3.7.6 Learning absolute pitch—a journal

I kept this journal, covering the brief period April 19th through July 3 of 2002 during which i attempted to develop absolute pitch.

In retrospect I believe that I might have made more progress had I kept it up. Several years later, i still believe that I have developed some slight degree of pitch memory. With concentration I am often able to at least find the right pitch level of a song I have often heard, or pick A440 out of the air by trying to remember its sound.

All-in-all the experience of trying to develop this skill was frustrating and discouraging. I don’t think it is really a worthwhile way to spend your time. But if you are dead-set, some of this might prove useful.

Friday April 12

First day.

Friday Apr 19 2002 21.03.05 Pacific Time

My intention for this document is that it serve as a chronicle of my attempt to develop absolute pitch.

A little background: I first became aware that such a thing might be possible in my freshman year at the University of Colorado as a composition major. I discovered a little book in the library called Perfect Pitch: Color Hearing for Expanded Musical Awareness, or something like that, by David Burge. Burge spoke about hearing "colors" in pitches, and about how easy it was. He gave exercises requiring a partner. I convinced a friend in the composition department to try. We listened for these "colors" and never heard anything. By never, I mean in the couple of hours, at most, over a few days that we devoted to it. Burge said some inkling of color awareness should be noticeable almost immediately but we both got nothing. I asked one of the faculty (Richard Toensing, the head of the composition department) if he had AP (absolute pitch). He had said some things listening to a piece of music that made me think he did ("the first bit sounded a bit like it was in F#, the second bit sounded like it’s in A . . . ," etc.). He said he didn’t.

"Can it be learned?"

"No."

I wasn’t sure, but since we hadn’t had any luck, I took that as good enough reason to give up.

I gave up.

That was about 1997. About a year ago I got interested again. There is an e-mail discussion group I found online (the developing_AP list at groups.yahoo.com[http://groups.yahoo.com], except that I think it was called something else then) that I found. I spent several nights at work reading the archive of posts until I had read every one. I found out about two tape courses—one for $19.95 by someone named Byron Duckwall, with two tapes, and another big expensive one by Burge. I didn’t have the money, but I ordered the Burge course anyway. It never arrived. I really don’t know if they ever charged me or not. I was in a bad state at the time, feeling overwhelmed with living in a new town. I had recently moved from Colorado to Seattle, for no good reason other than I was bored and depressed. I was depressed because I had left CU a year earlier without finishing my degree. I was not doing anything musical and was working a dull computer phone support job.

At any rate, I never got the course, and I felt discouraged again.

Now to the present. I have gotten serious. First I started reading developing_AP again. I looked for the Duckwall course but couldn’t find it retail any more. There was a used copy but they wanted fifty-five bucks for it. I read some accounts about developing AP. Nadia Boulanger apparently taught her students AP. I understand that in his Elementary Training for Musicians, Paul Hindemith says that he taught it and knows for a fact, thus, that it can be taught. Zoltan Kodaly apparently said he taught it. Most of their methods, from what I gather, involve either trying to call to mind a pitch whenever you are near a piano and then checking it, or doing the same thing with a tuning fork you carry around.

I bought a tuning fork tuned to A440 and was carrying it around for about a week. I was having some interesting success. I would try it whenever I thought of it. In the morning I had about 85 or 90% success—that is, right when I woke up. Later in the day I was often off up or down by as much as a minor third, though flat by a major second seemed the most common. I was correct certainly more than random chance would allow, and when I stopped to really think about it and try to really hear the tone in my head, I think I was right about 60% of the time.

It’s hard to judge, though. I think I need a more objective method of evaluating my progress. But at any rate, about three days ago I lost the fork. Not sure where it is. It may turn up again, though. Might just buy another one.

There is another method advocated by someone online. He says to go around to everything in your environment that makes a consistent tone (microwave beeps, telephones, humming refrigerators, etc) and find its pitch. Then make a list and commit the list to memory. Then, whenever you hear it in the future, say to yourself "that’s B" or "that’s C", etc. The idea is that AP is nothing but tonal memory, and the only trick is to learn to associate the tone with a label. I have tried a little, but I notice these pitches so infrequently, at least so far, that I don’t think there is any real effect.

So finally about a week and a half ago I re-ordered Burge’s course on 8 or nine CDs. It is called Burge 2.0 because there is evidently an earlier version (but not so early, I gather, as the little book I read at CU). I wouldn’t mind getting the first version and the old book as well, just for thoroughness. There is also an "Official Transcript of the Perfect Pitch Seminar" that was once in print. I don’t know anything about that. For that matter, I wouldn’t mind having the Duckwall tapes either. Can’t hurt, I guess.

I got the Burge 2.0 and started to listen. Tonight I am on MC4 ("Master Class" #4). The assignment is to get out the crayons, etc, and to try to make some visual representation of all 12 pitch classes.

I have been practicing a bit. There is an online program for developing AP called Prolobe at prolobe.com. I signed up and am up to level 3—F#, Eb, A, C. As I go I am slowly learning to shut off my RP (relative pitch) and try to hear the tones as unique. It’s not going too well, but I am just starting.

Burge and the rest seem to be very into the idea of pitch "color". Reading on the developing_AP list I am finding that the key seems to be finding some kind of way of forming an association with the sound of the pitch—color, texture, vowel sound, the sound of the name of the note, the sound of the sollfege name of the note, a feeling, emotion, metaphor of some kind. This is very difficult for me. I am too literal minded for this in a way. Or so I thought. What I have finally figured out is that it doesn’t matter if there really is any "color" in the pitch. If there isn’t then I have to pretend there is until there is. The point is to be consistent about it until there is something outside the note to mentally latch onto.

So having come to this conclusion I have decided to begin two things tonight. The first is to try self-hypnosis. I will try to induce a trance state and use auto-suggestion to give myself the idea that there really is some kind of distinguishing features of each pitch class.

I have never tried self-hypnosis, so this too is experimental. I read about it online. The short version is that I spend up to about half an hour relaxing as deeply as possible, then I will go through a count-down from 100 kind of thing to achieve a state of hypnosis, as described online, then I will try to remember the gist of a script I wrote for myself. It is trying to follow the advice I read about being specific, exact, first-person (‘I’, rather than ‘you’) and taking small, realistic steps. It is this:

• Each of the twelve chromatic tones has a specific, distinct, unique sound that is the same for that pitch in any octave and in any context, musical or otherwise.
• I am beginning to notice the individuality of the notes more and more.
• I am becoming more and more aware of the distinct attributes of tones. For example, Eb is mild, full and warm, like a cup or Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee; F# is twangy and vibrant—a little exciting and mysterious, like the background hiss on Dad’s old reel-to-reel tape player; and A is electric blue, cold but powerful and pure like a bolt of lightning.
• I am relaxed and content when I am practicing pitch recognition.

I am trying to make the specific descriptions of tones, while perhaps a bit arbitrary, as vivid as I can. The reference to my father (in terms I would have used when I was the age I was when I listened to his old reel-to-reel) is there to try to tie some emotive element into the associations. One of the people on developing_AP who seems to have had the most success (Rob Coleman, a.k.a. spacedawg) appears to have had a really vivid set of associations with the tones, so I am going to try to follow that. Ultimately I want to tie all five senses to each tone. What I have now is a bit arbitrary. Eb and F# is largely influenced by what Burge says about those tones. A is based on vague impressions from the tuning fork—which may be more timbre-related than pitch, but I don’t think it matters.

I know I can’t remember that whole script, so I will use an acronym: UNAR to try to remember. Unique, Notice, Awareness (with examples) Relax. The last bit, about relaxing is simply because I have trouble sticking with practice regimens—something essential with AP development, I gather, and I want to try to make the sessions a pleasure—like a break from my normal responsibilities, rather than another one of them. And also Burge says that relaxing while practicing is essential anyway.

The other thing I am beginning tonight is this journal.

I am going to develop AP or die trying.

Saturday Apr 20 2002 14.49.43 Pacific Time

So last night I did the self-hypnosis. I was very surprised how well it seemed to work. I was in a state like being asleep where you can’t feel your limbs and are pretty totally unaware of your surroundings. I only tensed a bit while trying to get the wording of my auto-suggestion right. I counted three, etc, to come out of it. I had given myself the suggestion that I would feel rested and ready to complete the crayon assignment from Burge MC4. When I got up I really did feel pretty good and went right downstairs and went for it. All told the hypnosis took about half an hour and the crayon assignment took about an hour.

I actually used water colors. I don’t know anything about water colors, which might be a good thing, because it kept me focused on the sounds and just getting the general impression of the sounds down, instead of fidgeting while trying to get it perfect.

I was pretty surprised and impressed with the results. For some of the tones I really as much used my preconceived vague associations with the pitches as anything else, but I think that’s probably okay for now. The results for some—like E and F and D and G really seemed to suggest the kind of colors/textures I have associated some of the pitches with—for whatever reason.

I think I am going to take this process another step or two. I want to, as I said, make associations with other senses as well, like taste, smell and so on. I also want to make verbal associations. I will make a list of everything I can think of for each pitch. Both concrete things and also vaguer, emotional stuff and metaphors and similes, etc. I want to have a really rich store of associations. But of course, the key is to do all of this while listening to the tones and trying to let the tones "tell" me what to associate it with. We’ll see.

Today I listened to MC5. There are three assignments depending on what you play. I am to play white-key thirds on the keyboard and try to sing them bottom to top. That’s it. Burge obviously has to really start at the beginning. This of course is nothing to me. I will spend one day’s 20 minute session on it for the sake of completeness and for the sake of warming up for what I am sure will be more elaborate things to come. I think I will therefore also do some of the stuff he says other instrumentalists are supposed to do. Monophonic instrumentalists are to play Cs and Ds listening closely and trying to hear the tones in their heads. That’s it. I can do that too. Also, guitarists are supposed to try to play individual open strings without trying to know which string they are playing by feel, and to learn them all by ear. This sounds more challenging.

I think I will try another hypnosis session before I try the guitar session. I don’t have a proper guitar, but I have an electric that I think I can play un-amped and get the same effect. I am not really a guitarist, but I have played around enough that I think it couldn’t hurt to try this.

I do have a vague inkling that I am hearing some differences between the tones. I will keep at it.

Since I listened to MC5 today, I think I will forgo further practice today except for one 8 minute session with prolobe level 3.

So, I now consider that I am doing the practice and learning AP. That is, I feel like I am beginning today the journey in earnest. Today Prolobe, tomorrow, white keys on the piano and nothing else. But no MC6 until I have done the instrumentalist and the guitar exercises successfully. I expect to listen to MC6 (hopefully) by about next weekend.

Saturday Apr 20 2002 15.41.59 Pacific Time

Instead of prolobe, which puts irritating time limits on you and keeps track of your scores for anyone to see, I tried a program I downloaded called PitchPlayer. It seems to be a pretty versatile program.

I believe I am starting to get the discipline to ignore my RP. I tried A, C Eb and F# on PitchPlayer as a test and I got exactly 25% right one time and a bit under that a second time. That’s just about what one would expect with random chance. Not a very encouraging sign. But maybe a prerequisite to listening for pitch color and improving. I was hurrying because of the attitude that prolobe gives you. For one last pitch, that I was sure I didn’t know from RP, I sat and played it over and over for about 3 minutes. Then I decided it sounded like a C and it was. Not exactly statistically relevant, but interesting. I think I have to slow down in order to listen properly.

