From one of my favorite mixing books, The Mixing Engineer’s Handbook, I found an excerpt called Magic Frequencies.

Happy Labor Day!

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Most musicians with good relative pitch will notice immediately if a note is out of tune relative to its surroundings. If it bugs you, then there’s a lot of music you probably can’t listen to. If it doesn’t bother you, then you know how someone with absolute pitch is affected by sound. Sounds sound good or bad or somewhere in between based on your personal preference, whether you have absolute pitch or not.

Part of the problem with this myth comes from the sloppy use of language to describe an experience. A single note can be out of tune relative to the surrounding tones. That’s one example of being out of tune. A single instrument can be out of tune relative to the other instruments in an ensemble. That’s another example. But if all the tones or instruments are tuned differently than A440 kHz, it’s not out of tune. It’s just a different tuning.

History tells us that we haven’t always listened to music with the A440 kHz standard. In Mozart’s time, stringed-keyboard music music was meant to be played at a range of around A420 to A430. There are also different tuning systems and temperaments.

If this myth were true, then there would be quite a few people with absolute pitch who couldn’t listen to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, which on record was globally tuned a little sharp. And if you don’t like Kind of Blue, it’s got nothing to do with absolute pitch. It just means that you’re crazy!

Basically, you just copy the text files to your iPod’s notes folder and copy the MP3s to your music library. Then, in the iPod’s notes menu, you navigate to the main iTheory note and you can test intervals, scales, chords, and absolute pitch.

I think I’m going to hack into mine and personalize it a bit more. It’s really cool how you can reference audio in a note. I wish I knew before that you can do that. My mind is racing with ideas to use this trick.

• How To Be An Expert
• Your Goals As Waveform
• What is RSS and Why Do I Care?
• The World’s Most Important 6-Sec Drum Loop
• Absolute Pitch Power Blogathon
• Can Hit Songs Really Be Reduced To Science? I Mean, Really?
• An official blogging-songwriter birthday weekend…
• Links for 2006-06-10
• Links for 2006-06-05
• Links for 2006-06-02
• Any Tips On Guitar Tuning, Ear And Pitch Training?
• Hit Songwriting Tips Podcast 08-22-06
• Links for 2006-03-27
• Learn Orchestration Free Online
• Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 12-04-06
• How Do You Develop New And Interesting Chord Changes?
• Links for 2006-04-04
• Weekly Music Business Podcast
• Hit Songwriting Tips Podcast 09-29-06
• Songwriting For Busy People

• Is Your Ear Suspect?
• Why Singing What You Hear Is Important To Your Ear Training
• Understanding The Art And Craft Of Absolute Pitch Hearing
• Shaolin Ear Training
• Hearing and Consciousness
• Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 12-04-06
• Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 10-06-06
• Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 09-26-06
• Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 08-14-06
• Absolute Pitch Ear Training Podcast 07-30-06
• Naked Pitch
• Ear Training Software and Freeware for Mac and PC
• Why Is Absolute Pitch More Refined Than Relative Pitch?
• The Ear Training You Do Today…
• Quit On A High Point
• Portals Into Absolute Pitch: Silence
• How To Hear Interval Quality Distinctions
• Ear Training With Your Cell Phone Ringtone
• Some Important Absolute Pitch Distinctions
• How To Be An Expert
• Ear Training Hack #3
• Ear Training Hacks 1-2

In case you missed it, I’ve talked about ear training with your cell phone ringtone before.

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Recognizing that C and F is a perfect fourth is a cognitive exercise. You have to think about it. Maybe only for a split-second, but you still have to translate your physical experience, a verb, into a mental object, a noun.

The experience of C and F is a physical experience. It is a physical vibration traveling through the air and affecting your physical ear. You, who knows the sound of a perfect fourth, and a non-musician, who doesn’t know the name of what they are hearing, still hears the exact same physical vibration coming through the air. That means that the cognitive part of your ear training obviously separates you from the non-musician.

Many musicians only take it that far. They get stuck in their heads. I’m sure you know musicians who seem to know a lot but still don’t have “that feel.”

So naming intervals and understanding music theory is done with the mind while experiencing sound is accomplished by the body. Both are very important.

