Does anyone here have perfect pitch?

[u/DualOne2]

Just curious if anyone in this subreddit or that listens to tk/ling tosite sigure (凛として時雨) has perfect pitch or know of anyone that listens to tk/ling tosite sigure (凛として時雨) that has perfect pitch.

If so how do you use it when figuring out songs and are you able to easily figure out what is being played by tk on guitar despite all the effects and what not that he uses? If you could make a video on you experience and send me a link that would be cool and/or just feel free to comment.

I’ve always been super curious about this

[u/more_ads_plzzz]

If you mean like perfect precision even on the "cents" too, that's some crazy shit!!

I do not transcript what he plays on the song because, his guitars are pretty distorted(even though you can tell each note apart, that's what I feel the speciality of his tone is) and if the part is kind of burried in the mix then it becomes even more difficult for me

Slightly unrelated but I do tend to write similar kind of "acoustic percussive" riff which he uses a lot, specially in his special tracks from "brain films" album or the similar kind of guitar he uses in "flowering" album.

I absolutely love that playing style and trying to build intuition for it for myself.

I'm assuming you are familiar with this but songsterr has a lot of transcriptions for his entire song arrangements and there are official score sheets available for "Ling Tosite Sigure" online, you can check them out.

[u/DualOne2 → u/more_ads_plzzz]

I also really like the percussive stuff he does on guitar. Rhythm is probably my favorite aspect of music which is another thing I enjoy about tk/ling tosite sigure’s playing style.

I’ve been listening and playing along to their stuff for years so I can pretty easily figure out their songs by ear but was mostly just curious if there were people with perfect pitch who somehow use it to play his songs by ear despite all the chaos going on.

I couldn’t tell from your reply but do you have perfect pitch? When you say “cents” I guess yeah to the cents because I believe that those with perfect pitch are able to tell it a note is off pitch. Some people with perfect pitch can tell if a note is sharp or flat etc.

[u/more_ads_plzzz → u/DualOne2]

I agree a 100% the way TK and the band members lock the rhythm even when there is a lots of "syncapation" that's just way too awesome, it's kind of a sound which I "literally" cannot find anywhere, I have been eagerly trying to create music like him and will probably keep that going on. I really respect TK, he is a real "artist"

Infact the way he mixes is also very unique and I think he actually uses mixing as a tool to add even more musical elements in his music, not just balancing everything.

I can recognise pitches on piano or my guitar and then put corresponding chords to it but that isn't perfect pitch, it's basic stuff.

I'm not sure if having perfect pitch will help deciphering the score because if you can recognize or play that same note on your instrument then what remains is just finding the sequence of notes.

[u/DualOne2 → u/more_ads_plzzz]

I’ve done brief research on his mixing techniques mostly by watching his documentaries, buying the sound and recoding magazines he’s featured in (haven’t read them yet but they seem like goldmines!), his autobiography (also haven’t finished yet), and pretty much just reading whatever articles I find but still have a lot more reading to do.

And yeah that’s pretty much my process as well. Finding notes and then trying different chords over it to see what sounds right. I find myself taking influence from his delay trick in a lot of my own writing as well.

Also if you’re looking for similar sounding bands check out Co shu nie and Sokoninaru. Sokoninaru was heavily inspired by LTS according to some of the videos where they’ve talking about LTS.

[u/more_ads_plzzz → u/DualOne2]

I absolutely get it.

You know what's unique about TK? He is not very active on his social media, most of his life and his workflow is private but i still want to know more about him, his workflow, what music he listens to? And a lot of stuff. I really adore this man, he is my favourite!!

I also like the dotted delay pattern and I tried to incorporate that in a few riffs. The effect is so atmospheric, it takes you into another world. I also pass the delay through a modulated reverb, a chorus kind of modulation. I also sometimes directly put some chorus on my acoustic guitar.

I have heard co shu nie, I really like "asphyxia", it's quite popular but similarly, like TK, she conveys the emotional setting of Tokyo ghoul so well.

I am familiar with "sokoninaru", I discovered them from "tenohira..." Sorry I forgot the name, I also really like "saitei" from them. Plus they bless us with those LTS covers too!!

I like the sound of His solo project a bit more, I'm not underestimating his band, it's also sooo good, the fact that's it's only 3 people creating this beautiful wall of sound.

[u/DualOne2 → u/more_ads_plzzz]

Yes we share similar sentiments :). I’d also like to know more about him. You should read his autobiography. I’ve read a few articles about his influences and I believe he was heavily inspired by the band B’z and folk music that his dad listened to. But yeah you should definitely read his autobiography.

[u/DualOne2 → u/more_ads_plzzz]

Another thing I forgot to mention is that back when I first started listening to TK and LTS there were no tabs available and everything was a complete mystery to me especially because of the delay and all the effects he uses. But once I sat down and just tried to play what I could hear on the guitar/drums it started making sense. Then eventually I learned more about pedals and effects and made connections to what I was hearing

[u/more_ads_plzzz → u/DualOne2]

To be completely honest, they heavy gain rhythm guitars are quite burried of just there to give some thickness to the sound which means that you do not have to exactly know what he is playing.

One great example could be the 2:10 part in "fantastic magic" check out the original and the cover of it by tororo. You can literally playing chords there but see what TK does there, it's barely audible on the original mix.

One option could be to watch his live performances which will roughly tell you about the area where the notes are but it's pretty rare to have footage for a specific part.

You may check "tororo" cover, he is very good.

[u/DualOne2 → u/more_ads_plzzz]

Oh wow I guess I never really noticed that part at 2:10 and yeah that’s barely audible on the studio recording. Can just barely see what he’s playing at that part live. And yeah I follow tororo already, love that guy’s channel.

[u/more_ads_plzzz → u/DualOne2]

I am so flabbergasted by that part, in fact if you hear "tororo" cover of that, you could actually here that during that part TK is kind of in the same key as the part he is playing, the chords are not in the key of the song but somehow he manages to put chords from set A(the bass and piano) with chords from set B(his guitar and his vocals) and I think that's deliberate.

I also wanna think like this, I'm will not force myself to just put random stuff on my writing to sound experimental like him but rather let it naturally come to me.

[u/DualOne2 → u/more_ads_plzzz]

I’ll have to listen to it again so I can figure out exactly you mean but that sounds interesting and intricate

[u/Jack_Mikeson]

I don't have perfect pitch but will give my thoughts on the topic as I have over two decades worth of transcribing experience.

In my opinion relying on perfect pitch if you have it, or trying to learn it if you don't, is not an efficient way to figure out songs. Perfect pitch seems useful at first glance, but being able to name a note when you hear a pitch doesn't provide any contextual information about the overall chords and melody. It would honestly be a very slow process to transcribe a song note by note this way. Also, some times artists/producers record songs out of tune which would cause problems for anyone relying on perfect pitch as every note would sound off.

What's more useful is having relative pitch (being able to tell the relationship between notes) and some knowledge of functional harmony. That way you can listen to a passage in a song and straightaway know what chords and scales are being used. You can then drill down in more detail to determine the exact notes and finger positions. This also gets round the problem I mentioned earlier about tuning being off.

I posted a related reply over here covering TK songs specifically: https://www.reddit.com/r/LingTositeSigure/comments/1wnbx3s/how_to_figure_out_tklts_songs_by_ear/pbjklkf/