Sunday Apr 21 2002 23.49.49 Pacific Time

I tried to do the 20 minutes of "unlocking" of the white-key thirds today. It was almost as easy as I had assumed. At first I occasionally would go too quickly and mistake the perfect fifth harmonic of the root for the actual root. So, playing a D and F I would sing F and A, or playing F and A I would sing D and F. Something like that, anyway. I quickly got to the point where I could do it pretty fast and perfectly, though. It’s pretty old hat. On the other hand, practicing piano, as I have been doing lately, and always being behind in my practice—scales and arpeggios a lot lately, I kept finding myself playing chords and then cadences and then arpeggios and then scales and more or less forgetting that I was supposed to be doing ear training. I have never really done ear training that I can remember. I was taught, or picked up the sound of scales when I was 7 or 8 playing piano. I never thought much about it and in college I never had to practice any more than the practice we got in class. So this whole thing of sitting down and doing ear training seems pretty weird. But good.

I won’t go into all my financial difficulties here. Suffice to say that my life is stressing me the hell out and I am worried where my next meal will be coming from, literally. Bering that in mind and the fact that I have always had the type of personality that gets obsessed with something for a little while and cannot think about or do anything else, and then burn out and change to something else, it is clear to me that this is an opportunity to do something different with AP development. Burge says that practicing much more than 20 minutes a day is actually negative, so I have to discipline myself to not practice any more than that. Today, despite all the forgetting and going off on pianistic tangents, I think I got about 20 minutes in… maybe only 10. I’m not sure. I have to be more focused, though. This is a sign that I was bored with the exercise and consequently not focused. Must focus. FOCUS!!! as they say on Kung Fu.

Anyway, the other aspect in which this is an opportunity, well, I’m not sure if that’s the right word. Anyway, if I only do 20 minutes a day it is likely I will lose interest. Or would with many things. So the solution is that I have to make the ear training fun or relaxing or something. Yes, opportunity is the right word. With as stressful as my life is, I need to keep trying to regard the ear training as 20 minutes of relaxation in my otherwise stressful day. That was what the last auto-suggestion thing was about. Okay, so discipline to focus totally, but only for about 20 minutes a day, and try to go into it with the attitude that those are 20 minutes of fun or rest, as on many levels, they are. See, the suggestion is working! Har har.

Tomorrow I will try the instrumentalist exercise for MC5. Just playing C and D and listening as closely as I can and listening mentally after the sound has died away, and I will try to hear as much "color" as possible. (Note, I will no longer be putting quotes around the word color in this context, so understand it is not literal.) I don’t expect to spend more than one day on that exercise, so then I will work on the guitar thing. Memorizing the sounds of the open strings. We’ll see if I can get that solid in 5 or 6 days.

Tuesday Apr 23 2002 0.5.44 Pacific Time

Did the C and D exercise today. I listened to the last 15 minutes or so of MC5 to make sure I understood the exercise. Sure enough. Listen. Imagine the tone. Sing the tone. I did this kind of thing for C and D (mostly middle C and the D immediately above) for just about 20 minutes. I do feel that I must have been in the right state of mind. I closed my eyes most of the time, relaxing and leaning against the table. It was pretty meditative. I must admit I am not sure about the color thing. Well anyway, I didn’t get anything that I could call color. I tried to listen as relax-edly and "deeply" as possible. No colors. But I do think that If I did this long enough I would get something, so, again, maybe Burge’ s method is really just a way to trick you into listening closely for the hours necessary. Well, and again, maybe I am doing what Burge says not to do: taking him too literally. I suppose there was some slight intimation of something. I just don’t know.

I will try the guitar thing tomorrow and see how it goes. This means that I need to work out an auto-suggestion thing to do first. Something to do with pitch colors and relaxing, I suppose. Yes, just those two are probably the ticket. Relax, focus, notice the colors. Well, I will sleep on it, and try to write a script tomorrow at work.

I can see where the whole color thing could be a trick. I mean, 99% of people probably do hear something the first time they try precisely because most people are so suggestible. They say the most suggestible people are those hardest to hypnotize, or something like that. They say that those who hypnotize themselves are the least suggestible by others. Interesting. I am not very suggestible and at the same time I think I had a fairly unusual degree of success for a first attempt at self-hypnosis. In any case, it would still be consistent with colors-as-bogus for Burge to then say that if you don’t hear the colors to not worry about it and keep listening. The real point being just to get people to focus. It would also be consistent with the thing he says about how important it is to relax and to bring a child-like attitude to it. The point being that one has to focus in a total and pure way—which most people can’t do without being coaxed—including me. If you give them some "colors" to listen for that probably helps. If you just say listen to this tone for 60 hours, most people won’t get past 10 minutes without their minds wondering.

So, this is all just conjecture, but the consistency of it pleases me. I will continue to act on the assumption that there are colors to be heard, but the main thing that I am willing to take as an absolute at this point is that you have got to listen and focus every day and in the manner in which I did it today.

This tends to rule out that Prolobe program. It is all about speed. I don’t think that is a good program for me. When there is even the hint of a timer and the idea that my scores are going to be made public on the Internet, I just can’t concentrate and really listen properly.

Still haven’t run into my tuning fork. Too poor right now to buy a new one, but I think I must have lost it somewhere and it is not hiding somewhere here at home. Oh well.

Wednesday Apr 24 2002 1.30.42 Pacific Time

Today I took a portable clock and my electric guitar to work. Had a piano lesson earlier and got out of the lesson too early to bother going home, but too early for work so I have some time to sit (in my car, as I prefer) before work. So I tuned the guitar before I left and took it along. I used the clock to give myself 20 minutes. Worked pretty well, I think.

The guitar exercise, in order to really learn the sound of all 6 strings, will be pretty challenging, I suspect. Maybe not. We’ll see. In any case I think I will do a day of the unlocking thirds on the guitar for variety.

So I will do one day of thirds unlocking on guitar. I figured out, I think, from reading posts on Developing_AP that the main reason Burge is limiting this exercise to white-key thirds is because he has to assume so little pianistic knowledge from his listeners. So I may do another day of thirds on the piano—major and minor—using whichever keys.

So, thirds unlocking on guitar and on piano. Then also I will do another day of the main guitar exercise learning the open strings) and then I am going to try to recruit Kim to be my partner for another session of open strings on the guitar. I am finding it hard to play the guitar strings any way without feeling where I am. I know Burge says don’t worry about it, but I think I will have better luck if I do it with a partner.

So, two sessions of thirds unlocking and then hypnosis and two sessions of the guitar. That’s 4 sessions. Finally, I read on Developing_AP (henceforth to be referred to as D_AP) about the listening and meditating thing. Apparently the point is to be really really meditative about the listening to tones thing. Like the C and D thing I did—play, audition mentally, sing. Well apparently the best thing is to really audition the tone for a long time—like 30 seconds or a minute and then play the tone and see if you are still on pitch (which I will be). So I think I will do one more session of that, too. So that’s five more sessions planned before I listen to MC6—if I can do the open string guitar thing, that is.

In other news, still no tuning fork. Also, I have a tentative script for the next hypnosis:

Acronym to remember the main points by: RFN

Mnemonic to remember the acronym by: (Really Friggin’ Nice)

Main points:

Relax

Focus

Notice

Actual script:

I am very glad that I am able to relax so deeply when I do my ear training, and that ear training has turned out to be such fun. I expect ear training to continue to be fun and rewarding.

It is wonderful that I can stay so very intensely focused and interested while listening to tones.

As I continue to practice, the distinctive sounds of each tone of the chromatic scale have become and continue to become more and more clear and noticeable to me. I am beginning to feel more and more confident in my perceptions and identifications of the tones.

Finally, "spacedawg," on D_AP, who seems like he must be in the pay of Burge—or maybe even be Burge—says that he thinks it’s okay to practice more than 20 minutes daily. He said as much as 30-40 minutes a session and twice a day is okay. I think the bottom line is focus. As long as you are really mentally there and focused and listening clearly it’s okay, so I think stressing out about practicing too much is another form of stress I can get rid of. I think I will use the following rules for the moment—pending any new revelations:

1. All days do either one or two sessions.

2. At least one session per day should be a minimum of 20 minutes, if possible.

3. No session should last more than 40 minutes.

4. These rules may be bent based of the degree to which you are able and interested in maintaining focus.

MC6 ETA is therefore now Monday at the earliest. That’s fine. It is best that I do exactly what I didn’t with piano technique as a child: give myself a firm and solid foundation and take it slow and steady. Baby steps… baby steps...

Wednesday Apr 24 2002 22.35.37 Pacific Time

Today I did the chord unlocking for major and minor thirds on my guitar in my car. It is odd, but I think I find it rather relaxing to do it in my car. Well, the real reason is that I was at home and Kim was buzzing around and I didn’t think I would be able to concentrate. It was nice, anyway. The window was open and it was a rare beautiful April day in Seattle. I did have some trouble concentrating, but all in all it went okay.

Tonight at work I spent a little time looking into memory enhancing drugs. Herbs, actually. Online. I found out that ginkgo biloba and Siberian ginseng are both supposed to have some positive effects. As of the thing I read (dated 1998), ginkgo has been shown a number of times to have positive effects for Alzheimer patients, and sufferers of certain types of dementia, but the only study listed that dealt with young, cognitively health persons was inconclusive. Approximately the same for Siberian ginseng. Also, both herbs require anywhere from two to twelve weeks to have their reputed effects, I read. So the idea of tanking up on ginkgo immediately before ear-training seems a little far-fetched.

On the other hand, I will continue to read a bit about it, and look for other possible candidates, natural and synthetic. I have no philosophical objection to the idea—after all, I had the idea—but I have grave doubts about its practicality. Not so grave it’s not worth looking into. On a related note, I think I should read a little about the "art" of mnemonics and other memory tricks. Maybe there is something worth investigating for AP development.

Tomorrow I am working late at my day job (which I work at night) so I think I will not try the hypnosis. Instead I will either do the second session of C and D listening on piano, or I will do the second (chromatic) session of chord unlocking at the piano.

Though this does bring up something about the hypnosis. Hypnosis is, I understand, something that has to be practiced in its own right. So it may be that I should not be too picky about when and where and with what script I do it. I probably ought to simply decide to do it whenever I have the time and feel like it, and improvise a script relating to whatever ear training exercise I plan to do next—even if it is not going to be immediately after the hypnosis. This would be especially useful if I remember to emphasize auto-suggestions that relate to the training in general, like about relaxing and enjoying it while I practice, and so-forth. Still, probably no time for hypnosis tonight or tomorrow.

I read over my notes so far. I think this is something I should do from time to time. I realized that I never made those lists of associations with the pitches. I have to do that. I also got to thinking about the danger of spreading myself too thin. I think I should not do too much extending what Burge says and improvising different exercises to do. There seems to be some sentiment on D_AP that that can be ultimately a way of slowing down progress, because you don’t spend enough time one a single thing, getting it really solid. Well, I don’t know, but just at the moment I think it is still a good idea to do the lists of associations while playing the pitches.

So, my notes start last Friday, but I think I began working with the tuning fork about the Saturday before that—that’s the day I would have been able to go to the music store and buy it—so I think I will mark Saturday, April 12th as the day I began AP development. That makes this twelve days AP—After Practicing. Get it? AP? Har har. Ugh. Sorry. Okay. Today is 12d AP.

And as a final note today, I think I will be able to ease up a bit on the verbose note-taking as the whole process starts to become routine. But still, be on the lookout for my associations list, and whatever I learn about self-hypnosis, drugs and mnemonics

Friday Apr 26 2002 0.21.42 Pacific Time

Today I did 20 minutes of the C/D listening exercise. I tried to listen to the tone on the piano (keyboard sounding like piano) one or two times and let it ring until it is done, then I tried to listen in my head for at least a minute or so. I was surprised by how difficult this can be. I was also surprised that I was seeming to be sharp when I would sing it and check. The D tended to be a bit sharp. Only very slightly, but enough to hear the difference beats if I sang it against the real D. The C too, but I really started to get a strange sense of, er, color. I found the C so much more, ummm, round and dark and milky than the D, more oily than the D; more, um, like an ocean of cream—creamy-white, yet deep and sort of thick and dark while being light in actual color. Wow, that’s flaky-sounding. Finally, when I tried to think about it, near the end of the session, I was significantly flat with the C. This sounds weird, but there was a sense that there was just a little of the B-ness in the C. I don’t know how to explain. I felt like I had been tricked by making the note sound too dark—and that is the B. Oh well. I am totally not sure about it all, just like Burge says I wouldn’t be at first. I do know that I am getting very intrigued.