Take a look at the word emotion. It means, with motion. When we talk about our emotions, we say “I feel…” You feel things in your body. When you sing a tone, you feel the experience in your body. It’s real on the gross level. Whereas the mind experiences things on a more subtle level. If I punch you in the gut, you really feel it. If I insult you, you experience it in a different way. Sometimes that experience will have correlates in the body. So they’re intertwined. But if I punch you, your mind has no choice but to follow your body’s commands. You keel over. If I insult you, you have the choice of ignoring me and directing your mind elsewhere.

If you’re only working on the cognitive, or mind, aspect of ear training and music theory, you’re missing a large chunk of the experience of sound. Singing what you hear brings what you are learning into the body so that you can embody your knowledge of music. It’s not just a theory or skill anymore. It’s part of your identity.

Therefore, you can improve your musicianship by singing, and embodying, everything you learn. Here’s a couple of practical exercises to try.

• Reach out to your instrument and play any two or more tones. Then sing them from the bottom up or top down.
• When you hear sounds that you would like to emulate, try emulating them with your voice first.

Got any exercises of your own to share?

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The good news is that people who weren’t fortunate enough to have learned absolute pitch at a very early age can learn to hear with absolute pitch through learning the craft of absolute pitch hearing. And with enough passion, dedication, and tenacity, you will also experience first hand the art of absolute pitch hearing.

The Craft of Absolute Pitch Hearing

Like any craft, the best way to learn is to get a teacher, study, and practice. It’s no different from learning to be a carpenter. First you learn the correct way to make things. With practice, you become good and your skills become second nature. Finally, you add your own twist and find your voice. Maybe you innovate new techniques. Most likely, you begin to understand the art of your craft.

The Art of Absolute Pitch Hearing

Nobody can give you this understanding. Art is discovered through curious personal exploration into the world of sound. It is ineffable. It is a deep knowing through experience. It is the vast and fundamental difference between listening and hearing.

Only time spent in the mystery of sound will teach you to understand the art of hearing.

I leave you with the words of a great artist:

All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
-Pablo Picasso

And while I don’t like to go “off topic” in my blog too much, I felt I had to, given the significance this information could have on your ear training and musicianship — let alone your entire life.

So one the basic premises of accelerated learning is that your brain is in a state of peak performance when it’s vibrating at a certain frequency. And different frequencies get different results.

There are natural ways to achieve these states, like through meditation, relaxation, and controlled breathing exercises. And there are other ways to induce these brain states, like bio-feedback, hypnosis, and…

Brain Wave Entrainment

Bio-feedback can get pretty expensive. You either visit a bio-feedback lab, or buy costly equipment that can read your vital statistics. But even then, you need to learn *how* to get into these altered states.

Hypnosis scares most people. Not only that, you either need to spend many hours learning how to use self-hypnosis or spend lots of money on a trained hypnotherapist.

But brain wave entrainment is simple and affordable. You simply pop in a CD and your brain will synchronize to the entrainment frequency.

Using binaural beats was all the rage for a while. Lots of people were selling binaural beat CDs and some audio editors would even create them for you. But new research has shown a technique called “Isochronic Tones” to be even better.

Well, being into accelerated learning and brain/mind research, I was blown away when I got an email from one of my trusted mentors, Stephen Pierce. Whenever he sends me an email, I drop everything and read it. But this one got me more excited than usual.

I could repeat everything he said, but I’ll just let you find out for yourself why I’m so excited about Optimindzation. And, why I think it’s going to be an indispensable tool to you, the musician.

Believe me, this changes everything. Find out more here: Optimindzation

Hearing is the first sense we develop in the womb. The regions of the brain that deal with hearing are the first to finish the developmental process called myelination, in which the connecting “wires” of neurons are finished off with fatty sheaths that insulate the neurons, speeding up their electrical signals. In contrast, the visual system doesn’t complete this last step of myelination until a few months after birth.

Hearing is the last sense to go as we lose consciousness (when you’re dropping off to sleep, your other senses drop away and sounds seem to swell up) and the first to return when we make it back to consciousness.

