Perfect Pitch - can you learn it?

[slight-return]

 

Yes. If I could brush up a touch on the physics involved, and you wanted that type of an explanation, or a how-to article on my bike riding techniques, then yes.

 

 

there's a kind of interesting pop-sci book on the subject

 

Balance: In Search of the Lost Sense

-Scott McCredie

 

 

for biks specifically -- countersteering i a big part of it (the tricyle is a cruel joke b/c it doesn't countersteer)

 

The ability to hear and recall pitches at will was, at least for me, a innate talent / skill, and unlike learning to ride a bike, it's nothing I ever really had to "work" at.

 

Note on that, it can still be learned...early childhood development and such

 

It could be a richer puzzle than learned/innate

Diana Deutsch (UCSD) has some research on how native speakers of tonal language have higher incidence of perfect pitch

(IIRC there was some evidence to suggest it looked lik 4 or 5 yrs of age was about "the line" for that early dvelopment)

 

Jane Gitschier (UCSF) has some research that suggests genetic links as well

 

could be a "weakest link" genetic predisposition and developmental situation

 

or maybe there is >1 type of brain function we are labelling as "absolute pitch"

 

[the exact definition might be something else wed wnt to nail down]

 

 

I know some of the neuropsych labs use acquisition time as part of the "do you really have absolute pitch" question

 

I am unclear as to if there is, ,generally, a harmonic-resolution component in most of the definitions (ie if identification of individual pitches within note-clusters, identification of harmonies is part of the definition) though Deutsch used to do some work on harmonic paradoxes in oh the 70s-80s I believe -- it was some cool stuff as well

 

 

ADDITIONAL : sciam reported on the Gitschier stuff real recently (like the last couple of issues I think) so there might be some good reading there

 

They have a site up as well with some of the stuff

 

http://perfectpitch.ucsf.edu/ppstudy.html

[philbo]

Thanks for the link.

 

I took the absolute pitch test, and scored 12 out of a possible 36 for pure tones, and 5 out of 36 for piano notes. This is at the upper edge of what random chance would score, and nowhere near their criterion for perfect pitch.

 

I guess I have "somewhat-imperfect-nonabsolute-pitch" or something...

[Hard Truth]

A question for those with perfect pitch: I have observed that horn sections from different cultures have different ideas about what "in tune" is. Even I, with not so great pitch-perception, can tell the difference between a horn section that is Ethiopian, Jamaican, South African, and from the USA. Do those differences torture you? (as they apparently do with Straycatstrat)

[slight-return]

 

Thanks for the link.

 

 

sho nuff!

 

wifey's PhD was in behavioral neuroscience (I was de facto lab-slave) so I'm kind of a neuroscience fan-boy

 

It makes for really dorky conversations at table...

 

but it can be funny -- a couple of our friends (also neuroscience) had a baby and were keeping a running contest of when it got smarter than our dog

with tests like

"will it recognize name?"

"will it attempt to eat sharp things?"

[Duddits]

Straight answer to question is no.

 

 

I've heard from people with an absolute pitch that they actually hear when their instrument (or a recording) is slightly off (comparable to the resolution of a $30 guitar tuner) and it actually hurts them.

 

 

I don't believe that has anything to do with perfect pitch. Everyone hears the same thing and can be equally upset at pitch problems regardless of perfect pitch. Perfect pitch just lets you know what notes they are, it doesn't have to make you all finicky or more or less sensitive to clunkers.

[Jon Gnash]

but it can be funny -- a couple of our friends (also neuroscience) had a baby and were keeping a running contest of when it got smarter than our dog with tests like "will it recognize name?" "will it attempt to eat sharp things?"

Age 3?

[Jon Gnash]

pure tones

It

[Jon Gnash]

 

I have observed that horn sections from different cultures have different ideas about what "in tune" is.

{censored} - even a string section has a different idea about what "in tune" is compared to a piano.

 

Doesn

[philbo]

It

[chrisgil]

I think some people are a bit confused with perfect pitch reading some posts. (not just on this forum)

I know what it is, and have a rough understanding of how it works, although as I understand it, it works differently from different people

 

I know 3 people with it,

2 just recognise every note, I suppose like photographic memory,

and 1 sees the notes as colours, and remembers it that way

 

I have always been fascinated with Perfect Pitch and suspect you either have it or you dont.

 

Of course you can learn Relative Pitch very easily but its not the same.

 

Im not obsessed with having perfect pitch, nor am a lesser musician without it by any means.

