Do You Consider That Each Note Has A Different Character? by Graham English

Do You Consider That Each Note Has A Different Character?

February 7, 2006

Ross: Hi, do you consider that each note has a different character? If so, have you found that the same qualities of the same notes are heard by different people (eg. F# = bright, Eb = dull)? If not, what do you see as the point of learning AP besides using it as a party trick? I have found that I am able to recognize notes on intruments and in my own voice by their unique characteristics (characteristics are the same no matter which intrument)

Graham: Hi Ross. F# and Eb have characteristics that are easy to point out to the newbie. Beyond that, I avoid naming each note’s characteristics other than by actual note name, i.e. C, D, Eb, etc. Adding more and more mental concepts to the notes just gets in the way of simply being able to name the note when you hear it, I believe anyway.

I think having a precise ear helps you hear and play precisely. That, to me, is much more than a party trick. I avoid ever mentioning absolute pitch in interpersonal settings because it brings up so much baggage. People can be jealous or start trying to stump you and throw you off or whatever. It’s not worth bragging about.

But AP is worth having simply because if you can play what you hear, then you’re miles ahead of average musicians - and even some more experienced musicians.

AP makes transcribing music and figuring out what other artists are doing much easier and faster. And again, your musical imagination is easily translated into actual music that people can listen to.

I find that motivation to have AP is a personal thing. We all have our own reasons. Some of mine are:

I solo better
I write and compose better
I arrange music better
I adapt better in live music situations
I’m not limited by habit
I’m able to move beyond technical know how into playing what I feel

Geez, there’s so much more. But really I’m curious why everybody else wants AP? Please comment.

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Hi Graham,

I did notice that each tone has a diferent character. I started practicing my ears on guitar, which is my main instrument, and I had some improvements. Then, I decided to get a keyboard to practice my ears and maybe learn some piano too. Since the begining, I noticed that for me is much more easy to HEAR the qualities of each tone on piano than on my own guitar. So I started to hear and feel these qualities. For example: G is a shallow note, very weak, almost dying. A is much more deep than G, and rounded too, and it catches my ear and atention. B is like A, but not so deep and I feel some edge on it. D catches my atention too, but is not rounded like A , it is a smaller note. E is kinda rounded too, but not deep like A. These are the feelings that I have for the notes. What is weird for me is that I have been playing guitar for about 18 years, and I never really thought about the notes in this way, although I started practicing my ears about 4 years ago, after a few months I gave that up, then since December I’ve been studying daily, which was when I got the keyboard. Sometimes I ask myself: Should I give up my guitar and switch to piano? But I don’t have the same skills on piano…
I do play some music by ear,both on guitar and piano. But just some licks, or intros, sometimes the whole song. I also play music that I hear in my mind, mostly children songs, but I don’t care because that is the way that we develop our ears.
Another interesting fact: I don’t know why, but for me is easier to hear/develop absolute pitch than relative pitch. And I have been studying both together.
I think I’m on the right path to develop AP and RP, and when I get these two skills, I will come back and share the experience with you.

Cheers,

Alessandro Shinoda.

23 comments on “Do You Consider That Each Note Has A Different Character?”

- micah said:
- Apr 29th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
I would like to know AP. IF it was able to truely make me correspond those with frets on my guitar. Otherwise it won’t help me in an improv nearly as much as my knowing all the scales/modes that I know.

- Graham English said:
- Apr 29th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
When it comes to improvisation, the connection between absolute pitch and your frets isn’t really the point. It’s about knowing exactly how to play what’s in your imagination. Knowing your scales and modes is very important. But once you know your theory, your imagination should dictate what to play. It’s like what Bird said, “Master your instrument. Master the music. And then forget all that bullshit and just play.”

So I believe that it’s important to master your instrument AND your ear. If you only master your instrument, then you’ll sound mechanical. But if you master both, then you’ll BE a master. Good luck.

- jonathan said:
- Jul 25th, 2006 at 3:55 pm
I am learn to transcribe things like mandolin concertos for guitar by ear. It is Fun!

- Graham English said:
- Jul 25th, 2006 at 4:05 pm
Cool. I’ve learned most of my “real world” music theory from transcribing. Plus, it’s one of the most practical ways to keep my ear sharp. It is fun, isn’t it?