In other news, I did a bit of reading about mnemonics online. The bottom line is to use some concretes to remind you of others. The important thing is to make these images, etc. very very vivid, with lots of detail. I don’t think there’s much to be gained by this issue, except to say that I am all the more committed to the importance, potentially, of making those long descriptive lists of associations with all the tones. I still think the worst that could happen is nothing, and it could be a big help.

I also looked a bit more into memory enhancing drugs and such. There is a term for intellect-enhancing drugs—nootropes, if memory serves… actually I think that’s wrong. How ironic. Anyway, I have not seen anything very conclusive-looking. The things I have read that tout the effects of these things usually have something about them that suggests the minds of the people writing are not too clear. Bad ideas, presentation, writing, etc. I have no real evidence either way, but it looks like there is no real panacea for those looking to improve their long-term memory encoding, at least in the short-term. I think, at this point, that I am just as well off eating a healthy diet and getting some regular exercise as anything else. Which, by the way, I am trying to do. Making sure I get enough vitamins of the normal type is probably a good idea as well. Pending any further revelations I am going to consider the drug/herb issue dead.

So, my current short-range plan: chromatic thirds unlocking on the piano, 1 session; self-hypnosis and guitar open strings, 1 session; try to do a partner session with Kim (she said she would) with the open strings on guitar. If I have got the open string thing, then MC6. If not, do more sessions, then MC6. Somewhere in there also, do a session with making the association lists. This may actually take more than one session. I also did some of that tonight without really meaning to. D is kind of angular, and reddish yellow. It is a bit crystalline as well, like iron pyrite. Actually I can’t remember what kind of crystal it is. Like a cube set on end. And it also reminds me of sand-stone—red sandstone and ragged sharp sandstone. It is exciting, like climbing on that partially metamorphosed sandstone in the Flatirons. It is challenging, like soloing the Third Flatiron on a gray day. Oh well. I will do more of this soon.

Saturday Apr 27 2002 0.57.26 Pacific Time

1. Did the self-hypnosis tonight late. I am not sure if it worked out as well as the last time. I started to get distracted by the end by physical discomfort. I think I took too long about getting physically relaxed first. By the time I had done getting relaxed and then done the whole bloody count down from 100 thing I was starting to get antsy. And the last minute or so of the auto-suggestions were pretty unpleasant from feeling like I just had to turn over and get the blood flowing a little. So the conclusion is that I need to get really relaxed faster and maybe go into trance faster. I still intend to practice some more.

2. I immediately did the guitar open strings thing. I reached a conclusion. I noticed that Burge said over and over to listen closely to all the exercise descriptions even if only for possible future reference, but when he talked about what exercises to do, he said the keyboardists could also do the monophonic instrument exercise (the C/D exercise) and the guitarists could also do the monophonic exercise, but I don’t remember him ever saying that the guitarists could do the keyboard exercise or vice-versa. The reason I am thinking about this is that while I did the guitar exercise I tried to listen for pitch color very hard, but got nothing, really, and I think it may tie back to the thing about initially color happening with your main instrument. So I have decided that I am going to leave off the guitar stuff for the nonce.

3. That leaves just the chromatic version of the piano thirds unlocking and the association lists before listening to MC6. Except that I gave it some thought, and think that any more of the thirds is just beating a dead horse for me now, and there is no reason why I have to do the association lists before I listen to MC6. Further, I am itching to listen to MC6 and the weekend is coming up—my best time to get things done.

So having thought about all that and reached the conclusions I have, I think I am not being premature in listening to MC6 tomorrow. So that is the plan. I will decide the next step after listening.

Sunday Apr 28 2002 23.50.38 Pacific Time

Too tired to make a journal entry yesterday, but I did listen to MC6 and I did do ear training for about 20 minutes.

MC6: unlocking two tone chords of less than about a tenth (one hand); unlocking two tone chords of a wide span—using two hands; unlocking three-tone chords in one hand; unlocking three tone cords wide—one in one hand, two in the other. Secondly, there is the solo instrument drill which is just like the C/D exercise, except now the process is 1, try to hear the tone, 2, sing the tone, 3. play the tone to check. Still C and D.

So yesterday I did about 20 minutes of the unlocking of 2 tones close-spaced. It was pretty easy, though major sevenths and ninths required more concentration than I expected. The rule Burge gives is that you can do it once you can do 20 in a row without a mistake. I think I did that, but I was not satisfied that the sevenths and ninths were easy enough, so I did the same one today—2 sessions of about 15 minutes each. I think I’m okay, and I don’t want to get bogged down on any one thing. I think I should assume that Burge’s standard of 20 in a row is probably about the right balance between being able to basically do something versus getting obsessed with perfectionistically wasting time with it. So tomorrow I will probably do the wide-spaced 2-tone chord unlocking. Or maybe the other C/D exercise. I may try to do a couple sessions with the C/D exercise before I go to MC7. I don’t see any serious challenges with MC6, but I still want to be thorough and give myself that solid grounding. I could pass it all in about 15 minutes, but I think that would be a bad habit to get into. At any rate, I can use the warm up, I think.

In other news, still no sign of my tuning fork. And I have still not sat down and made my big association lists. If this is because the Burge exercises are more interesting, that’s fine. I don’t think I will worry about it. Also, it occurs to me that I naturally made some pretty vivid associations with C and D when I was working on them (and also A and F#, when I was working on them), so maybe I will simply keep thinking about C and D in those terms while I am practicing and when Burge has us doing new notes, I will think about them then. Yes. Good idea. Case closed.

Monday Apr 29 2002 23.41.58 Pacific Time

Today—this afternoon—I did 15 minutes of the two pitches unlocking wide-spaced and passed the "verification round" (20 correct in a row) and later (just a minute ago) I did the three pitch unlocking close spaced for about 15 minutes and passed the verification round. So of this unlocking stuff from MC6 I think I have just the wide-spaced three-note chords to do.

I have been worrying about whether I have forgotten something or not and so I think (1), I ought to re-listen to MC6—can’t hurt, anyway—and (2), I need to take notes from now on.

So for MC6 now there remains that last item of the chord unlocking, and also there is the new C/D drill thing, which he calls ear training meditation, and which has no set goal that tells you that you have done enough of it. So I will obviously do one session, and if I am feeling like it would do some good, I will try doing at least a second session.

Also, even though there is a distinct possibility that I will be able to pass the last chord unlocking drill for MC6 in just one more session, I think I may add another session of free-for-all chord unlocking from the repertoire assigned so-far just to consolidate things and such. I am surprised at how rusty my ear is. I really have to focus to get the ones that are three notes all a semi-tone apart (like C, C#, D). So a little extra work on that might not be a bad idea. So all in all, two more chord unlocking sessions and 2 C/D meditation sessions equals 4 more sessions. At one a day each, that makes Saturday my current ETA for MC7. Yes, it helps me to have something to look forward to, a goal. Listening to a new MC is after all, kinda exciting.

Today is 17d AP. Two weeks and three days since I started. Things better pick up soon. No magic results yet, Mr. Burge. I do really kinda feel that I was getting something with the C/D exercise. We will see what happens.

Burge said in MC6 not to worry if you are a tiny bit off with the singing when doing the C/D exercise. I think that since the other day I was hearing difference beating I was probably as close as he means.

Thursday May 2 2002 1.0.52 Pacific Time

It finally happened. I missed a day completely. Somehow, between work and everything else I managed to just not feel that I had time even for 15 minutes of ear training. I need to do something about that.

Today I would have been in the same situation, but before I left for work I got in 13 minutes of practice. Not enough to make me happy, but more than zero. I spent the first few minutes doing the three tone, wide-spaced chord unlocking, and then spent the last five minutes or so passing the verification round. All fine.

So tomorrow I am either to do some more general chord unlocking as planned, or start in on the C/D exercise. I don’t know if I can really remember the sounds of C and D anymore. Because of this, I have decided on a new policy. When there are two or more strands of exercises assigned, especially when only one is really directly related to color pitch perception, I think instead of working on one strand exclusively until it is done and then the other, I will alternate day by day from one to the other, or better yet, from one session to the other on the same day, if I can manager to get in two sessions in a day.

So, I therefore propose to do the C/D exercise tomorrow, the all around chord unlocking

session Friday, another C/D session Saturday and then listen to MC7 Sunday. That’s a plan. Oh yeah, and somewhere in there I need to re-listen to MC6 to make sure I didn’t miss anything. And when I listen to MC7, I have to take notes.

Oh, and one more thing: I need to start thinking about another self-hypnosis session. Something soon and just focusing on the specific pitch colors of C and D, perhaps, and of course the usual about relaxing and focusing, and motivating to actually do the practice. Hey! That last one is not usual—it is new. That should be a focus of the next session.

Friday May 3 2002 1.12.14 Pacific Time

Today I did about 15 minutes of the C/D exercise. It went fine. Nothing spectacular, though I did get a slightly greater sense of color. I am starting to suspect it may be working. Hard to tell at such an early stage, though. I am decided that I will do this one more time before listening to MC7.

I listened to bits and pieces of MC6 again—skimming through for the highlights. I did forget something: the partner exercise: basically the C/D exercise but without looking at the keyboard. I will try to recruit Kim sometime this weekend for one session of that.

Later today I also did that general chord unlocking thing. I found a few things that are a bit difficult. A major second on top of a major seventh. Also, a major third on top of a major sixth. It is interesting. I might do more, but I suspect there will be more similar stuff in MC7 so I won’t wait to listen to that.

So the new plan: tomorrow (Fri.) I do the meditation (C/D) and maybe the partner exercise. If not then the partner exercise Saturday. In any case I will listen to MC7 Saturday or Sunday at the latest, I reckon.

Friday May 3 2002 15.20.32 Pacific Time

Did 15 or 20 minutes of meditation. Not so much sense of color today. Or rather, no improvement, but still maybe about the same really. No time to write, gotta go to work. Tonight I will try to enlist Kim for a partner session. My plan is to listen to MC7 Saturday early, then at some point during the day try to work out material for a self-hypnosis session based on MC7, and do a the self-hypnosis and a practice session all on Saturday. We shall see...

Saturday May 4 2002 22.22.41 Pacific Time

Listened to MC7 today. It’s was a bit intimidating. I felt that this is really it, we are starting to really be expected to have some "color discrimination" now. There are a bunch of exercises.

I did not enlist Kim to help with a partner session, because I was thinking abut it and decided it just would be too boring for her. But my mistake was in thinking that the partner session was essentially group ear training meditation. Listening to MC7 today I realized that it was not, so I should enlist Kim for the partner drills from MC7.

There is a piano exercise: play any white tone without listening and try to ID it. This is why I was getting intimidated. But I did a session of that today and it went all right. Burge says not to worry if you are getting pitches from RP at first. My RP is natural and automatic enough that sometimes I just can’t help it, but I am learning to simply tune that out a bit and listen differently. That’ s the key: somehow its just a different, more intrinsic way of listening. So I felt that some of the time I was really listening for color. The evidence is that when felt like I was successfully doing that, I would sometimes get the pitch wrong. But I would often get it right, so I felt pretty encouraged.

Also, for MC7, I have to do Meditation with C/D/E. And then also, there are a bunch of partner exercises. They are not what I had thought—they are pitch IDing for C/D/E. Single pitch, with a verification round, melodic pairs from C/D/E (any octave) and harmonic pairs from the same pitch classes. So there is a lot of partner work I can do. It is too late tonight to ask Kim to get involved, but tomorrow I really have to try to get her to do it. I need to do this early because it will tell me about how much help I can expect from Kim in general. Hopefully I can make it fun for her.

