Learning relative pitch

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Hi, I'm trying to start learning relative pitch by the method of linking every melodic interval (ascending and descending) with the beginning of a well-known piece of music. For example: octave ascending = "Over the Rainbow" from the Wizard of Oz. There are lists on the internet to help doing just that, but my problem is that they all seem to use popular, mostly American songs for this. Being a classical music buff from Europe myself, I simply don't know some of these songs well enough. Could someone please help me find/compile a list of intervals and well-known *classical* pieces that use them? Thanks very much in advance!

Hi. I remember learning relative pitch by first playing the interval from a piano or guitar, and then sort of trying to connect the interval with the first song that comes to my mind. That way you can choose the song yourself, and you surely won't forget it.

I'm European myself (as if Europe was a country, lol), and the tunes I used were mostly stuff like Queen, U2 or random Christmas songs etc... I'd help you but from "classical" I only know Bach, Vivaldi and other mostly Baroque stuff. Beethoven's fifth starts with major third (G G G Eb) and minor third (F F F D).

Actually it's been a few years since I did this stuff, now I'm more interested in learning perfect pitch, as in trying to memorize from where a certain song exactly starts, if it's E, G, A or what. By the way, what song starts with "D D D H G G" ?

An even better way to get your pitch sense wired is by learning solfege . It's the old "Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do" thing. I learned it with numbers instead. Once you get the basics, then there's "fixed Do" and "moveable Do", where the note names change according to the tonal area, or key.

I know: too much, too fast. There's lots of great books and software out there to help you with this. Like anything else though, it takes practice!

The method you describe, dddhgg, is much too slow for me. And too relative, by the time I remember the song and relate it to the music... the music has passed.

Training my ear is very difficult, I've basically given up. I heard a melody and get a general sense of it, but I'm always way off than what I think it is. I'm always imagining a melody in my head, that's similar but very different. My mind fills in the gaps when I try to transcribe what I hear.

If I have an instrument, I can figure it out eventually. But by myself, I'm terrible.

I have difficulties tuning an instrument too, I can't tell when a note is close but a bit off if it's too high or too low. I can't hear beating when a note is out of tune. In fact my ear starts to enjoy the out of tune notes a little bit.

I do have a melodically creative mind though, internally I am thinking up melodies and playing around with music. I just can't figure out what's going on externally. Thankfully with computer software and or a piano it's easy enough to let my musical ideas come out with my faulty ears.