- Aripitch said:
- Aug 7th, 2006 at 9:35 am
I agree with everything that is on this page! Graham, I never bring up the fact that I have AP, others usually find out, but I never bring it up in person because I have experienced situations where people try to stump me. Usually they will play 10 notes, together on the piano and laugh when I make a mistake! Sometimes people will ask me to name a note, not realizing that the piano is too sharp or too flat and then say that I must have “perfect-relative” pitch when my guess is a semi-tone away from the correct answer. People also ask me to analyze notes from analog data, such as cell-phones which can be difficult because they are sometimes between two pitches or in ‘quartertones’.

By the way, what is a way to overcome and obtain the ability to name atonal chords when played?

- Graham English said:
- Aug 7th, 2006 at 9:55 am
By the way, what is a way to overcome and obtain the ability to name atonal chords when played?

Practice, practice, practice.
Seriously though, these are simply unfamiliar sounds to your ear. Spend a few minutes a day at the piano playing atonal chords and listen for the individual pitches. Try to turn up the volume of each individual pitch in the beginning. When you become about 80% correct, start working on your speed.

Also, consider the 80/20 rule: 80% of your musical development comes from 20% of the things you practice. But are atonal chords 80% of the music you write? Said in another way, are atonal chords really important to your music? Are they part of the 20% that brings the biggest value to your music? If so, by all means, study them. If not, make sure they’re practiced relative to what’s really important to you.

- David Marley said:
- Mar 2nd, 2007 at 10:43 am
Hi Graham,
Fascinating stuff on tonal characteristics. The research on children choosing a colour on a colour spectrum for individual notes is also intriguing.
My own opinion is that it is the interval between notes which creates the emotional reaction. Perfect thirds versus minor thirds is obvious but all the intervals can do the same.
Great blog!
David Marley

- Graham English said:
- Mar 2nd, 2007 at 11:40 am
To me, intervals hold their own emotion. I like to think of it vertically and horizontally. If I was to play a minor third by itself, it would have a unique emotion (vertical). If I play it after hearing another interval (horizontal), which puts it in a different context, then it will have different emotion.

It’s the same with single pitches, I believe. Listen to an F after hearing a D and it sounds different than after hearing a D flat. It still has it’s Fness, but it also has something else. These are the distinctions I think we need to listen for. It really refines our musical perception.

Thanks for the comments David. Glad you like the blog.

- Donald Gibson said:
- Mar 20th, 2007 at 9:34 am
I am a first year student with limited skills in playing the guitar. In my class I have to dictate, wirite and compose music. I woke up one morning with this amazing melody in my head. But before I could write it down, it was gone. Had I known perfect pitch I could have at least written down the first couple of phrases in my brain then transferred them to staff paper later. I never want that to happen again.
I also believe that AP will allow you to be more creative (improvise) on your instrument of choice while playing.

- Graham English said:
- Mar 20th, 2007 at 10:48 am
Thanks for the comment, Donald. It’s so true. The biggest missing piece in creativity is being able to execute what you imagine. With a highly refined ear, that shouldn’t be a problem. Nor should forgetting what you imagined, because there’s an added benefit of understanding what you heard in a different way, i.e. being able to write it down or at least imagine it written down.

- Nolwe said:
- Apr 28th, 2007 at 2:36 am
For me, I’d really like to acquire AP for the sake of transcribing (I like to record myself improvising to take those ideas and, once I can write them down, work them into a written piece, for example) and also to help with composition in general. The ideas are there, but sometimes it’s difficult to get them down on paper without the outside help of an instrument, or sometimes it’s just difficult to remember what all I was wanting to do.

- Graham English said:
- Apr 28th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Great point, Nolwe. It’s so much nicer not to have to rely on an instrument to compose or transcribe. And I’ve had this discussion before with people about how having AP seems to improve your musical memory. Maybe it’s not exactly your memory that’s improving, but if you hear music and can identify it on the spot, then you have a better chance of retaining it. It’s like hearing a conversation in your native language or a foreign language. You could memorize the foreign language after a couple of listens if you had some serious skiills, but it would be very difficult. However, getting the gist of the conversation in your native language would be pretty easy.

- Thomas D said:
- Jul 11th, 2007 at 6:31 am
No-one needs AP to be able to write down music. You just need knowledge of intervals and pitches relative to the key centre (tonic). If you’re working with instruments at different pitch standards, which happens a lot in the world of ‘early music’, AP can be an absolute handicap.

Learn to sing every interval in the octave and you’re almost done! This was the way people were taught to sing in the days before pianos: you got a little instrument called a monochord which could only sound two notes at once, a fixed keynote and one other which you could choose. Then you just learnt the intervals of the scale backwards, forwards and every which way.

Music isn’t in the absolute pitches, it’s in the relationship of one pitch to another. AP is just a mechanical convenience for people who don’t use any pitch standard outside A=440.