I also forgot to do the self-hypnosis today. That’s fine, I think I will have time tomorrow. So tomorrow’s plan is self-hypnosis, then partner round with Kim. MC8 seems a long way away now. Like, at least a week, maybe two or even longer, so I guess I’ll just get settled in and enjoy the ride.

One last thing: Burge says now to always when you sit down to try to sing a C first thing before hearing any other pitches. So I think I should keep a record of my progress, one entry a day (or more, if I feel confident it has been long enough that there is no RP carry-over—especially if I do two sessions in a day, obviously.

As it happens, I did try that yesterday without being asked to. I tried Middle C and got Ab a major third below.

Today I tried Middle C, sang Bb a whole-tone below.

Sunday May 5 2002 14.41.25 Pacific Time

Tried Middle C and got an E a third above. Got Kim to do the partner round. She guessed a B a second below. I am so jealous of her. She obviously has a better pitch memory than I do, from many examples over the years. I bet she could develop AP very quickly. So she did the round with me. She doesn’t have a job right now, so she has tons of free time. Although she was initially irritable when we started (she is always nasty when we start any musical thing) she seemed to mellow out quickly and even had some fun. I guess I had better try to enlist her as often as I can. I offered (without a hint of insincerity) to do it for her, but she seems not to be at all interested. Who can blame her? She’s not a musician and has better things to do with her time, I guess.

As for the drill, just like with the white key exercise yesterday, I didn’t even try to do the verification. At one point for fun I started answering quickly using entirely RP and seem to have even impressed Kim a bit. But when I am really trying to ignore RP and listen to color, I don’t think I am doing all that well. Maybe a bit better than random chance. In any case, I am really intimidated by the idea that I have to get 20 in a row correct before I can do to the next master class. It could take months. In fact, I don’t know how it could not take months. Today is the 5th. I have 40 days to keep the course. After that I can’t get a refund. I ordered it on the 12th and got it on, like, the 15th. That means, conservatively, I need to get it back to them by the 12th plus 10 (last month had 30 days) which equals the 22nd. Subtracting a day to be sure is the 21st. To be sure that it gets there in time I would need to mail it by Tuesday the 14th. Now, that means I really only have nine more days. I really can’t afford to keep it if it is not going to work. Nine days does not seem like enough to pass the verification rounds for MC7. Perhaps I should do two forty minute sessions a day for the next nine days . . . ?

Well, on the other hand, Burge does seem to say that we shouldn’t worry about it if there is RP involved. The problem is, how much is to much? My RP pretty much tells me each note instantly. This sucks. Basically I have to just take it on faith that the whole thing will work, or risk losing 150 bucks, or whatever it comes to. I need to make a real decision about this. I hate to think that this is just Burge’s game and that everyone lets themselves get ripped off over this, but on the other hand, there is no real way for me to find out except by trying it, and I suppose the risk is worth it—I have so much to gain from all this. I think I do, at any rate. Frankly, as bad a motivation as it is, I kind of want to do it to impress people. Not just anyone, mind you—graduate school admissions people. I really think the social status you can get from AP in that context could really be worth it. It could be the edge I need to get into a decent grad school. I don’t think that’ s so wrong.

Well, in any case, I would still like to try to get in the self-hypnosis and then meditation tonight. We’ll see if I can find the time. Lots of homework tonight, and piano practice.

Also, if it’s okay, per Burge, to do this aural recall thing (trying to guess the sound of a C before starting) then I see no reason not to go out and buy another A440 tuning fork and carry it around with me, like I was doing. I think I was beginning to have some success with that. I am broke right now, but it ought to be worth it ASAP. This time I have to make a pouch for it, or a case that attaches to something like my key chain, so that I will not lose it again. A440 tuning forks are a lot smaller than I imagined.

Monday May 6 2002 0.33.14 Pacific Time

Two entries in one day. Probably ought not bother with this sort of thing much in the future. If I let myself get too obsessed I will burn out too quickly for results, as I know from experience.

Anyway, I did the self-hypnosis. I used this: "Motivate, relax, focus, CD" was my memory thing. It was for (1) I am finding myself more and more motivated and excited to do my ear training practice every day. (2) I am able to relax deeply and focus deeply when I do my ear training. My ear training is like a relaxing meditation that eases the stress of the day. (3) Descriptions of C and D similar to the descriptions I put in this journal a few days ago.

Of course, I did not remember it exactly that way, but I think it was close. I went into some detail about C and D. So then I went and did the C/D/E meditation for 15 minutes. That went okay. Oh yeah, I tried middle C and got E right above again. I listened to C and E a lot after that and noticed they seem to be pretty similar. Actually, I think it helped me get a better sense of both, though. C seems a little brassier and a little more alive. E, on the other hand, is mellow, like Eb, but not as dark as Eb. E is a little oppressively blank, almost like a sheet of blank paper. And it is cold, too, not like C. C is warmer than E.

So as for the meditation, I didn’t have much color sense. I tried, instead of listening with the usual RP to instead try to call my (short-term) memory of the sound of the pitch up in my mind before singing it. To really "audition" the sound internally from memory. This again seemed interesting and useful. I actually at first got C wrong sometimes (hit a B below once and a Bb below once). This again actually seems encouraging. I had this weird sensation like the pitch in my head was swimming around and I couldn’ t quite hear it or nail it down. Somehow it seems like I am listening in a new way, so even the ones I get wrong seem kind of encouraging. It’s like that first time you let go of the side rail in the swimming pool. Suddenly it is a whole new game. You lose that solid orientation and at first it is very uncomfortable, but until you do that you will never learn to swim. So I just have to let go and try to swim and my aim will get better from practice.

Also, I really have to get a new tuning fork.

So basically I am just going to do the drills from MC7 until I have them all down. At this point I literally have no idea how long it will take. Although, I really do think that I am making progress in at least on respect: I think I am getting better and better at relaxing and really focusing, but in a relaxed open kind of way when I practice. We shall see . . . .

Um, yeah, but specifically, the plan for tomorrow is to do another round of the keyboard exercise: all white keys without looking. I don’t think I will try to verify with that even if it goes better than last time. I really need to work on it. If I can do a second session, it will either be to enlist Kim again or to do the meditation again. Okay, that’s a plan. Oh, and one last thing: today is 3 weeks and 2 days (3w2d) AP.

Tuesday May 7 2002 0.36.55 Pacific Time

Tried middle C and got it spot on. Whoopee! Of course, it may not be statistically significant (yet!) but it still feels good.

I bought another A440 tuning fork today. I have attached it to my key ring. Every composer ought to have a tuning fork key chain. It’ ll be all the rage among composers next season.

Today I did 15 or so minutes of the white key, hit any note and guess it thing. I had little sense of color and I’m not sure it went so well. I will try to get Kim to do another session of the partner drill tomorrow. Before I do MC8 I have one keyboard drill to do and optionally 3 partner drills. That’s 4 verification rounds I would like to pass before I move on the MC8. I don’t feel like I am in shooting distance from any of them. I mean, as I’ve said, I could pass them all tonight if I used RP, but the more I manage to get out of RP hearing, the worse I do. At least for the moment.

I am tempted to try doing just one exercise—the same one every day, until I pass it, but I still think it is probably better to mix it up as much as possible. I also have the vague impression from my memory of what Burge said in his old book, that partner training is the most effective or efficient kind of training, so I want to try to do as much of that as I can, without getting Kim bored with it. So spacing the partner rounds out as evenly as possible seems to be the best idea.

As for the tuning fork, I just intend to do the same old thing at work and school or wherever: just try to recall A440 and check myself and listen to the correct pitch. I tried it a few times today and was wrong a few times and was right once or twice. I think I will adapt Burge’s thing for this, and try to recall the pitch, sing it, check it. If I am right, I will simply listen to the pitch. If I am wrong, I will alternate between singing what I sang (using RP to identify what I sang, and maybe to adjust it a bit to be on an exact 12 tone equal tempered pitch, as much as I can) and listening to the correct pitch.

Also, somewhere on the near horizon, I would like to get back into the thing of memorizing the pitch names of things in my environment (the beep of the computer terminals at work, microwave beeps, car seat belt warning beeps, etc. and then trying to remember to note them whenever I hear them and saying "that’s B" or whatever. I will worry about it more later, though.

Tomorrow’s plan: try to get Kim in on a partner round and/or CDE meditation.

Thursday May 9 2002 0.26.39 Pacific Time

Yesterday I only got about 10 minutes of distracted practice in. No partner practice. Don’t even remember what the practice consisted of. I think it was the white key no-you-look stuff. I don’t remember it going too well. Burge talks about early on if you don’ t do it every day the ear "backslides." I tried for Middle C that session and got B a second below.

Today I tried Middle C and got F and fourth above. I did 20 minutes of CDE meditation but it was very unsuccessful. No sense of color at all. Maybe I backslid. So I ended up focusing for a lot of the time on just trying to listen to C in my head for long periods and then check on the piano every once in a while. I was so tired, I kept starting to doze off. Actually that was interesting, because every time I popped awake I would be able to retrieve the C from memory—since it was still so recent. I wonder if it would be useful to try actual ear training in some kind of trance, or hypnogogic state or something. Probably not.

At any rate, I think all in all it has been a bad last two days. I guess I will, as I had planned a couple days ago, try to recruit Kim again for another partner round with single notes. I am feeling pretty discouraged.

I have some more guidelines for myself. First, I think I need to practice before I get too tired at night. I had to wake up early today to do some homework, and I ended up hammering on a Bach invention before the ear training tonight for a long time. I was exhausted—am exhausted—from that. Second, ten minutes isn’t worth it. 15 minimum, I think. Third, I absolutely have to be relaxed before I really start. It’s worth it to spend 5 minutes just breathing or something like that before I start if I have to get into a relaxed focused state. Finally, I have not been making much use of the tuning fork on my key chain. When I do, I usually feel like I should be doing something else if it is going to take more than a second. The problem is that I am pretty sure now that I have a lot more success with it if I take the time to really try to hear the A in my mind before I sing it. In other words, I think the new rule with that is that I won’t take it out of my pocket unless I am willing to really sit for a minute and try to hear the pitch. No more of this flippant, "oh, there’s my tuning fork. hmmmmmm… nope" nonsense. I have to take it seriously. The tuning fork is not a game. I have to treat it like I am ear training when I decide to use it—which I am. But then, that only takes a moment, so I will try to do it more often anyway.

Well, I am babbling semi-coherently, so I guess it is time for bed. Tomorrow, partner round if possible, and white key IDing otherwise, or in addition.

Friday May 10 2002 0.59.8 Pacific Time

Well, today I did 20 minutes of the white key exercise with little sense of success and later I did 15 minutes of the CDE meditation. It was hard to concentrate. I tried C the first session first and got B a second below. The second session I tried C and got Bb a second below. It is official: I’m discouraged. I think I am going to do this until Saturday a week and a day from now and then I will listen to this emergency help track from the Burge CDs. If there is anything useful there I will proceed based on that. If not, I will just verify on all the stuff from this stage—even if it means allowing RP to help—and just go on to listen to MC8.

In other news, I only did the tuning fork thing a couple of times today. No success. I am noticing, though, that there seems to be a real trend for me to guess Ab. Always a semitone flat.

Once again I didn’t get Kim in on the action today. I will try again tomorrow. She sounds like she is more than willing, so I will try to avail myself of her assistance.

Absolutely no sense of color anymore. I think it is all bullshit, and if you don’t believe it, you won’t hear it, because it is all in the imagination anyway.

Well, that’s not true, there is still a little sense of color. Actually I think that such color as there is has been kind of shifting. Maybe that’s a good sign. Maybe it means that my original ideas were really bullshit that I made up (I did kind of go into it with the attitude that if I couldn’t hear anything I should just pretend I could), but that the real color is finally starting to come through. Crap. Who the fuck knows?