Every morning I consciously wake up my ears. And I wake up my sense of pitch by picking any note, imagining it, and playing it on the piano. These days, I’m always right. But sometimes on a drowsy day, I’ll be a little flat. Not a full quarter tone. Never am I sharp. I blame my energy level. I’m not “up” yet.

I still carry a tuning fork with me. All I have to do is look at it and I hear an A. I don’t even need it but I bring it along anyway for a couple of reasons.

The first is a symbol. A symbol of absolute pitch. It reminds me to be aware of pitch. The more aware I am of pitch, with time, the more refined my sense of pitch becomes.

Second is a reminder to listen. Strike a tuning fork and put it up to your ear, concentrate only on the sound of it vibrating and listen. Close your eyes. No inner dialogue. Just follow the sound as it fades into silence. Notice how you can’t determine exactly when the sound ends. There’s no clear perceivable line between sound and silence. They live inversely. So I’m reminded of silence and I’m reminded to listen unconditionally.

In the absolute sense, sound is neither good nor bad. All judgments are created by our thinking. In the relative sense, loud sounds can hurt your ears. Sounds can be familiar or unfamiliar, consonant or dissonant, strong or weak. All of that “mental noise” can create distance from our own experience of sound.

If you want refined hearing, refine your thinking.

It’s not easy to tighten the leaky faucet of thought. But a listening practice is good training.

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If you sign up in time — before all the slots are taken — you will be guaranteed personal absolute pitch ear training assistance. I’ll treat you like a king or queen, and help you as hard as I help myself.

I don’t believe anyone, anywhere, has held a teleseminar series like this. There are only a handful of experts CAPABLE of pulling it off… and no on else has stepped up to the plate, as far as I can see.

If this is something you want, get moving on it.

If you have any questions, call me at 303-994-5050 (This is my private cell phone… please respect my time). Otherwise, fill out the Reservation Form right now.

Long ago, during the peak of the Human Potential Movement, the mind technology “Neuro-Linguistic Programming” was created by some very colorful and controversial characters in California.

The eccentric Richard Bandler (known for his unconventional and provocative therapy) and the former military Captain John Grinder (who specialized in the transformational grammar of Noam Chomsky) first developed Neuro-Linguistic Programming. Through “word of mouth”, NLP grew to the point where coaches like Tony Robbins were charging between $5,000 and $20,000 for a single weekend of coaching.

Just before I hooked up with NLP developers David Gordon (who specialized in therapeutic metaphors and, for the past 20 years, modeling) and Charles Faulkner (who has worked closely with futures traders worldwide and helped them make millions!), I produced my first absolute pitch ear training course.

Soon after, I became an NLP Master Practitioner — a massive 28-day affair in Winter Park Colorado, complete with major NLP developers (Steve Andreas, author of “Transforming Your Self“, finished the event)… NLP coaches (from all over the world–even as far as IRAQ!)… and a jaw-dropping stable of the best NLP trainers.

That wildly-successful training seminar taught me the “model” for almost everything I’ve done since… because at its core is killer information and a powerful “tool box” to build your life exactly the way you want!

I enjoy NLP. I’ve been using it for over 15 years. I’ve written about it extensively. (Most recent: Hacking Your Self Concept) I have even been paid as a life coach — to help people achieve their life goals in everything from relationships to finances.

However…

…Where I have found NLP to be most useful is in using the core of NLP to capture and acquire the skills and abilities of the world’s greatest musicians.

It is the one thing that made NLP so powerful.

Specifically: Modeling.

You see, back then during my NLP training, David Gordon showed me how experience has structure. Skills as diverse as being able to effectively negotiate, tell a joke, manage a large group, write a book, promptly pay bills, plan the future, learn from the past, or compose music, all have a structure. Every human being is a vault of abilities in which they are an expert, or in modeling terms, an “exemplar.” All you need to open the vault is the correct combination.

But… that’s just the beginning. Because if an experience or behavior is possible for one person, it is possible for anyone.

I went crazy when I thought about that. But I went completely insane when I actually experienced it…

Let me tell you, the “real” training didn’t start… until we began with the “Hot Seats“. We all got our chance to be in the spot light and become the “exemplar.” We modeled each other. I mean, everybody’s an expert at something. Wanna hear the great part? I wasn’t at this training alone. I was there with some of my closest friends… who just happened to be musicians!

