and do not (in my opinion) accurately recreate the sound or feel of pitches produced on an acoustic musical instrument.

The fact is that everything in music is context-specific and very flexible - perfect pitch-havers know that there is a range of a particular pitch, much the same way there is a range of shades of a color like "dark" vs. "light" red, for example. I love watching a trombone section play passages in highly chromatic tonal music where one of them, usually the second chair, is playing the same letter-named "pitch" over and over again but the chords keep changing, so his pitch's role keeps changing, so his slide keeps subtly moving up and down. A=440 rarely holds throughout an entire piece - the temperature of a room tends to go up in many venues as more people breathe and move and play in it, among many other factors. You still have to be able to play in tune!

Any musician can be trained to hear intonation in all sorts of various ways... whether piano (equal temperament) tuning, meantone, etc. In fact, it has to be flexible in music that features non-triadic harmony; intervals will have to be re-learned in order to "sound good." What is important is having a good teacher and later good colleagues/directors with good ears.

[fairweathertuba]

I have a choir buddy who is very certain she has perfect pitch. In fact she can sing a called note at will and it will match up the that note on the piano. However she inevitably sings a few cents flater than the ensemble. Of course it is obviously we who are sharp. She has a beautiful voice but no one other than she can enjoy it due to her pitch eccentricies.

Exactly, there is nothing inherently great about being "right" all the time. Relative pitch is much more important in a lot of contexts, but absolute pitch cannot be totally ignored either.

About the OP, if you just spend some time every day with relative pitch ear training on your tuba you will improve. Play a note sing it, try to sing an interval above or below, test it with the instrument. It's not rocket science, no need to rush out and buy an expensive ear training program right away, nothing wrong with doing so though.

Personally I would not spend any money on something that promises to give you perfect pitch, especially if it happened to come on cassette tapes or some other untunable format. It seems if you want perfect pitch you would have to work with perfect pitch like on a well tuned piano, electronic keyboard, guitar or some other instrument that comes very very close to staying perfectly in tune almost 100% of the time.

Also to the OP, if you want to improve your tuba intonation it's a good idea to just sit down with a tuner and learn which notes are sharp and or flat on the particular instrument you are playing, then you need to be able to adjust those notes by pushing or pulling slides and or lipping the notes into close proximity to absolute pitch. If you can do this, it's a good beginning. You also need good general technique on the instrument, the ability to play long tones, to be able to play loud and soft etc.. You also need a fairly decent instrument.

Tubas usually do not play in tune without some kind of finagling going on by the player and sometimes it's nearly impossible to get certain notes dead on, constantly trying to improve upon what you are doing is a good goal though.

For instance if you are playing a BBb tuba and you know that in order to play your second space C in close proximity to being in tune that you either have to push in your 1st valve slide or lip the note up or possibly both or (heaven forbid) have to use an alternate fingering like 1+3 then you have to get used to doing so almost every time. I hope this answer doesn't seem silly or overboard but getting in tune does take a lot of practical application of basic technique.

[ken k]

buy a chromatic tuner like a korg or some similar model and sing whole note scales into it, while watching the guage and adjusting your pitch. start with just Do to re, over and over agin until you can her a good whole step (major second). then move to do - re - mi and do - me, etc... Sounds simple enough, but It is very hard to do at first, however with practice you will be able to hold the pitch steady and get the intervals in tune. play the same scale on the tuba. whole notes or longer at a time. You will be amazed at how out of tune your pitch ideas were.

Also everyday tune your horn to the reference pitch of you horn (Bb, C, Eb or F). Again sing it first into the tuner and then play it. Again you will be shocked at how out of tune the note was, which you thought was in tune.

I did this for about a month back in grad school and it completely changed my perspective on pitch. I occasionally do it to check myself now.

no charge for this lesson today....
k