It is clear that I am going to keep the course even though I won’t have seen any effects really within the 40 day money back guarantee limit. I am a fucking sucker and I hope Burge dies if he is just a rip-off artist.

Well, I feel better now. I think a good aspect of keeping a journal about all this is that when I get discouraged, as I will, of course, I can read it and get some kind of objective sense that yes, I am improving. I would do this tonight, but for two things. First, I am too tired. Second, there’s not enough of it yet for me to have really forgotten much of anything. The sad truth is that so far, I don’t think there is any evidence of improvement at all. But I will remember the technique of reading this journal next time I am feeling discouraged, I suppose.

I am going to figure out how long I have been at it now, and this time, I am going to add a note to the very beginning of this journal so I can easily calculate . . . . okay. Today is 3W6D AP. That is to say, that tomorrow is 4W. So Friday April 12 was my official first day.

Final note for today. I started on a Friday. I did the first attempt at aural recall per Burge last Saturday—the thing of trying to sing a note out of the air when you first start a session—so I think I should, in the interest of keeping track of progress, tally these up every week. So it is from last Saturday to today... no, to tomorrow night, I mean. I must remember to put the totals for the previous week at the very start of each Friday journal entry. So tomorrow’s entry will have the aural recall (AR) scores (and any other relevant weekly scores and info) for week 4. Informally, I am too curious not to check now . . . AR Middle C: Bb E E C B B Bb. Okay, so my code will be normal script for below, italics for above, and bold for success. With the assumption that I will never be more than an octave off. For the actual entries I will set the entry off a line and use asterisks to set it off.

Final final note. I also need to remember to put the daily "scores" —all of them—at the top of my daily entries for the sake of not having to scan through all my long-winded entries to find things. Whew! Okay.

Friday May 10 2002 23.29.6 Pacific Time

AR Middle C: Bb E E C B B Bb C.

Whoopie! Tried C and got C today, as is reflected in the last entry above. I really sat there and thought about it for about 5 minutes to get it.

Wow. How my moods do swing! Today I did one session with Kim. Same as last time: CDE pitch IDing. It was interesting. I had some good luck. Got one wrong. But more importantly, we spent some time with her talking and/or playing random music between pitches to try to through off my RP. She heard a bit of the Burge lecture on CD when I was listening and warned me that she thought that this is contrary to what Burge wants. She is probably right, but it was interesting and very gratifying anyway, because I really felt like it was working—I was successfully IDing the pitches. There was some aspect of pitch memory about it, which may or may not be good. I felt like I could sort of remember the sound of the pitches, but I can’t think that’s a really bad thing. So I am happy and my enthusiasm is renewed.

So I realized that the whole problem with RP is going to get better. When I am doing the white key exercise myself it is not so much a problem. It is not that I can’t get all of them with RP—that would be a piece of cake if I wanted to—it’s just that with only C, D and E it is so simple that I can’t help getting them with RP. I know that’s not the end of the world, but still, it has made me feel like I am doing something wrong. At any rate, the point is that I am getting good enough at ignoring RP that I think it is just a matter of adding a few more tones and I will be able to concentrate more on pitch color. So the conclusion based on this is that I probably should, as planned, work on MC7 for the rest of next week, but just pass all the verification rounds by then and go on to MC8 next weekend (that is, about 8 days from now), with the assumption being that with MC8 there will be some added tone(s) and all will be well. I guess (yet again) that the key is to not freak out, and to do exactly what Burge says.

So tomorrow the plan is to do white keys and maybe also meditation. Then the next day to try to verify on one of the four rounds needed for MC7 per day if I can keep Kim interested. Kim guessed about a C# today. Actually, I think she was a slightly sharp C and I was a slightly flat C, but it was hard to tell.

In other news, I found a used copy of Burge’s first book, Perfect Pitch: Color Hearing for Expanded Musical Awareness on Amazon.com for $8.49 including shipping. So I ordered it straight away even though I am financially desperate. I don’t plan to really follow all the different stuff in that book where doing so seems like it would be at cross purposes with the new course. I look at it as just supplementary reading for whatever tidbits might be interesting, historical interest and mainly just motivator. I think ordering that may have helped me get in a better spirit to practice today, which in turn made the session more successful.

I am swamped—but swamped—with homework this weekend, so I don’t guess I will be attempting any self-hypnosis, nor even more than one session a day. That’s okay. I am so swamped that I am not going to do any piano practice, but I am damn well going to squeeze in my ear training.

The book should get here in a week or two. Also, I remember that there is supposed to be some free ear training booklet that came with the Burge course. I glanced at it and it just looked like a glorified ad for Burge’s RP course, but I will have to read it soon anyway. There remains The Official Transcript of the Perfect Pitch Seminar, and I guess, Burge’s first tape course, and also Byron Duckwall’s tape course. I wouldn’t mind acquiring any of these and will keep my eye out, but the $55 I saw for the Duckwall two-tape course used is too much for me right now, and I haven’t seen any of the others available anywhere.

Tried the tuning fork a couple times today. I think I got it right once. I don’t even remember. I haven’t got any kind of system for doing it or keeping track of it. I was thinking today that instead of only doing it a couple times a day when I have really thought about it, maybe I should take the other tack and try to do it every five minutes all day long, without really paying much attention to it. The main practical problem with that is just remembering to do it all the time. I though about using a watch and remembering whenever the hourly chime goes off to try the tuning fork, but the fallacy is obvious: I would just end up learning the pitch of the hourly chime. So I really haven’t figured out what the best use of the tuning fork is. I will have to try to think about it soon.

Oh, now I remember. I tried the fork one time with Kim around, so asked her to come up with the pitch as well. So we sang our pitches. She was a half tone above me, and I just knew she would be right and I would be at Ab like I keep on being lately when I try to get the A. That’s exactly what happened. SHE was spot on and I was at Ab. It’s kinda weird. At the same time, there must be something going on, or I wouldn’t be getting the same wrong note over and over. Could the first tuning fork I got have been a half tone flat . . . ? Seems pretty unlikely.

Saturday May 11 2002 22.10.18 Pacific Time

Tried C, got B a second below.

Well, I have tons of homework to do but I did get in about 25 minutes of white key exercise. I think that I was being a little hasty about verifying so soon. I think I am getting a lot better at ignoring my RP. I actually don’t think I ever got more than 3 in a row correct, and the second or third was always RP. I did get a few right feeling like it was color hearing, but never two in a row. Scary. But again, as slow as it is, I do think the sounds of C and A are slowly coming into focus. Maybe D and B a bit as well. I am also improving my technique for the exercise a bit. I am keeping my eyes closed (except to check, and I am keeping my hands off the keyboard, so I can’t feel where I am—I’m using a pencil eraser to hit notes, and I am trying not to touch the keyboard with my body and to move, sometimes substantially each note, in order to try to through off having too accurate a sense of where on the keyboard I am. It is helping a little, I think. Mainly I am just ignoring RP as much as I can, which is getting to be a lot. When I hit a note twice or an octave or a second away from the previous note, then it is still too automatic not to know instantly. But with other intervals I can sort of feel myself starting to hear the previous note in my head to compare it with the current note, but somehow I am learning to just force myself to concentrate just on the sound of the new note, and try not to hear the old note anymore. If I can get through a few seconds of this, the automatic act of comparison seems to fade and I am okay. Weird, huh?

People were coming in and out and talking in the same room I was in and I don’t think it helped. I think it is a real issue, especially talking, as the sound of talking kind of forces your ear into another mode. I have to try to make sure I practice when no one is around—at least not in the same room.

I read that ear training booklet that came with the course. It was a giant ad for the RP course, as expected.

Monday May 13 2002 1.32.8 Pacific Time

Tried middle C, got A a third below.

One o’clock. Dead tired. Finally finished my homework. Then did about 20 minutes of CDE meditation because I swore I would, not because I thought it would do much good. I think that the wisdom I have heard about doing training in the morning when still fresh may have something to it, so I am going to try to do that. Doing anything consistently in he morning could be as much a challenge for me as developing AP itself. But I think I had better try. Okay. No more chit-chat. Gotta go to sleep. Brain hurts.

Tuesday May 14 2002 0.28.24 Pacific Time

Tried C and got C! I think I get it because I really allowed myself all the time I felt like I needed and didn’t rush or feel pressured. I am sure that is the key.

Did 15 or 20 minutes of the white key exercises. I got 9 or 10 in a row at one point. Still tends to float between RP and something that must be rudimentary AP. But still, it seems like I am starting to see just the beginnings of some results.

Didn’t even try the tuning fork today. Just never seem to have the will to drop what I am doing and totally change my mind set and focus, even for a minute or two to try the fork. I guess I ought to.

Also, I did my ear training after class, but before work. I will try this more.

Tomorrow I have a piano lesson for which I am mostly unprepared, so I will have to practice a lot, and may not be able to do ear training until late. Oh well. Better than not at all. I really need to get Kim in on the act again and see if maybe I can verify on the CDE exercise. Well, that’s about it for now. Nothing new really. I will see if I can do any qualifying this week. If not, I will see if there is any wisdom on the "power hints" track from the Burge course to help. Either way, I guess I will just keep on pluggin’ until I am ready to move on.

I was thinking. I have noticed that I am starting to genuinely hear pitch differently. Something is changing, however slight and subtle. I was remembering that Burge says the first stage of this whole process is not "color discrimination," which is what I am practicing, but merely "color awareness." That’s encouraging, because I think I am getting just that. Some new sense of awareness. It’s weird and really hard to describe. There is nothing really new about pitches. It’s just that I am hearing certain pitches and there is something vaguely familiar about something about it that wasn’t there before. I think this is an encouraging sign. I will keep plunking away.

Wednesday May 15 2002 0.41.42 Pacific Time

Tried C and got B a second below. Later tried C and got the same B.

Couple of days ago was the 12th. That’s 1 month AP.

So I tried to do training early, but I couldn’t concentrate because I had to try to practice for my piano lesson. So I gave up after a couple of minutes (but after my initial try at middle C). So later I did about 15 minutes of CDE meditation. I still hold that early practice is better, because I didn’t have much sense of color tonight.

I have decided on a new system. I had initially thought it better to stagger all the different exercises, but the problem is that there are a lot of days—most, actually—where I only get one session in the day. The thing is that these exercises are supposed to practiced every day if possible. So I have decided as follows: I will work on the solo piano exercise first, doing it once per day. If I want to do an extra session, then I can either enlist Kim for a group thing, or do ear training meditation. Once I have verified on the solo piano exercise, then I can work on the solo instrument exercise, then, if I verify on that, I can work on the partner exercises, etc. If I verify on all the exercises too soon for comfort, then I can keep working on meditation until I think I have done enough. So the bottom line is that I will stick with doing one exercise every day until I verify on it.

That reminds me, I can’t remember the solo instrument exercise for MC7. I will either find it in my notes or re-listen to MC7.

So this means I will be doing the white key exercise once a day until I verify with it. But I should also state explicitly that if I do want to do a second session in a day, I don’t think I should do the same exercise. That’s when I should (mainly) do meditation. So tomorrow, white keys. I might actually be able to verify soon. We shall see.

Thursday May 16 2002 0.16.41 Pacific Time

Tried C, got E a third above (!?!?)

Well, I had an opportunity to do a partner session this afternoon. So I did. Apropos of that, I think the new rule, for me, in view of Burge’s words to the effect that partner training is the best, will be that I will never pass up an opportunity to do a partner session with Kim. Failing that, I will adhere to the rules in yesterday’s entry.

I did the CDE pitch IDing. The best run was 10 right in a row. There were several runs of 4 or 5. We went for about 20 minutes. In that time we did not get that many in (maybe 40 at the most) because she played random stuff or talked or made me talk between notes (at my original suggestion) in order to derail my RP. But by the end I was having her go faster because I was sensing that there may not be as much real benefit from this. So the new rule is to go at a leisurely pace, but not doing any nonsense to try to get rid of RP. If some pitches are too obvious from RP to not know instantly what they are, so be it. I think more and more that Burge knows what he is talking about when he says to just not worry about this and just let it pass.