Every night, after hours, we would retreat into our mountain hideaway and hack into each other’s minds just like pale, sunlight-starved computer geeks (think of “Neo” in The Matrix). We modeled jazz improvisation, songwriting, engineering, music production, we took orchestration manuals and turned them into detailed models, we dug into biographies of great composers like Beethoven to find models for creativity, and the most important model of all… Stretching the limits of hearing.

Modeling is exciting, isn’t it?

But let’s get back to Music Hacks…

In February 2004, British technology journalist Danny O’Brien coined the term lifehack, which refers to productivity tricks that programmers and other geeks devise and employ to cut through information overload and organize their data. Since that time, websites devoted to lifehacks have proliferated the web. (An article I wrote comparing goals to musical waves was highly regarded at lifehack.org on May 31st, 2006)

The “hacker ethic” is based upon the computer geeks at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and is similar to the values existing in the open scientific community: information-sharing is powerful and positive, “cracking codes” is acceptable as long as it is virtuous and ethical, and hacking develops individual character. These values are closely related to the virtue ethics found in the writings of Plato and Aristotle.

I came up with the term “Music Hack” to reference these little mini-models that I was using to create slick solutions for my students’ and colleagues’ creative and musical challenges. The idea was to help you learn to hack your music and creativity intentionally, so you never get stuck and experience more joy out of playing.

I started using my Music Hack concept publicly during my first big advanced absolute pitch coaching teleseminar… when I discovered that I had more time than I’d planned for at the ends of these calls. So I randomly picked someone… put them down in the “Hot Seat”… and proceeded to grill them on the specifics of their “problems.”

And then, as casually as if we were discussing the weather…

I Solved Every Problem
They Had.

I did it to fill up time. Almost as an afterthought.

Yet, those first few Music Hacks immediately became the talk of the attendees. People in the teleseminar were stunned at how quickly we were able to solve what seemed like truly impossible challenges and unsolvable problems.

The folks in the Hot Seats actually seemed dazed. These were problems that had consumed their waking hours, exhausted their emotional resources, and frustrated every other music teacher they contacted… and we took maybe 15 minutes to uncover the root problems, redirect the energy, SOLVE the biggest problems… and even lay out a quick plan, complete with simple and specific assignments.

It happened so fast, some people thought it was a trick.

It wasn’t. In the beginning, I just needed to calm the Hot Seat hackee down enough to clearly tell me what the problem was. (That took a little skill — and it’s a critical lesson (use today: Your first step to fixing anything is to clearly identify the problem… in one or two short sentences, without any jargon.)

It wasn’t a trick, and it wasn’t magic.

It was just experience and modeling. Plus decades of hard-core, “stay at it until it works” effort, with my butt on the line…

Combined with the ability to TEACH — to understand how to communicate, and “translate” all that experience in a way that was easily absorbed… and learned.

And what about those problems that each Hot Seat participant was so sure was unique to him alone, and so challenging they were nearly impossible to solve?

Child’s play. I learned long ago that there aren’t all that many things that can go wrong in playing music. The blunders made by the concert pianist or singer-songwriter aren’t all that different from the mistakes made by the jazz cat or the guitar shredder.

And the solutions don’t always have to be made up fresh and new for each problem. Still… getting to each solution — even the simple ones — nevertheless…

Requires Hard-Core Expertise That ONLY Comes From Years Of DOING It.

That… plus the advanced knowledge of modeling and music psychology that ONLY a veteran musician and NLP Master Practitioner ever acquires.

The heart of successful musicianship is all about understanding humans. Your listeners are humans, and that means they share ALL the same unconscious listening patterns as everyone else. (If you’re playing music to zebras or insects, you’re excused.)

And you, as the performing musician or songwriter or whatever, are also human… and you share most or all of the same “mind screw ups” that other folks suffer whenever they encounter the thought-provoking, emotional and often confusing “real world” of music.

A good Music Hack, really, is like…

A Vicious “Intervention” In Your
Life And Music…
By Someone Who Knows The Right Path.

