Am I doomed without the gift of having perfect pitch?

[the sismil]

I recently bought this product and have just started the concept of ear training. The main reason why I wanted to be skilled with ear training is for the sole purpose that I can write a whole symphony in my head note for note, with melodies and harmonies of numerous amounts of instruments played together without thinking about it, all melodies immediately come to me on the spot. Since I was very young - around 10 - I always wrote music in my head but till this day I cannot transcribe it and I have trouble singing it out loud since my voice isn't always in pitch and my voice can not sing as fast as what I hear in my head, its actually quite annoying and gives me head ace, i cannot stop hearing music and would like to relieve myself by writing it down. Anyways, I know that past composers such as Mozart and Beethoven have been able to transcribe what they hear in their head, and I do not believe I have perfect pitch as they did, so am I doomed? Will I not be able to write down what I hear in my head instantly without perfect pitch? I know relative pitch would help, but the process of relating the notes to a relating pitch would seem like a long process to keep up with what's in my mind. Any kind of response would be helpful, thanks!

[the sismil]

I recently bought this product and have just started the concept of ear training. The main reason why I wanted to be skilled with ear training is for the sole purpose that I can write a whole symphony in my head note for note, with melodies and harmonies of numerous amounts of instruments played together without thinking about it, all melodies immediately come to me on the spot. Since I was very young - around 10 - I always wrote music in my head but till this day I cannot dictate/transcribe it and I have trouble singing it out loud since my voice isn't always in pitch and my voice can not sing as fast as what I hear in my head, its actually quite annoying and gives me head ace, i cannot stop hearing music and would like to relieve myself by writing it down. Anyways, I know that past composers such as Mozart and Beethoven have been able to transcribe what they hear in their head, and I do not believe I have perfect pitch as they did, so am I doomed? Will I not be able to write down what I hear in my head instantly without perfect pitch? I know relative pitch would help, but the process of relating the notes to a relating pitch would seem like a long process to keep up with what's in my mind. Any kind of response would be helpful, thanks!

[Quentin]

For composing in your head, relative pitch is definitely going to be a much more useful resource than having perfect pitch, because instead of being able to har isolated pitches by ear, you will be able to see the horizontal (melodic) and vertical (harmonic) relationships between the pitches, especially thanks to being able to hear intervals.

I'm not quite sure as to when perfect pitch could be useful. For tuning your instrument maybe? What if the reference A is not at 440hz, but you have to deal with music set after a A 445hz? You'd be able to deal with that if you have good relative pitch, because you would be able to hear the relationships between the tones. But you would be left powerless if you only have perfect pitch.

To put it simple, don't worry if you don't have perfect pitch, you are not missing out on something essential to music composing/performing. Work on your relative pitch skills, you will find out that it will become a great asset to your musical life.

Best regards,
Quentin

[the sismil]

Thanks for the post Quentin, it definitely makes me feel a lot better. I am just wondering as of how long you think it would take for the average ear to become skillfully trained with ear training. I was hoping that after a year that I would be at a professional or high intermediate level with no restraints and I attend to practice as often as possible, so would you by any chance have a estimated time frame? So far on my first try I have gotten to level 18 with not too many problems, and the beginning levels of interval recognition as well. By the way, what would be the ideal time length to practice ear training, I would assume that practicing too much at once would actually be less beneficial. I know that's a lot of questions but I would greatly appreciate your response again, thanks!

[Quentin]

Most people agree that it is much more beneficial to train for shorter periods of time every day (5-20 minutes), than training a lot at once every now and then.

How fast your ear will improve and how good one may become is depending on many things, among which how consistent you are in your training, how much you try to challenge your ear besides EarMaster (like picking up licks from CDs, or jamming with friends), and probably more.

It's a slow process and you can always get better. Ear training is not something you learn once and lasts forever, you have to keep your ears in shape. Don't get too focused on becoming better. If you train regularly, it will come by itself without you noticing it