So the other thing is that I am noticing two things. Well, three, actually. First, I am not often getting in a second session. It’s not so much that I am not motivated, as that I am just so swamped with piano-ing and homework, and what-not, that I just feel guilty doing a second session in a day. The second thing is that I have noticed that I don’t feel so bad about just practicing longer with my first session. The third thing is that I have, in my "rules" from a couple of weeks ago the tenet that I should be able to stretch those rules if I feel like it. Also there is a forth thing, and that is that I decided (based on Burge and on reading from D_AP) that a maximum of about 40 minutes per session is likely okay. Oh, and a fifth thing: I know from personal experience that I really have to hammer things in hard for a while before they start to stick. Like with chess or a new job or a new video game or a new skill of any kind, it has always seemed like I have to over-do it for a while before it really starts to stick. I know it is starting to stick when I start tot dream about it. I have not been dreaming about AP, as far as I can remember (though that’s likely not very far, as I don’t often remember my dreams).

So, the simple conclusion that really doesn’t merit all this preliminary hoopla, is simply that I think I want to encourage myself to extend my sessions if I have any inkling to do so. I want to keep going with the idea that I don’t have to feel compelled to practice more than 15 minutes a day, but I want to be very aware that if I feel like keeping going to as much as 40 minutes, then that’s just great and fine.

That also reminds me that I should put in writing that I have changed my minimum from 20 minutes in a session to 15. I think that’ s what Burge says, and so I will live with it. Better to do that, than nothing at all, because I don’t have 20 minutes to spare.

So, at least one session of 15 minutes. Better yet, two sessions. No more than 40 minutes per session. No more than 2 sessions per day. Always favor team practice. Other than that, try to stick with doing one exercise from start to finish doing it once and only once per day until I have passed the verification. Second sessions get meditation unless the first session was a team session and the second can’t be a team exercise. Etc, etc. I guess I don’ t need to go into every detail. Finally, don’t stress too much about time spent as long as it is over the minimum. As long as I am concentrating and focusing, that’s the main point. Practicing without focus is pretty much a waste of time, although practicing for a few minutes when not focused is a pretty good way to start to get focused, so don’t just give up too easily just because you are having trouble focusing at first. Okay. Whew!

So, all things being equal, tomorrow it is back to the white key exercise and I will try to verify.

Friday May 17 2002 1.43.8 Pacific Time

AR Middle C: B A C B E F

Tried C, got F (!) a fourth above.

I am up writing a huge paper that is due tomorrow, so I don’t have much time. I did about 15 minutes of white key exercise. Tried to verify. Got about 12 or 13 in a row at one point. But it was mostly from RP. I would not say it was a major progress day. I was going to do some re-listening to MC7 but didn’t have time. Will see if I can get to it tomorrow. I guess my hope that I would be done with MC7 in 2 weeks was nonsense. Could be another two. Maybe more. Who knows.

Looked into Neural Linguistic Programming (NLP) a bit today. Don’t know how useful it is, but I am thinking, to make a long story short, that I ought to bring some kind of positive, "first-person" visualization into my day. Imagine what it would be (I mean, WILL BE) like to have AP and how cool it will be. Actually, the funny thing is that I obligingly did dream about AP last night. It was not about actually having it, nor about practicing it. More like about stressing out about practicing it, or something weird like that. Well, anyway, it’s a start. I also think that I am going to try another hypnosis session, but it will be different this time. I will make it a lot more vague and open-ended. Less about "this pitch sounds this way, and this one sounds this way" and more about just visualizing what it will be like and how cool it will be and some auto-suggestion, but not ones that could limit the possible strategies that my brain might come up with to develop AP. For instance, I am not sure that the whole "color" thing is the right way to go. Actually, I am pretty sure it is, but that’s not the point. The point is that I just want my mind to be free to act naturally with regard to developing AP. So I will simply suggest to myself that I am getting better at IDing pitches (as I am) and that it will continue to get better, and stuff like that. I’ll have more time to think about it this weekend. I will also re-listen to some of MC7 this weekend and maybe listen to some of these power hints of Burge’s.

So, from now on, lots of focused visualization—especially at work and other places where I can’t actually practice.

And the interesting thing is that I think I really am starting to get just an inkling of what it will be like—what it will mean and how my experience of music will change. I think I am starting to get a feel for that. I just can’t believe I have been listening to music all these years and haven’t known what I was hearing. Amazing! I am so itching to keep practicing it’s just incredible. Well, gotta go.

Saturday May 18 2002 1.24.4 Pacific Time

Tried C and got C!! Later, tried C and got… Ab above(!) Weird.

Did the white key exercise. Got 10 in a row once, and 18 in a row once (!). Both times there was a very strong element of RP because of "lucky" intervals of an octave, unison, tritone, whatever. But 18 is still 18.

Later tonight I tried to do ear training meditation. I think it was a bit of a fiasco. Didn’t feel any sense of AP or of improvement or of color. Oh well. Better luck tomorrow.

I read a bit more about NLP tonight. I don’t get all the mumbo-jumbo, but I think the general idea of visualization and positive thinking can’t hurt and it is something I can do more-or-less anytime. Did a bit today, even. I will do more. Maybe I will try to do it while I am falling asleep and perhaps thereby take advantage (it there is any advantage) of doing so while passing through the hypnogogic state.

I found my notes for MC7. There isn’t anything for solo instrument exercise. So now the plan is to listen at least to some of MC7 again tomorrow to see if I just missed it, and maybe to do another self-hypnosis with the more general, open-ended script, and to see if maybe I can verify on the white keys and maybe on one of the partner exercises by next Saturday, and then to listen to MC8 in about 2 weeks. We shall see.

The other thing I got from my NLP readings is that I gather it is helpful to do a thing where you try to remember when you have had some success with a thing and then to try to model that success, asking what you saw and heard and felt and so on, then trying to recreate that when continuing to learn. I don’t know quite if or to what extent this may be relevant and I have not really developed a plan of action with regard to it, but I intend to. The main thing is that I have never yet had a truly blow-you-away sense that I was doing some new thing and that it was working.

So far with AR I have 4 out of 16 tries. That’s one out of four, which is about three times the expected result if my guesses were totally random. That is encouraging, but it is also about what one would expect if one were simply doing it with a general sense of tessitura more-or-less accurate to within about a minor third. So the jury is still (still!) out.

Goals for tomorrow: verify on partner round with Kim, listen to some of MC7, listen to some of the power hints, work out new script for self-hypnosis, do self-hypnosis, do some "visualization." If I can get half of this done it will be a bang-up day.

Sunday May 19 2002 2.4.9 Pacific Time

Tried C, got F#.

Well, it’s been a day. I did about 20 minutes of the white-key exercise. It was really bad. No sense of color, really, until maybe the last few minutes. I think I need to devote the first couple of minutes of each session to some kind of breathing relaxation something or other. Might really help. I will try this tomorrow.

I did re-listen to most of MC7. I am really glad I did. I think it wouldn’t hurt to take better notes. Burge says, less worry about RP. RP is good! Also, he says not to do other people’s exercises—like the guitar exercises, for me, or the solo instrumentalist exercises. Speaking of the solo instrumentalist exercises, there was nothing special other than meditation for solo instrumentalists. That was the reason I was re-listening. Not that it matters now, since I realized he says not to do other people’s exercises. Oh well. He said not to worry at all about the AR thing at the beginning of each session; since AR is an advanced thing, we are not supposed to be at all concerned if it is not really happening yet.

Another thing I missed the first time is this singing exercise for the partners. The tester is to just name a note (C, D or E) and the testee is to sing it. The tester then checks it and plays both wrong and right notes back and forth if it was wrong. No verification for this. Just something to do after the main part of the session. So I guess technically I am not supposed to do the partner sessions either, in addition to not doing the guitar or solo instrument exercises. I think I will keep bending the rules on that for a while, though, since it seems like I have heard so many times from so many sources that partner practice is best. I think though that if I do a partner session in the morning, I will try very hard to do the normal piano exercise in the evening, so I do one type of exercise at least once a day usually.

I also cheated and listened to the first few minutes of MC8 and to about the first 12 and 1/2 minutes of the "Power Points" track on the CD. Again, I am damn glad I did. I learned that when doing partner sessions, it is the tester who should keep track of scoring on verification rounds. I learned that I am not supposed to worry about it if I know the pitch from little differences in the sounds (timbre things, like particular buzzes) associated with particular pitches. This has been bothering me, because the stupid samples used in my keyboard have distinctive artifacts that differ for each tone. It is a real bother. But he says not to worry, so I won’t. In fact be went on and on about how it really doesn’t matter how you know the pitch, so long as you do and you keep listening for color. He says that over time we will add more and more pitches until it just gets easier to get the answers from AP than RP. Mainly he just really rants about how it is absolutely essential not to do anything at all to try to block RP. Guess this makes sense, really.

So I am relieved. I am going to go back to what I think of as a natural way of listening. I will pass this these rounds soon, I think, and go on to MC8, for Christ’s sake!

And as a final note, he says not to expect daily progress, talking about how important things are happening to one’s perception while one feels like one is on a plateau.

So there it is. Major breakthrough, really, I think. I am still going to work on the visualization and self-hypnosis stuff hopefully tomorrow. Have to remember not to strain. Will try to work out some kind of relaxation thing for the start of my sessions. Have to remember the singing exercise for the ends of the partner rounds.

Monday May 20 2002 0.26.18 Pacific Time

Tried C, got B right below.

I tried to really relax for a couple of minutes before practicing tonight. I think it was helpful and intend to continue this practice. I did about 30 minutes of the white key exercise, and completed the verification round. I think I will see if I can verify on one or more of the partner exercises before I listen to MC8, though.

I also did try to do some kind of visualization. I found it inexplicably difficult. One of the things I have read is about the usefulness of visualization of oneself from the outside—in third person, as it were. This was strangely difficult for me. I think though, that it was just the pressure of feeling like I have to do it. So I ended up staring at the inside of my eyelids for a while, and then falling into a very very deep sleep from which Kim woke me after a few minutes (luckily I had anticipated the possibility of falling asleep and so asked Kim to rescue me if it happened.). Well, I will try again later.

Didn’t work on self-hypnosis. I’ll try to get to that soon. In any case, I verified on the white-key exercise and I felt pretty good about the practicing, so that’s good. Also, I really felt like about the last 10 minutes of practicing was when I started to hit my stride. I think it’s not a bad thing if I can make my sessions 30 or even 40 minutes. But no more than that, I guess.

I almost flaked out on practicing altogether tonight. But Burge goes on about how much faster the results will be if you practice every day, so I just forced myself to do it. In fact, I kinda feel like it is those times that I most feel like not bothering with it that I need to do it most, because not feeling like it always seems like a sign for me that my brain is about to finally break down and give in and just friggin’ learn whatever thing it is I am trying to learn. Must really try to practice every day. Of course, there is the possibility that something could really make it impossible or totally unreasonable to practice on a given day. I ought to have a contingency plan. Of course it’s not the end of the world if it happens once in a great while for just one day, but more than that is a problem. Anyway, I guess my contingency would be to try to work on self-hypnosis, or visualization. Or to work on AR with the tuning fork, or to re-listen to the masterclasses I have already done. Or to read about AP. Okay, there are a lot of possibilities. I could also work some on getting back into swing with the whole "tonal memory" thing with noting the pitches of familiar sounds like microwave beeps and such. So that last, or actually working with AR would be the first choices, of course. Okay, good thing I got that worked out. Heh.

Oh, and as a last note tonight. Last night I checked to see what was going on with my order of the first Burge book and found out it was sent to the wrong address. So I e-mailed them saying that if it comes back to them I will pay for shipping again to have it sent to the right address. It wasn’t their fault. It was Amazon.com’s fault. Oh well. So that is still up in the air. I will see if I got a response tonight right now, then go to bed.