It can be startling, having everything you’re doing ripped apart and reassembled in front of your eyes. But it works.

I do not enjoy crushing anyone’s naive ideas of how things get done in the music world.

But if that’s what I have to do to get you on the right track, I won’t hesitate to get out the dynamite. That’s the way I learned — with some of the most intense (yet basically caring) mentors around. And that’s the way most of my most successful students and colleagues have learned fastest.

Here’s what you get during a Music Hack Hot Seat, as performed by yours truly:

Click Here to discover the power of Music Hacks…

Absolute Pitch University is 12 weeks of personal coaching through bi-weekly teleseminars. Every teleseminar is recorded for you to listen to again and again… and in case you have to miss one. We’ll cover Absolute Pitch Power (and even those other AP methods out there), Music Hacks, Modeling, Hot Seats, and much, much more. You’ll have discussion areas to ask questions and communicate with other classmates. It doesn’t matter how old you are, what instrument or style you play, where you live (International students are welcome), or what skill level you are.

APU is personalized to YOU.

PLUS… I’ll let you pay in three installments, if you want.

Register Now => Absolute Pitch University

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APU is an Absolute Pitch Master Mind (a coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose) PLUS a whole lot more. But deeper than that, it is a learning environment that delves into the reasons why you play music in the first place. This is only for people who want to make each moment at your instrument–and possibly away from your instrument—a work of art and a moment to remember.

If you’re ready, this is the opportunity for that hands-on “music-hacking” that will change everything for you…

=> Absolute Pitch University

Current customers can login to the site and download all the updates.

I was in the gym the other day and a trainer and her trainee were playing name that tune as they worked out. The trainee was pretty fast. It only took him a couple of bars to remember the name of the song and the artist. So he, a non-musician, has the ability to attach names to sounds.

That got me thinking. It’s not much different than what we do to learn absolute pitch or relative pitch. It’s like a game of name that tune. Instead of song titles and artist names, we use the basic fundamental labels of music. We use the names of pitches, intervals, scales, chords, and so on.

So you learn to label a minor chord when you hear one. You learn to name intervals. And you learn the names of the individual pitches themselves.

In essence, you are stripping down a particular sound to get to its most basic qualities.

Here’s what else I heard in the gym. If either of them didn’t immediately know what the song was, they would figure out what the song wasn’t. “No, it’s not Peter Gabriel and it’s not Paul McCartney. It’s not Graceland.” Then they would find other distinctions to help narrow down their choices. “It sounds like it’s from the 90s.”

If you’re learning absolute pitch, it may be useful to listen to a sound and figure out which parts of that sound aren’t pitch. It’s not timbre. It’s not volume. It’s not the sound of the instrument. Then find other distinctions to eliminate. It’s too low to be a G. It’s too high to be a C.

You can do this with pitch triggers too. If you have a tune associated to every pitch, you can narrow down your choices. It’s definitely not Beethoven’s 9th (F#). It’s not Mozart’s Sonata in C.

Too often I hear students stop on the first try. They don’t know how to label the sound they’re hearing and they give up.

Don’t give up. If you want to get pitch naked, you have to give it time. Absolute pitch is shy.

With relative pitch, there are twelve major chords. With absolute pitch, there is only one C major chord. The distinctions you can make with absolute pitch are finer and smaller. And each note has its own sound. Transpose a Beethoven symphony into another key and it doesn’t have the same feeling anymore. Each key has its own mood.

With a more refined ear, you have more precise options to help you make the right musical decisions.

A wave is a disturbance that propagates through space, often transferring energy.

That’s a fascinating sentence. A wave is a disturbance. It is an interruption of space. So everything is just perfect until you get an idea that competes with the pre-existing emptiness for your attention. And this disturbance propagates through space, often transferring energy. So now this little disturbance has not only reproduced and spread, but has moved energy.

Energy
The word “energy” comes from the Greek ενεργός (energeia). The compound ενεργός in Epic Greek meant “divine action” or “magical operation.” In a very general sense, everything is energy and energy is everything. If everything is energy, then everything can be expressed in waveform at some level.

