Where do you get your VG sheet music?

[Nekofrog]

Your comparison is flawed, and please stop quoting wikipedia.

I can honestly say that after reading this sentence I looked up to see if you were addressing BlueFox (as if he had been unbanned).

[Lunahorum]

I wasn't quoting wikipedia. Let me clarify my argument with a concrete example.

At piano lessons, there are two guys: Bill and Michael who have perfect pitch. If I play any note, say a Bb all by itself without any warmup, they will say Bb. This is known as perfect pitch: identifying a note without a reference tone. With the ease that we can separate the color red from the color blue, they can separate Bb from the other notes.

I also played chords for both of them. Bill got almost all of the individual notes inside the chords right but Michael did not do nearly as well. Sure enough Michael has perfect pitch, but he gets confused when more than one note is played at a time. Bill has better perfect pitch than Michael. This is where my argument about there being a grey area stems from.

edit:

Here are some analogies from the sound world to the vision world. I talked with Bill and he said this is about how it works. He also made sure to point out that he is NOT actually seeing colors. He is "seeing" colors in the sense that he can tell the notes apart. Although some people do see colors, but that is another topic called synthenesia (where your senses are crossed I guess).

Here are those analogies -

[Tensei]

Synthenesia would be an awesome name for a softsynth but I digress (it's called synesthesia by the way, and it's another really interesting topic).

You seem to miss my point. I was saying that to me it seems that the ability to analyze chords by ear is one that is mostly unrelated to having absolute hearing (I'm basing this on what I read in the book 'Musicophilia' by Oliver Sachs, it's a great read on this kind of topics) and is one that can be learned through training (i.e. The recognition of intervals, and thus, chords, is known as relative pitch, which can be trained)

To me, absolute hearing is as simple as that, the ability to recognize the exact pitch of a note without any reference, nothing more, nothing less.

[Fishy]

Bill has better perfect pitch than Michael. This is where my argument about there being a grey area stems from.

If you've ever met someone with perfect pitch, you'll know theres no such thing as a grey area. It doesn't matter if its 12 notes in a horribly dissonant chord and they don't know what the notes are called. You give them a piano and about 15 seconds, they'll show you how to play it.

[Lunahorum]

Synthenesia would be an awesome name for a softsynth but I digress (it's called synesthesia by the way, and it's another really interesting topic).

You seem to miss my point. I was saying that to me it seems that the ability to analyze chords by ear is one that is mostly unrelated to having absolute hearing (I'm basing this on what I read in the book 'Musicophilia' by Oliver Sachs, it's a great read on this kind of topics) and is one that can be learned through training (i.e. The recognition of intervals, and thus, chords, is known as relative pitch, which can be trained)

To me, absolute hearing is as simple as that, the ability to recognize the exact pitch of a note without any reference, nothing more, nothing less.

I fully agree with you that identifying chords has nothing to do with perfect pitch. Where did you get the idea that I said analyzing chords by ear was perfect pitch? Are you even reading my posts? Sorry to be such an ass, but I never said that or at least never meant to.

[Tensei]

I fully agree with you that identifying chords has nothing to do with perfect pitch. Where did you get the idea that I said analyzing chords by ear was perfect pitch? Are you even reading my posts? Sorry to be such an ass, but I never said that or at least never meant to.

Analyzing Chords = Recognizing the notes and intervals that make up the chord = what you were talking about here? VVV

but when chords are thrown in there, they can get confused and make mistakes whereas other people don't get confused by chords as much.

[Lunahorum]

Ok you are right. I think I meant to say analyzing the notes inside the chords. Sorry about that.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

Have I at ANY moment even ALLUDED to chords? Being able to recognize chords and intervals can be learned, afaik it has jack shit to do with perfect pitch, aside from the fact that people with absolute hearing will be able to exactly name the root note.

and actually, according to your terms (which I give a thumbs-up to) even people with relative pitch should be able to do this.

this topic has been derailed, but this is all very interesting to me. (b^^)b

it's a good point that people who play guitar would naturally gravitate toward remembering what the open strings sound like. makes sense.

another tidbit->sometime I find myself using "muscle memory" (not really muscle memory) to help myself remember sounds. Like I'll visualize a key on the piano, or do the fingerings on a woodwind instrument, and it'll help me remember what that's supposed to sound like.

terminology is a -little- fuzzy here but I think we all understand what we're talking about now.

[SnappleMan]

Having absolute pitch is not necessary in becoming a good musician. Relative pitch IS necessary. You need to be able to identify pitches, chords and intervals, otherwise you'll be guessing at everything you do, not good eats. Also, understanding rhythm is just as important, this helps you plot a song out in terms of time as well as sound, and gives you many more options when deciding on the pacing and pulse of the song.

And to stay on topic, I have to agree and disagree with what Analoq said. How much of the original song you learn depends on your remixing style. I do very conservative arrangements, and for that I have to transcribe a song exactly into MIDI. I've never found sheet music or MIDIs for songs that were 100% correct, so the only way I've ever known to arrange music has been to write the song out myself (I'm OCD in that regard, I can't do it any other way). I mean, there are limits, I don't shift the pitch of SNES remixes sharp by a few cents to match the SNES hardware being slightly off pitch... yet...

[Lunahorum]

Excellent contribution Snapple. Relative pitch is pretty crucial. I don't know how everyone else trains their ears, but I can highly recommend the David Lucas Burge Relative Pitch course. I don't know how good the perfect pitch course is?? but the relative pitch course has taught me a lot! I can identify intervals by ear quickly without having to using mnemonics like "That's here comes the bride - a 4th". I can also identify chords. Major, minor, dim, aug, min7, maj7, 7, 7b5, aug7, maj9th, min9th, maj6th, min6th by ear. I haven't finished the course yet though. It is hard.

[OceansAndrew]

Depends on the remix i'm doing. Oftentimes the song I want to remix doesn't have any sort of sheet music or midi available, so I end up transcribing it myself. However, since I am transcribing with the intent to remix, I only take the parts I want to use; mainly the chord progression and the melody. If there is a cool counterpoint part I want to use, i'll write that down as well.

I don't think i've ever transcribed any percussion of any sort, as it's more fun for me to write my own parts.

Other times, transcribing something would be too inefficient for how I like to work so I grab a midi.

http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/nes/kiwi-g.mid

is a pretty good example. It's something I could do, but it'd take me forever.

[analoq]

And to stay on topic, I have to agree and disagree with what Analoq said. How much of the original song you learn depends on your remixing style.

That's not a disagreement. What I said was that one only needs to pick out the parts of the original they need for their remix. If you do more conservative arrangements then yeah, you'll be picking out more than I would need.

Before I did remixing I transcribed to MIDIs for vgmusic-like sites, which to me is a very different process from remixing. If that's part of your process, fine, but I stand by my earlier claim that it's not necessary.

cheers.

[SnappleMan]

I must have interpreted that differently then, my mistake. Either way, it's always beneficial to learn the song rather than using a midi or existing sheet music. It really helps with the arranging process.