Monday May 20 2002 14.31.48 Pacific Time

So there was no Kim available today. I realized that this is a very common occurrence. I already verified on the solo piano exercise already, and I can’t just do ear training meditation for days on end, so I am listening to MC8 now. I figured out that I can listen to the CDs on my computer right here, so I am going to take notes right into my journal here…

MC8 NOTES:

Solo keyboard. "Melodic thirds pitch IDing drill." Play melodic thirds on white keys ascending. One verification round. Then one verification round descending. Speak tones in order played. Then one verification round with harmonic thirds. Just speak tone names, DO NOT SING! If harmonic thirds are hard, you can start out with rocking the tones back and forth a bit. Verify with strict harmonic thirds, though. Go slowly!

Guitar: learn open strings capo’ed to F and then to A (all the same old drills: one string, two at once, ext.)

Meditation: CDEF. Now there is a verification round: choose any tone at random, think it up, sing the tone, check. Try putting the names of the tones on cards. Pick cards at random. Verify with 20 in a row done right. Sing the tone with awareness and consciously. "Be with the tone." while doing it, even if you are using RP.

Partner exercise: CDEF. Same as last week. He didn’t mention singles, just melodic and harmonic doubles. I will do all three. Actually, I think I would like to verify with the CDE stuff from MC7 first. No reason not to.

Now he says to do each and every exercise that you can do, so I don’ t know. So the plan is: verify CDE partner singles, melodic doubles, harmonic doubles; verify partner CDEF singles, melodic doubles, harmonic doubles, verify CDEF meditation; verify white-key thirds melodic ascending, melodic descending, and harmonic. Wow. That’s ideally 10 verification rounds before MC9. That’s at least 5 days at break-neck speeds. More likely this is at least three weeks. I shall now jump in with meditation. Here goes...

…later…about 10 hours later…

So I didn’t do meditation. I forgot. I did about 20 minutes of the ascending thirds exercise. I got about 13 in a row at one point, but I was going very slowly, kind of like ear training meditation. I think, at any rate, that I won’t be able to help but get through these thirds pretty quickly because it is so automatic to hear them as major or minor thirds, and in which case there are only three white-key major thirds and four minor, so RP plus a general sense of about how high or low the sound is tells me pretty quickly what it has to be, or one of two that it has to be. I have missed some though, so I guess it is something I will have to work on some. But I do expect not to be doing this exercise for too long.

I would have made a new entry for this, but it is still the same day, and more importantly, I never really did the beginning-of-practice AR of C, because Kim had just gotten through with playing her cello and the last thing she did as she packed up was to absent-mindedly strum the open strings, so I thought I knew C from memory of that when I sat down. Ironically, I tried anyway and got C#. Oh well. So no official entry for that today. Also, forgot to do the breathing before I practiced, but I think I was pretty relaxed and focused anyway. But I will continue to try to remember to do the breathing before practice.

Tuesday May 21 2002 12.14.2 Pacific Time

Tried C, got G. Jesus Christ!

I did about 15 minutes of partner exercise. Including the singing at the end for a couple minutes. I verified on the CDE single note exercise. I would normally try to do another session today, but I have tons of homework and no time to do it tonight, so I think I will not do another session. Also, I think It’s okay, because I haven’t actually begun working on the solo piano exercise of MC8 yet, so I won’t be interrupting it.

That is all.

Thursday May 23 2002 2.33.47 Pacific Time

Tried C, got Eb a third above.

So I did about 20 minutes of the white-key ascending thirds. Went okay. Started a bit slowly, I think because in my tired from a really long day at work and school state I forgot to do the relaxation exercise before I started.

I am concerned about the fact that I was not able to practice earlier, and so the result was something like 36 hours without practicing. Not the end of the world I realize, but I was really itching to practice by the time I was able to do it. I really somehow feel like it is detrimental to go more than 24 hours without practicing. So I think I am going to be a little more active in trying to get in two sessions a day. One morning or afternoon session, and one night session. That way I will be more likely to remain within the 24 hour "limit" even if I miss my morning session. And besides, I am really convinced that two 15 minute session in a day is better than one 30 minute session. Well, that’ s how I am seeing it right now.

So, gotta remember to do my relaxation/breathing/meditation/om-saying/crystal juggling whatever stuff right before I practice. I really think it helps. As it was, today, I think I did get into the swing of it (almost verified on my first session of the ascending thirds) but there was still a few minutes at first where it didn’t feel like anything was happening.

So at any rate, relaxation, white-key ascending thirds until I verify once a day, and trying to also do a second session of partner exercises and/or meditation. And maybe I will try to get around to another self-hypnosis session sometime in the next few days. I have been pretty lax about that. I recently read about the value of mental imagery (in a running magazine, of all places) and it talked about how powerful self-hypnosis can be with positive imagery. Well, what a stroke of genius! Here I have been trying to do both, when what I should be doing is combining them! So what I ought to do is a short verbal script, with a more elaborately planned mental imagery thing. Well, I will think about it more soon.

I wonder if anyone would ever be interested in reading this journal? It’s up to 26 pages now of blather! I am thinking of venting some of my enthusiasm that I can’t spend by practicing for ten hours a day on building maybe a kind of developing absolute pitch web-portal. Like a public service to people like me a year ago. I could clean up this journal and put it up. Well, maybe, anyway. If at all, I think I will wait until I have made some progress first. I feel like something is coming on, but I have to admit that I don’ t know that I have made any measurable progress yet. Well, a little, I guess. Boy, the pace needs to pick up, or else I am going to take 20 years to develop real AP. I guess it has to pick up, though.

Bid on a copy of the older Burge tape course (along with the older RP course) on eBay last night, but got outbidded well over what I can afford to pay. I have been looking at eBay and used book store listings about older Burge stuff and I gather that the older course had less taped talk, but more printed material. In fact, it looks as though that "Official Transcript of the Perfect Pitch Seminar" was included with the older course, and also something called something like "The Official Transcript of the Perfect Pitch Master Class", or something like that. I will keep keeping my eyes out for it. As for the old, original book I ordered, no word. I think I will write it off and just keep my eyes out for it. I have found some new online used book sources and found that people are asking about $45 for it. $5 would have been a steal. Too bad.

Date? About 1 and 1/2 months AP.

Friday May 24 2002 1.34.55 Pacific Time

AR Middle C: C F# B G Eb C#

Running total so far is 4 out of 20. That’s 20%, which is a slight decline since the first week.

One out of six this week. I don’t know what happened last Monday.

Today, Tried C, got C# just above.

I did about 15 minutes of the ascending white-key thirds. Got twelve in a row at one point. I am not exactly repressing my RP, I am kind of ignoring it, though. I am not sure if this is a good thing. I think in the first few weeks I really trained myself pretty well to ignore RP and that ain’t good!

I didn’t get in another session again, due mostly to homework and work issues. I’ll keep trying, though.

The relaxation/breathing stuff helped a lot today, I think. Must keep up with that.

I did a bunch of surfing of the net at work looking for links of interest to people wanting to develop AP. Just stuff that is really focused on that (rather that just general stuff about AP in general) comes to about 20 or 25 links so far, but most of it only kind of marginally useful.

I found myself stuck in traffic on the way to work today and decided I had time to really concentrate on recalling an A. I had my tuning fork. It is attached in such a way to my key chain that I can detach it while leaving the keys in the ignition. I set it up this way for just this purpose. Anyway, I haven’t tried it for some time. I tried and got just about a quarter-tone sharp of A. Not bad at all, if I do say so myself. I think I really should try to integrate the tuning fork AR exercise more into the little blank spots in my daily life—few as they are.

Well Kim is leaving town for a few days, so tomorrow, white-key thirds (I really think I am going to verify with the ascending thirds soon) and hopefully also a session of meditation. Then I am damned-fire well gonna get around to the next self-hypnosis session this weekend. Well, there it is. A plan. Baby steps . . .

Looking over an old entry I realize that I have only done, like two or three self-hypnosis sessions so far in all this time. This does not constitute regular practice with self-hypnosis. But I don’t think I am going to worry. After all, the point is developing AP, not learning S-H. So I will continue to do it when I can, but I need to remember that (as I said earlier) there is no reason that I have to be super-well prepared before I jump into a S-H session. If I have the time and feel like it, I should just do it. That is, if I have already done my allotted practice for the day. Oh well. I am going to bed. My brain hurts.

Saturday May 25 2002 2.5.30 Pacific Time

Tried Middle C, got somewhere between C and B. Not bad. I will call it B, though.

So, I had a lot of spare time at work tonight (you’d think I had an easy job, lately), so I did a bunch more net surfing and started coding a web-page in earnest. I want something that has all the links in the universe of interest to those trying to develop AP. Not crap that is just about AP in general—most of that appears to be bullshit, anyway—just stuff interesting to those actively interested in developing AP. So that’s actually not to many links. So far about 25, some of which are pretty marginal. But I do want it to be thorough. The second thing I want it to be is a place where people can come and find testimonials from people who have actually done it. There are so many posts to Usenet groups that are just the question, can it really be done?—and most of the responses are no, or probably not, or maybe, but I have never heard of it being done. Well, I am starting to finally turn up the obscure links to places where someone says, yes, I really did it, or someone I really know did it. That kind of thing. Inspiration. Then the third thing I want the page to have is a FAQ file. I don’t know why there is no FAQ for the Developing_AP list. There needs to be one. So I may try to compile one. I hate to admit it, but my lurking days on D_AP may be about to end.

I verified on the ascending white-key thirds tonight. I didn’t have the clock handy, but I think it was about 15 minutes I did. Forgot to do the breathing, though it seemed to go well anyway, and I didn’t do a second session today. Well, I will just keep trying.

So, that means I still would like to do, before MC9: Meditation verification, white-key descending and harmonic, partner CDE Melodic and Harmonic, CDEF singles, melodic doubles and harmonic doubles. That’s eight verifications. Could be a while, but that’s okay. I think I am really beginning to enjoy my practice. I am going pretty slow with it. Really, I am kind of making all the training like meditation, not just the official meditation rounds. I sense a profound change coming on (said Master Yoda). No, seriously. I have to admit I am a pretty musical person in a lot of ways, and maybe that’s why I am finding that I can just sit and listen to single tones for 20 minutes and not get bored. In fact, it is really cool. I am even starting to fantasize vaguely about sitting and writing some short Morton Feldman-esque piano pieces inspired by all this.

Well okay, so I am psyched. Cool. I am partly psyched, I think, because I am understanding why people on Usenet say "well, it might work for some people, but it didn’t work for me, so I gave up after a couple months." This thing just can’t be hurried, and it really takes some time. I am realizing that my level of commitment is way up on the right edge of the bell-curve, as it were. I am really doing the whole shebang, which many many people who order the course don’t do and follow through with. I am psyched because I am seeing that there is nothing in my way. I just keep at it like I am and I will get there. Wow. I really am believing this and it is so cool.

Well, finally, I am also putting some serious thought into the idea of at some point cleaning this document up and putting it online along with that webpage. Would need a lot of editing, of course, but it might really be interesting for someone wanting to avoid some pitfalls or whatever. Well, maybe…

Oh yeah, and tomorrow I really want to do another self-hypnosis/visualization session. And two practice sessions—one of melodic descending white-key doubles, and one meditation. A lot, I know, and I don’t want to burn out, but I am feeling like I am not having enough time on week days and feel like doing one day of a lot of effort. After all, we’re really only talking about maybe an hour probably. We’ll see. If not, I won’t worry about it.

