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Date: Mon, 8 Oct 2001 11:55:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Winslow Yerxa
Subject: Burge course - snake oil or manna from heaven?

The David Burge course seems to inspire either
hosannas of adulation or bile:

Hosannas:

Larry Eisenberg
Mike Curtis

Bile:

David Harp
Glenn Weiser

I guess it helps some and turns other off.

While I am not one of the 2% with this mysterious
thing called perfect pitch, I have found that a form
of pitch memory developed on its own when I did a lot
of choral singing. After two or three years I found
that I could pick up a piece of choral music, start
singing the bass line, then go to the piano and find
that I was on pitch. Some combination of visiual cues
(the written music), muscle memory and aural memory
seemed to combine.

The ability to determine absolute pitch is something
I've never tried to cultivate, and I find that it
comes and goes. My relative pitch has always been
good, and I developed it with ear training, but
absolute pitch can be helpful nonetheless.

Will it help you or make you want to heave? Can't say.

Interestingly, harmonica players develop an
instrument-centered form of relative pitch. They can
usually hear which hole and breath and bend are being
played on diatonic, even if they don't know an
augmented third from a diminished octave. Also, the
timbre of the instrument can help you dial in the key,
from very bright and snappish for the high keys to
spongy and mellow for the low keys. A Bb harp always
sounds a little more "brawny" to me than an A-harp.

Likewise, on chromatic, I can usually tell what key
Toots is playing, just by listening for the patterns
he's playing. Where is the smooth same-breath major
second (A-B or Bb-C) relative to the key? Which notes
are being played as slide-in? What patterns are being
played as same-breath intervals, and which plane (blow
or draw, with slide use) can accomodate them? Where is
he blowing or drawing (visual clues are helpful, but
you can often tell without them). And so on.

Winslow

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