Back to waveforms. Waves have a number of characteristics: frequency, wavelength, amplitude, and period. Frequency is the number of times the wave occurs per unit of time. Wavelength is the distance between repeating units of a wave pattern. Amplitude is the amount of the maximum disturbance during one wave cycle. Period is the amount of time it takes to complete one full revolution.

How can we express intention as waveform?

Frequency is how often you express your intentions. But not just think about them. How often do you act on your intentions? How often do you hold these intentions in your mind? How often do you visualize their completion?

When it comes to frequency, we can consider all the levels or ways to express our intentions. We can think about them at the level of mind. We can voice them at the level of sound. We can act on them at the level of matter. And we can pray or meditate at the level of soul or spirit.

Wavelength is measured in terms of distance. While not easily apparent how distance can be useful in the achievement of your intentions, it offers another way to look at them. Space and time are inseparable. And much of goal setting is gap analysis. How do I get from point A to point B? So while being a stretch of its true definition, wavelength could refer to the distance between you and the manifestation of your intentions. It is a way of thinking about how to bring the outcomes of your intentions closer to you. And since wavelength has an inverse relationship to frequency, that means if you want to decrease the distance between you and your goals, increase the frequency of your intentions.

Amplitude refers to the intensity of your intentions. How bad do you want them to become manifest? To what degree are you willing to disturb the universe to achieve your goals?

Amplitude can be constant or may vary with time. The variation of amplitude is called the envelope. In music theory, an envelope of a sound is its variation in amplitude over time, characterized by the attack, decay, sustain, and release of the sound.

Attack: How quickly the sound reaches full volume after the sound is activated. Attack can signify your initial excitement and motivation. With what speed and force do you attack your goals?

Decay: How quickly the sound reduces in volume after the initial peak. Most people lose their initial motivation rather quickly. And this can be a good thing. If you went after every single dream that arises in your imagination equally, you probably wouldn’t achieve any of them. But how far are you willing to let your motivation fall? What speed and level of diminishing force is acceptable to the fulfillment of your dreams?

Sustain: The “constant” volume that the sound takes after decay until the note is released. What is the ideal intensity level required to manifest your intentions?

Release: How quickly the sound fades after the end of the note. First of all, you must know when to release. How will you know when your goal is complete? What specific evidence will show you that you can let go?

Waveform period is the inverse of frequency. So if frequency is one expression per hour, then the period would have to be one hour per expression, right? Not quite. If only the crest of the wave is the expression of your intention and the cycle takes an hour, then the peak expression would be rather short, perhaps 15 minutes, with time to lead in to the actual expression and time to cool down.

Perhaps a better way to think of period is in terms of energy commitment. Waveforms have crests and troughs, or highs and lows. What is the commitment required to manifest your intentions? Are the crests equal to hours, days, weeks, or years? A goal of optimal health can have crests at every meal, crests a few times a week when you exercise, and crests every month to review your progress. Writing a new piece of music can consist of 3 2-hour long crests over 24 hours. Managing your finances can be a daily crest of 15 minutes for the rest of your working life. Get the picture?

A couple final points. These waves can affect other waves and be affected by other waves with positive and negative effect. Constructive and destructive interference can be connected to individual and collective human thought and action. Let’s look at both constructive and destructive interference in the individual and the collective.

Constructive wave interference are when two waves join, matching both peaks and valleys. The result is a wave exactly twice the strength of the original two waves–increased amplitude. Destructive wave interference is when two waves join, matching valleys to peaks and peaks to valleys. The result is the waves cancel each other out–neutrality and balance.

Constructive wave interference in the individual is when two intentions come together in support of each other. A cross-training of intentions that becomes a gestalt, the sum being more than the parts. This is a good thing. Constructive wave interference in the collective is when two or more people come together with the same intention and create a mastermind; a coordination of knowledge and effort, in a spirit of harmony, between two or more people, for the attainment of a definite purpose. This is also a good thing.

Destructive wave interference in the individual comes in two flavors. Neutral and bad. First, the neutral. You have an intention to self-sabotage. Combined with any intention to counteract self-sabotage and the self-sabotage is neutralized. However, you have to somehow recognize the intention to self-sabotage in the first place. Which brings us to the bad. Let’s say you don’t know you have this self-sabotage intention and you also have an intention to manifest an important outcome. They neutralize each other and you don’t know why you’re not achieving your outcomes. Self awareness and self discovery is of the utmost importance.