Oh, there’s more (almost forgot). I figured out another use for the tuning fork today. Lots of times I have a tune in my head and want to guess its key, or I have a tone in mind and same, or I hear a distinctly pitched sound and want to try to call it, but I think I shouldn’t because I can’t check myself—but then today I realized it: I have a tuning fork in my pocket! And of course, my RP is infallible when it comes to that kind of thing, so I only need the one pitch and I can call any other that I may be hearing. This substantially increases the number of opportunities to do "spot practice" when I’m out and about. So I want to try to remember to do this kind of thing more often. Well, that is all.

Sunday May 26 2002 2.31.51 Pacific Time

Tried C, got C. Later, tried C and got C# above.

I did about 25 minutes of the descending white-key thirds today and verified. Actually, I missed a couple as I was practicing. I was up to about 7 or so when I had gone about 15 minutes, and I just decided to quit either when I missed another or when I verified. I was going very slowly and meditatively and I ended up verifying after, oh, maybe about 23 minutes would be more accurate.

Later I did about 15 minutes of CDEF meditation. I used the little colored flash cards I made to choose tones. I didn’t try to verify, but it went pretty well.

First session I did some relaxation stuff first. For the second session, I was too sleepy to need it.

I did a little work on the web-page thingy. Not too much, though, as I have a lot of homework and pianoing to do this weekend. Lots more homework and stuff tomorrow. I am tired. I friggin plum forgot to do anything with self-hypnosis. Better luck tomorrow. So, just seven more verifications before MC9. Hooray! Um, er, yeah. By the way, speaking of turnips, I was mentioning the possibility of putting this journal online, but the problem is there would be a major moral issue with making the contents of Burge’s course public for free. I mean, technically I don’t think it would be a copyright infringement, legally, but morally it might be. I am really starting to become a true believer in Burge and Co. And I really don’t want to do anything that could hurt their business. Oh well. I’ll think about it. Maybe I could edit out the stuff that is too specific. Like the descriptions of the exact exercises. Hmmmm. Think about it, I guess. The main thing is just to keep practicing, though—not to waste time with journals and webpages.

Monday May 27 2002 1.30.14 Pacific Time

Tried C and got, well, C#. Really C and a fraction sharp. May have been a hair closer to C#, so I will call it that. Later tried C and got… F#! Oh well. The second time I totally didn’t try very hard.

So I did 20 minutes of the harmonic white-key thirds. This is pretty challenging. I will know I am improving when I can do this verification.

I friggin’ forgot about the self-hypnosis again. Hmmmm. Maybe I should do it now.

Anyway, tonight I did more meditation—about 15 minutes. Verified on it. Went okay, I suppose.

So, six more verifications before MC9. And that’s only if I can get Kim to help. If I should happen to verify with the harmonic thirds tomorrow (doubtful) and then the next day can’t get Kim to help with a partner session, I may just have to move on to MC9 anyway. Can’t just sit around, you know. Tomorrow it is almost sure that Kim won’t be available. So I think it is kind of important (as far as it goes) to try to get Kim to help with a session on Tuesday and then every day after that I can get her to. Well, I guess that’s true any time. So I guess I just won’t worry about it.

Been forgetting to use the tuning fork, too. Gotta get more into that. Well, that is all.

Tuesday May 28 2002 1.51.17 Pacific Time

Tried C, got A below.

Parents here for the week. Two papers to write for school and two presentations to prepare. Behind. Piano lesson tomorrow. Not prepared. Entertaining parents. Have 10 hour shift at work tomorrow. Nearing end of semester. Phone about to be disconnected for non-payment. Exhausted. Did 15 minutes of white-key harmonic thirds late tonight half asleep. Total loss. Better luck tomorrow. No S-H last night or tonight either. Don’t know when I’ll get to it. Will try to work up some positive visualization tonight to fall asleep doing. God knows I could use it. Date is about 6 weeks AP. No noticeable results yet. This is a little discouraging, as every person who says they ever did it, says they were getting real noticeable results very quickly. I have never really heard this "color" thing. I am going to start crying if I write more, so I’ ll stop and pick it up tomorrow.

Wednesday May 29 2002 2.52.14 Pacific Time

What a night. Today I tried C and got E above. Jeez.

I did about 15 minutes of the white-key harmonic thirds this morning before my piano lesson. I did okay. Actually I think I am improving. I expect I will verify on this soon. Kim is going to be indisposed again tomorrow, and also, it being Wednesday, Todd (my other roommate) will have the day off from work. I don’t really want to have to discuss this project with him, so I won’t want to do a partner round when he is around. And as I said, no Kim tomorrow (her mother leaves town tomorrow afternoon). So maybe I will get in a partner round on Thursday. I think I should make that a priority.

I have been trying the tuning fork occasionally. I am pretty convinced (at the moment, at any rate) that I am improving with it. Tried it today and had A spot on.

Since I can not find anything online about Evergreen Music (the publisher of Byron Duckwall’s "Perfect Pitch Developer") I decided to write them, asking if the course is still available anywhere. I strongly suspect that they are out of business, but it can’t hurt. I put the letter in the mail tonight. We’ll see…

So, tomorrow it is more white key thirds. Maybe verify. We’ll see. If I don’t just fall instantly to sleep (very likely) I will now try some "positive visualization." Good night.

Friday May 31 2002 1.26.1 Pacific Time

Forgot to make an entry yesterday. I tried C and got C#. Today I tried C and got Bb below, and then later I tried C and got Ab, because I didn’t really try very hard the second time.

AR Middle C: B C# C# A E Bb Ab C#

Yesterday I did about 15 minutes of the white-key thirds. This morning I did about 15 minutes of the melodic pairs from CDE partner round and I verified on that (hooray!). Tonight I did about 20 minutes of the white-key thirds. I still haven’t gone more than about 13 in a row without a mistake on that. But I do think I am improving, so I will keep at it and hope to verify on it soon.

So, that leaves white-key thirds, harmonic pairs from CDE, singles from CDEF, melodic pairs from CDEF, harmonic pairs from CDEF. That’ s five more verifications and I will be totally ready for MC9, although again, if I verify on white-key thirds I will go ahead immediately.

That brings up something else. I think I want to generally try to avoid verifying on two exercises on the same day. So, for instance, if I am able to get Kim involved again tomorrow and verify on harmonic pairs from CDE, and then I want to do a second session… well, which is more important, not verifying on more than one exercise per day, or having at least one session per day on the main exercise (the piano solo exercise)? Hell, I don’t know. I guess I will just take it as it comes up. I guess generally I ought to try to prioritize partner exercises, then continuity of doing the daily session of the solo piano exercise, then not verifying twice in a day. I would rather verify twice in a day than simply not do two sessions. I could always simply do an exercise, but not keep count. That kinda sucks, though. I think I’d just better not worry about it.

Well, how about this: if there are more than one solo piano exercise, will avoid verifying on both in the same day. I have already been doing this anyway. Okay.

Saturday Jun 1 2002 0.33.14 Pacific Time

I tried C and got about C#. A slightly flat C#, actually.

Well, I passed the verification today for the white-key thirds. Finally. I think I am improving, however slowly. I only did the one session of about 15 minutes today. I would have liked to do a second session of meditation tonight, but I really don’t have time. That brings me to tomorrow. I don’t have time because I have to go to sleep, because I have to get up early to drive to Portland tomorrow to go to a wedding. So tomorrow is going to actually be my first intentional day off from practicing. So I need to have a plan. So here is my plan. Number one, listen on Kim’s car stereo on the way, to MC9. Might as well. Number two, use the tuning fork often. And when I do, really concentrate and focus. Don’t just flippantly hum and note and check it. Really try to hear the A440 first. Also possible: check the key of tunes I am thinking to myself. Try to audition them at pitch—if I know the correct pitch name. Also, try to ID ambient sounds in the environment and check self with the fork. Good luck. Sunday, I start practicing from MC9. Though if I can get Kim to help with partner sessions, I may put that off some.

Sunday Jun 2 2002 21.40.47 Pacific Time

Tried C, got Bb below.

No time for idle chit-chat. I have a paper to write.

I didn’t do much with the tuning fork yesterday in Portland, but I did a little. More than nothing, anyway. Pretty un-systematic, though. Just tried to remember an A when I thought of it and had a minute (only a couple times).

So on the way I did listen to MC9. Nothing too big. Add G to meditation. Do same as last time, but sixths instead of thirds. Other than that, exactly the same. Oh, and for the partner rounds, also add G.

I have been forgetting to do the final couple minutes of saying a tone and then singing it at the end of the partner rounds—the one time in the last week I did one. Have to remember that. Anyway, only a couple more weeks of school left before summer, and I don’t intend to take any classes during the summer, so I will have more time, and much more opportunity for partner rounds.

That is all.

Tuesday Jun 4 2002 1.1.58 Pacific Time

Tried C, got F above (!)

Very late and I am really tired. Couldn’t gt in any practice time earlier. I really need to try hard to get in a session early, as I am really convinced I am better off that way. Umm, yes, well, I did 15 minutes of ascending white-key sixths tonight. That’s it. Better luck tomorrow. I think something I ought to do soon is to read this whole journal, from start to finish. For one thing it might give me a sense that I am improving, for another thing it will refresh my memory about all the things I have learned about best practicing methods, and for another thing, I might remember any things I wanted to do or try that I have forgotten (like the whole positive visualization thing which has kind of gone by the wayside). Maybe I’ll get to that sometime soon. Well, off to bed with me. The school quarter is almost over. Once it is, things will go much better.

Wednesday Jun 5 2002 1.1.26 Pacific Time

Tried C, got Bb below. Hmmmm. Not going too well with the AR lately.

Did about 15 minutes of white-key sixths. Couldn’t get Kim to help today because there was some trauma with her rat getting lost (it was subsequently found). Anyway, I realized that Kim is declining to help more and more lately, so I think the salad days may be over. On the other hand, perhaps that’s a good thing. If I were to conclude that trying to get Kim’s help was sufficiently hopeless, or rarely successful that it was a waste of time, then the result could be that I end up never missing a day of the more important solo piano exercises. Iiiiinteresting. I’ll say one thing, I am pretty sure I am not getting enough practice. I think I am going to up my minimum from 15 to 20 minutes at a sitting and I think I am going to try for closer to a half-hour. And I also think I need to make time to do two sessions per day. I have always noticed that I need more extended sessions of practicing anything to get it than most people. So I think I really need to do it this way. Well, we’ ll see.

So, more often two practice sessions, and longer sessions, and less Kim maybe. I guess I’ll see what Kim does for the next few days. I can’t blame her in the least if she isn’t interested. After all, what’s in it for her? And also I really think I need to figure out a way to remind myself to use the tuning fork more often—like about once-per hour or so would be nice. Perhaps the secret is to keep a log of my progress with it. At least it would keep those neurons firing. Huh. The problem is that I would have trouble keeping a paper journal with me all the time and not losing it. Maybe I’ll try, though. But this still doesn’t solve the problem of needing a way to remind myself every hour without using sound—like a watch alarm. Just gotta think of something . . . .

So, soon I will read the journal so far. Didn’t have time tonight. The other thing would like to do is re-listen to the whole Burge course so-far up to MC9 to see what I have missed so far and find out all about the wheels I have re-invented.

Thursday Jun 6 2002 2.5.19 Pacific Time

Tried C, got Bb below.

Did 15 minutes of white-key sixths. No progress. I absolutely have to be doing more time with this. No other way.

Saturday Jun 8 2002 4.37.54 Pacific Time

(Added later: previous week:

AR Middle C: C# Bb F Bb Bb D)

Tried C, got D above (a little flat of D, actually).

Blew off practice yesterday. Shame on me. Today, I did about 30 minutes of white key ascending sixths. I verified. Listened to the first two master classes of Burge again today. Interesting. Very late. Have tons of homework this weekend. Gotta go.

Tuesday Jun 11 2002 14.25.3 Pacific Time

Tried C, got D.

Whew! Well, I went two days without practice. Bad. Very bad. But I did get an amazing amount of homework done. I have only one more short thing to do and then the quarter is over. No