Entertainment For Lively Minds
Let's conduct a musical experiment.
For years I've always been secretly impressed by what I thought was an unusual musical gift. We all 'play' music in our heads when there's none on and I noticed that I 'hear' the songs in my head in the same key as the record. However, reading Oliver Sack's Musicophilia, I discover that it's quite common.
"We do, of course, listen selectively,with differing interpretations and emotions, but the basic musical characteristics of a piece - its tempo, its rhythm, its melodic contours, even its timbre and pitch - tend to be preserved with remarkable accuracy."
So let's experiment. First of all we need to select music that we all know so I'd suggest the introduction to the podcast. DON'T LISTEN TO IT YET. Here's what to do:
1. Cue up the podcast but don't start it.
2. Play the theme music it in your head.
3. Start it up and check whether you heard it in the right key.
4. Let me know how it went.
BTW, if it doesn't work, don't blame the guitar player.
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Quite surprised but
I must say it worked for me. Surely can't be like that for everything can it?
not a scooby
owning a guitar (but making no claims to be a guitar player) i have a vague notion that yer simple three chord trick (E, A, B for example) transposes to "different keys" (here be monsters) so you can play the same thing with A, D, E or G, C, D and I always assumed those were three different "keys" depending on where you started (E for EAB, or A for ADE or G for GCD respectively) but to be honest i haven't the foggiest ... and as for identifying which key a piece of music is in (Heartbreak Hotel's in E isn't it? But could be transposed to anything really, so let's say A) i haven't a clue
[ which key? i can't even tell if it's one of those Holiday Inn swipecards... ]
I kind of imagine it's all to do with everything bearing the same relationship to each other, so the song is internally consistent, no matter where you start, sort of
people who know much better than i do, please point out my elementary errors - i'd be grateful
Yep, heard it in the right key.
And Glenbervie - yes, you're right that any piece of music can be transposed into any key successfully as long as you maintain, as you say, the chords'/melody lines' relationships with one other.
What peter's asking is rather different, though: he wants to know if, when you hear the podcast theme in your head by silently thinking about it, is your "internal singing" at the right pitch? As in, do you start accurately on the same note, instinctively, as Mark does in the actual recording, without hearing the recording first?
er, well, sort of
but how can i possibly know? isn't that a bit like saying i expect Macallan to taste sherried or Aberdeen's shirts to look red?
(My concept of sherried taste, or perception of redness might actually be a wee bit different to anyone else's ... Just as i can hear the doot doot doot intro to the podcast in my mind and in my mind it *sounds* right, i haven't a clue which note it starts on, for example)
Well, how about....
...doing what I did. Sing the podcast tune (it's Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant", fact fans!) out loud to yourself without actually listening to the real thing. Go back to the first note you sang, from the start of the song. Hold it. Keep singing that note, out loud, to yourself. Now press play on the podcast. Is "your" note the same as the one that starts the 'cast?
Quite proud
I hadn't listened to the podcast since Friday morning. This is my attempt at singing the theme music BEFORE checking how it really sounds - pretty close.
Guessing podcast music by Joe Dumont
(BTW I play guitar and sing. The singing's normally better than this.)
Good man, Joe.
The bottle to expose your voice to the massive. I'm usually scared enough exposing my grammar.
Thanks!
I wouldn't say I'm particularly proud of this as a vocal performance (in fact listening back I'm fairly horrified - esp around 8 seconds in when I start to sound like a strange cross between Homer Simpson and Harry Hill) but I did feel quite chuffed at getting a semblance of the correct pitch/key.
Think I got it
But I'll Songify it anyway
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/songify/id438735719?mt=8
Spot on
I can usually identify the chords or notes being played once I've heard them and can recall them at will as they all have a unique and identifiable sound to my "inner ear". An absolutely useless talent when I can't remember where I put something five minutes ago, though.
I was fairly sharp...
...and I think most people, if they're honest, wouldn't hit it spot on. Surely that, or thereabouts, is the definition of perfect pitch, which I would have thought is relatively uncommon?
I wouldn't claim perfect pitch
but once I've "learnt" a tune after a couple of hearings I seem to store the original key in my memory too. I couldn't tell you what an individual note is in isolation so easily but I've done it in the past.
I offered my services to accompany someone once and took my guitar along to be handed a tab sheet. No sooner had we started than to my horror the singer started singing in the wrong key. I realised what was happening and started transcribing the notes on the fly but my unfortunate bandmate was left floundering.
I think perfect pitch...
... is being able to hear a note (not necessarily sing), and to be able to say what it is. Or, according to the FPO, to be able to sing any note in the scale without any reference to other notes.
Excellent
experiment though, and any excuse for a bit of Alice's Restaurant...
Duh!
Am I just stupid - and I will say up front and openly I know very little technically about music, I just listen to it - or is this obvious? If you can remember music and therefore would recognise it as being in the original key when you hear it again, wouldn't you therefore "play" it in your head as you know it?