- Graham English said:
- Jul 11th, 2007 at 9:38 am
Thomas, nobody said that you need AP to write down music. So do you have AP? To me, it sounds like you don’t from what you have written. So how can you begin to speculate what it’s like to have absolute pitch or that having it is an “absolute handicap.” Even if you were partially correct, logic would tell us that it can’t be an absolute handicap.

Again, nobody said that music is in the pitches. And AP is not just a mechanical convenience, it’s another way of hearing music. And from the words of all of my students, it’s a way of hearing music that is beneficial.

If you don’t want to have absolute pitch, there’s nothing wrong with that. But this blog is about helping people achieve their musical goals. It’s not about telling them that their goals are no good. Please respect the aspirations of my readers.

- Jeff said:
- Dec 3rd, 2007 at 2:20 am
Hi Graham. I have always wanted to learn AP. I think that it is the answer to most road blocks that one could encounter in musical performance. I have a somewhat good ear, but it is still hard for me to learn things by ear. I have always wanted to feel free when performing, like knowing what your going to play before you play it. I want to start composing in the future, and I just think of all the endless songs I could compose if I had AP. It is a wish of mine to attain it. I’m 17, and have been playing piano since grade school. I would buy your course in an instant, but I have no money. I’m always looking for free tips on what to do to try to learn AP, but so far I have not found non that would work or be good enough. Your course that you have to offer looks very educational. Maybe someday I can have AP in my grasp for all my musical needs.

Thanks for your time,
-Jeff

- dati said:
- Dec 24th, 2007 at 8:15 pm
hi graham i need help
i have trouble with Rhythm,if you have any skills for my pleas tell my if you can.

- Graham English said:
- Dec 24th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
dati, you’ll definitely have to be more specific. Contact me with the details of your problem and I’ll see if I can help. But if you can’t be very specific, then there’s no way I can help.

- Alessandro said:
- Mar 22nd, 2008 at 7:08 am
Hi Graham,

I did notice that each tone has a diferent character. I started practicing my ears on guitar, which is my main instrument, and I had some improvements. Then, I decided to get a keyboard to practice my ears and maybe learn some piano too. Since the begining, I noticed that for me is much more easy to HEAR the qualities of each tone on piano than on my own guitar. So I started to hear and feel these qualities. For example: G is a shallow note, very weak, almost dying. A is much more deep than G, and rounded too, and it catches my ear and atention. B is like A, but not so deep and I feel some edge on it. D catches my atention too, but is not rounded like A , it is a smaller note. E is kinda rounded too, but not deep like A. These are the feelings that I have for the notes. What is weird for me is that I have been playing guitar for about 18 years, and I never really thought about the notes in this way, although I started practicing my ears about 4 years ago, after a few months I gave that up, then since December I’ve been studying daily, which was when I got the keyboard. Sometimes I ask myself: Should I give up my guitar and switch to piano? But I don’t have the same skills on piano…
I do play some music by ear,both on guitar and piano. But just some licks, or intros, sometimes the whole song. I also play music that I hear in my mind, mostly children songs, but I don’t care because that is the way that we develop our ears.
Another interesting fact: I don’t know why, but for me is easier to hear/develop absolute pitch than relative pitch. And I have been studying both together.
I think I’m on the right path to develop AP and RP, and when I get these two skills, I will come back and share the experience with you.

Cheers,

Alessandro Shinoda.

- Graham English said:
- Mar 22nd, 2008 at 10:49 am
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Alessandro. You’re hearing is becoming more refined. Feels good, doesn’t it?

- Chan said:
- Aug 15th, 2008 at 6:46 am
I am not sure what you mean by characteristics.. Judging the comments above(its same on all instruments) I don’t think its timbre. I mean, in what way do you notice the difference..? Is it the actual tone of the instrument or is it something that I don’t know about.

Thanks

- Graham English said:
- Aug 15th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Hi, Chan. I’m don’t understand the question. When it comes to “characteristics,” I stated, “I avoid naming each note’s characteristics other than by actual note name.”

If you can clarify the pronouns in your comment, I could try to answer your question.

- Chan said:
- Aug 16th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
What I mean by characteristics is how you hear the notes differentely, the one that determines which note it is. like the guy above said G might be almost dying and Eb might be dull. Is there a special property of each note and if there is, where do you feel it?

- Graham English said:
- Aug 17th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
The experience of a single note is different for everybody. You’ll have to listen and make the distinctions for yourself and learn from your own experience. It’s well worth it.

Graham English