January 3rd, 2010
After reading what I wrote on the Pure Pitch Controversy, Ryan sent me a copy of the Pure Pitch Method so that I could write my own opinions on the product. This weekend I sat down for a few hours to see what all the fuss is about.
A- My Overall Grade
If you don’t want to read any more, here is my opinion in one score.
Things I didn’t like:
- It seems to move slowly, which is tedious for experienced musicians
- I prefer to read what I’m learning, so I’d appreciate more textual explanation
- It doesn’t do a good job of teaching students to recognize voices in the orchestra
From the perspective of an experienced musician like a Conducting Student or an instrumental soloist, you’ll find this to be lacking in advanced skill-building. I’d recommend you stick to the traditional methods: take a course or two at your local University.
What The Pure Pitch Method Does Really Well:
Lots of guided practice concrete examples- really the only way to learn intervals in my opinion
- Material builds very well upon previous material, everything is being constantly integrated
- Perfect Pitch Training uses several different anchor tones, I’ve seen several other courses which only use 1
- Most examples use Piano, Guitar, and sine waves, which helps separate the tone from the instrument
- You begin to actually learn the material very quickly
In summary, I think that this product is great for beginners who want to learn how to become great musicians. For somebody without much training, a very comprehensive course like this is necessary (although it’s much less time than I wasted in some college courses!) I think that the perfect pitch exercises will be helpful to both singers and instrumentalists.
Good Luck on your ear training!
- Carl
Tags: Anchor, Concrete Examples, Controversy, Ear Training, Exercises, Fuss, Good Job, Good Luck, Instrumental Soloist, Instrumentalists, Intervals, Local University, Musician, Musicians, Perfect Pitch Training, Piano Guitar, Sine Waves, Singers, Textual Explanation, Voices
Posted in Reviews | No Comments »
October 23rd, 2009
If you’re unaware of this conflict, your best bet is not to waste your time with the bickering. It’s just like any other transparent attack ad for a competing product. If you’ve read it and want a third-party analysis, read on.
Pure Pitch Method is a program that musicians can use to learn perfect and absolute pitch. Recently, it’s come into controversy because a competitor published a site attacking some of the methods. A friend of mine who is interested in learning to become a musician asked me to take a look at the article and see if there is any truth to the claims. I thought that maybe a lot of people would have questions for an independent third party review, so I decided to post it. Bosworth makes three general claims:
-Some intervals in the Pure Pitch Method are spelled incorrectly
Okay, this is getting into some pretty specific music theory. A scale is technically defined as any collection of notes. There are two very common scales, the major scale, and the minor scale, which are used in most music. In each key, there is a conventional spelling for the major and minor scales. For example the D major scale is usually spelled [D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#]. The scale spelled [D, E, Gb, G, A, B, Db] contains the exact same notes on a piano as the former, but is technically a different scale.
So on this point, Pure Pitch method ignores convention, and in the most technical sense spells some scales wrong. However, to the user, this makes absolutely no difference, and it may be easier to read and understand for a beginning musician.
-Pure Pitch Method is Marketed in Many Different Ways
It’s also true that Pure Pitch has an internet marketing program. It’s also true that every successful product has a marketing team. No denying it. However, we should take a step further and look at Mr.Bosworth’s site. This site is also a marketing site dedicated to a competing product. Check out the huge links all over the page. In fact all of the content of his site is geared toward gaining trust in order to sell a competing product.
When in politics does a competitor start launching attack ads? When he’s losing. So I have no direct knowledge of this, but it looks to me like the makers of the Pure Pitch competitors bought (or stole) rights to a professional musicians likeness, and then spent thousands on an attack site to steal customers from the Pure Pitch marketing efforts.
-Pure Pitch Method Does Not Teach Real Perfect Pitch
The attack site claims that Pure Pitch doesn’t teach real perfect pitch. Bosworth claims that he himself has true perfect pitch. But remember, he is a professional musician; he’s been playing the piano since infancy. I don’t really have time to spend 40 years learning it. Most of the people I know who have “real perfect pitch” have been playing music their whole lives. They also have parents who are musicians, so they started listening to musical instruments in the womb. However, I know lots of people who use relative pitch and anchor tones to perform every function they need.
Tags: Absolute Pitch, Best Bet, Br, Competitor, Conflict, Conten, Controversy, Conventional Spelling, Internet Marketing, Intervals, Lt, Major And Minor Scales, Many Different Ways, Marketing Program, Marketing Team, Music Theory, Musician, Musicians, Perfect Pitch, Piano, Technical Sense, Third Party, Truth
Posted in Reviews | No Comments »
September 16th, 2009
I want to start with a bit of basics for the beginning musicians out there. In music, there is a concept known as an interval. Intervals can be defined as the number of half steps between any two pitches. On a piano, these half steps are all the same. Some ensembles, especially string quartets, tune each interval separately, each slightly different. Some modern music, as well as some very old music (before the 18th century) is also played in different tuning systems. The most common intervals are:
- Minor 2nd- one half step
- Major 2nd- two half steps
- Minor 3rd- three half steps
- Major 3rd- four half steps
- Perfect 4th- five half steps
- Tritone (augmented 4th or diminished 5th)- six half steps
- Perfect 5th- seven half steps
- Minor 6th- eight half steps
- Major 6th- nine half steps
- Minor 7th- ten half steps
- Major 7th- eleven half steps
- Octave- twelve half steps
Again, on the piano, a half step is always the same, but in certain other situations they can be tuned differently. The ability to recognize and repeat each of these intervals is an ability that every musician must have. Being able to hear an interval and name it, or being able to sing an interval, is called relative pitch. Perfect pitch on the other hand refers to the ability to give specific note names when heard, or to sing a given pitch (middle C for example) without hearing any other notes.
Every talented musician has relative pitch (although some better than others), which means if they are given one pitch, then they can figure the rest out. Some elite musicians have perfect pitch (although this is never really required), which means they know every note without hearing any pitches.
Tags: Elite, Ensembles, Half Step, Half Steps, Interval, Intervals, Middle C, Modern Music, Musicians, Note Names, Octave, Old Music, Perfect Pitch, Piano, Pitches, Relative Pitch, Step 2, String Quartets, Talented Musician, Tuning Systems
Posted in Reviews | No Comments »
