Piano Guidance
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Are people with perfect pitch more intelligent?

Much like those with lefthandedness, people with absolute pitch are not smarter than those without; however, they do have a propensity to be more gifted in certain areas.

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People with perfect, or absolute, pitch are one in 10,000, which is pretty rare considering lefthanded people are about one in ten and you don’t see them everyday. Much like those with lefthandedness, people with absolute pitch are not smarter than those without; however, they do have a propensity to be more gifted in certain areas. Let’s put it this way: perfect pitch is not necessary to be a musical genius or to even excel in the piano, though it can certainly help being able to recreate a note without a tonal reference. Research shows that those with perfect pitch are better at transcribing music than those without, but those without are better at recognizing musical intervals. Mozart had it, which helped him compose, and some experts argue that Beethoven had it too, but it’s hard to know with certainty.

How to improve your pitch

Perfect pitch may be nice to have for those lucky few, but the rest of us have to content ourselves with humming, singing and dancing. When you’re doing any of these three activities, it’s basically impossible to be sad. Granted, if you’re blue, it can be hard to just get up out of your chair and start to dance or start singing pop standards, but if you warm up by humming, you’ll find that not only will your mood improve, you’ll also warm up your singing voice.

Start by humming high, and move lower once you feel like your pitch is right. Most people start humming too low, and wind up causing unnecessary tension in their vocal chords. Once you’ve identified your pitch with a hum, it’s much easier to start doing vocal exercises that help you focus on enunciation and phrasing. Throw in a little do-re-mi-fa-sol-fa-mi-re-do and in a few weeks your pitch may not be perfect, but it will definitely be a lot better than before. Who doesn’t want a beautiful singing voice to pair with their piano or guitar?

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Does raising a pickup make it louder?

As the pickup is moved further away from the bridge the louder and fuller it sounds. The pickup has more string vibration moving over the coils. If the pickups are too close such as in a Stratocaster I find you get too many overtones especially on the lower strings when playing up the fretboard.

What does raising and lowering a pickup from the strings do to the sound of a pickup? Ed davis-mt. Shasta, california I find that raising and lowering a pickup does several things. When I move my pickup closer to the strings I get more output and more attack. When lowering a pickup you get less output and a smoother sound. As the pickup is moved further away from the bridge the louder and fuller it sounds. The pickup has more string vibration moving over the coils. If the pickups are too close such as in a Stratocaster I find you get too many overtones especially on the lower strings when playing up the fretboard. By lowering the pickups on the bass side of the guitar, I have better control with less overtones. I press the strings at the last fret and adjust the pickup to 1/8th inch on the bass side of each pickup. On the treble side while pressing the string at the last fret, I adjust the height of each pickup to 1/16th inch. This usually give me a good balance especially on Stratocasters. If the pickups are too loud when using the middle or neck pickup, I generally lower them until I find the desired balance. The larger the diameter of a string will give you more output and a thicker sound.

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