It’s the same with destructive wave interference in the collective. Neutralize negative intentions with positive ones. But that alone doesn’t manifest anything positive. It only neutralizes.

The bottom line is to become aware of your intentions on many different levels. How do you see them manifesting and manifested in the world? Be as pure as a sine wave with your intentions and your path will be clear and full of harmony.

(Written with great help from wikipedia.)

Silence

Absolute pitch is so well disguised that almost everybody misses it completely. If you know how to listen, you’ll hear it. A portal opens up through silence.

Do you hear any sounds now? Can you feel the presence of a distinct and precise pitch of those sounds? Listen carefully.

Listen for it in the silence out of which the sounds come and into which they return. Begin by paying more attention to the silence than to the sounds. When you pay attention to the outer silence you create inner silence: the mind becomes still. A portal is opening up.

Every sound is born out of silence, dies back into silence, and during its existence is surrounded by silence. Silence enables the sound to exist. Become conscious of the gaps between sounds. As you do that, the dimension of stillness grows within you. You have entered the silence portal.

Imagine that you are vibrating right now with thought (which you are). Picture yourself buzzing with mental energy just like the buzzing of a trumpet mouthpiece. Now add another vibration to the mix, the sound of a middle C (261.626 kHz). Now what you have is two vibrations occurring at the same time, the vibration of your inner mind (which can be measured using an EEG machine) and the vibration of the external sound. And we know that when we add two vibrations or pitches together we are also creating even more overtones. The fundamental pitch becomes even harder to hear. Thus, creating confusion to an untrained ear.

Now contrast that with a still mind. A pitch enters your awareness. It comes to you. A single drop of water falling on a still pond. The quiet mind recognizes its fundamental nature immediately. Absolute pitch.

What happens when you hear a single pitch? Does the mind scramble to figure it out by talking to itself? “What note is that? Is it a C? Damn! I can’t figure it out.” Or does it silently recognize the distinct vibration with no mental chatter?

So what disguises absolute pitch? Mental noise.

Practice being still. When you listen to a pitch, notice what happens with your mind. Try to create stillness with no attachment to results. This is how it will feel when you demonstrate absolute pitch. Slow your breathing down. Still the mind. Allow the gradual process of absolute hearing to come to you. Don’t force it or try to think it into existence. Let your hearing be born out of the silence portal.

Music is the silence between the notes.
-Claude Debussy

BrilliantDreams — a site for lucid dreaming — hosts a page of famous discoveries and inventions inspired by dreams, like the dream in which Friedrich August Kekulé von Stradonitz discovered the Benzene molecule:

This site is so cool. “Yesterday” came to Paul McCartney in a dream. While nowhere near the quality and popularity of “Yesterday,” my song, “True Home,” came from one of my dreams. My absolute pitch course came from a lucid dream. I used a technique called Image Streaming created by mind development pioneer, Dr. Win Wenger.

Image streaming is a daily practice for me. I’m currently going through The Genius Code (affiliate link) by Paul Scheele and Win Wenger for about the fourth time. It’s that good.

People who meditate grow bigger brains than those who don’t. Researchers at Harvard, Yale, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found the first evidence that meditation can alter the physical structure of our brains. Brain scans they conducted reveal that experienced meditators boasted increased thickness in parts of the brain that deal with attention and processing sensory input.

I’m sure this isn’t big news to any meditator. Of course we alter the biochemistry of our brains through meditation practice. Take, for example, the left planum temporalus. It is an organ within the left temporal lobe which deals with nuances of word meaning. In my research on absolute pitch, I found an article published in Science magazine that people who have absolute pitch have a left planum temporalus that’s twice the size physically of that organ in other people. And absolute pitch is a skill that can be learned through practice.

But this news could be a good selling point for meditation.

Bigger = Better

My girlfriend did her Harvard thesis on meditation. I’m sure she could chime in on this.

I also found this the other day:
How to use everyday mindfulness or zazen to make your life more enjoyable.:

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