 

Was just curious to see if anyone had tried anything to try and obtain perfect pitch.

Ive even emailed a hypnotist to see if he as any insite on it.

 

Another interesting one I read was some people who have relative pitch can identify guitar notes, but not piano notes.

 

I can sing an E straight away because for some reason I can sing Something about you - level 42 in my head

and get it right every time. Theres others I get that with as well and can work out notes.

 

At least I used to be able. Not tried it for a while

For the last few years though, a covers band (being sick) I play in regular downtunes a semitone so my relative pitch is not as good anymore. It gets confusing. We are splitting up soon though (happy days).

 

I think a downside to perfect pitch is if you played a song to them in a different key, they would not recognise the song as quick as people with perfect pitch.

[chrisgil]

There may be a way of getting perfect pitch, but I doubt it would be natural, like them who are born with it.

 

If you got hypnotised, and had each note played to you, on different instruments i.e - piano, guitar, violin etc.. and told your brain to see each note as a different colour, maybe that would work.

It probably wouldnt work, but would love to know if it has ever been tried through hypnotism.

 

Theres actualy people that can taste different notes.

 

Not only that, some people see colours not just for notes but every sound they hear.

Its amazing what the brain is capable of.

 

Im pretty sure all these things - perfect pitch, photographic memory etc.. are using parts of the brain that most dont use.

Imagine if you could activate all these parts of the brain that could do all these things.

[fetishfrog]

It's learned. Pitch was only standardized recently (historically speaking) at A 440 in America and A445 in Europe. How could anyone conceivably learn 'perfect pitch' in 1830 when 'A' was 30hz flatter one town over? The answer, you cannot. You could however, learn perfect pitch for your instrument.

[Gomer Pyle]

I don't need anything to sing any song in its original key. I can sing beer commercials that I haven't heard since the sixties in the perfect key. I learn songs on guitar by playing it in my head. I think the current pitch is learned but the ability to sing anything or play it in your mind as it was recorded is something you're born with. Although I have a rock great band, I just met a sheetrocker in a house where I was working as an electrician and hearing him sing caught my interest. He is the only person I have ever met that could sing some of the sixties jingles in perfect key in a second with me calling the tune . He is 54 I'm 53. I have waited my whole life for someone I could have a doo wop band with. We're both from Brooklyn so we love thats stuff. This could be the most fun I have ever had singing, Paul.

[Duddits]

It's learned. Pitch was only standardized recently (historically speaking) at A 440 in America and A445 in Europe. How could anyone conceivably learn 'perfect pitch' in 1830 when 'A' was 30hz flatter one town over? The answer, you cannot. You could however, learn perfect pitch for your instrument.

 

I know I may just be a cat, but I've never met anyone who learned perfect pitch. In my experience, perfect pitch is an innate ability to remember pitch which allows you to instantly identify notes (i.e. link the name of a note to its contemporaneous frequency). If you had perfect pitch in 1830, you linked the name of the pitches relative to 1830 tuning. Same with 2007.

 

By your logic no one could have perfect pitch today if the mapping of frequency to notes changed in the future. In reality, the physiological nature of perfect pitch would remain the same; it would simply be referenced to different frequencies.

 

In America, incidentally, A is often tuned higher than 440. American pro pianists typically tune to A = 442 or so.

 

If you have perfect pitch and you hear music tuned to an unfamiliar reference point, you're aware of it. For example, say I had perfect pitch (just, you know, going out on a limb here ) and I were listening to music performed by an early music group tuned down to sound like the 1700s. I would still recognize the notes and where they were and realize that they were flat by my usual reference. I still have an absolute reference point that I "fix" on contemporary tuning because I'm used to it, and am aware if something strays up or down from it.

 

Where it can mess with your head is if an early music group tunes down enough, it can encroach on a half step down so A can start to sound like Ab. Or if someone shoves a harpsichord in front of me, or a ginormously out of tune piano tuned way down, if everything sounds almost a half step too low, my brain will be fighting with my paws to play everything a half step higher. Basically, if I play a note I expect to hear the note I think I've played. It's like circuit between brain and digits. If I don't get that feedback and instead my brain hears notes lower than what I think I've played, it sends instant messages to my paws: FIX FIX FIX (go up a half step). Then I have to intervene and tell my dumb brain to STFU because it's the keyboard that's off from my expected reference, not that I've played the wrong notes.

[Gomer Pyle]

Dudddits, you may just be a cat but you explained it better than me. Wanna get together and sing sometime, Paul.

[captain average]

well, all this talk about perfect pitch... a lot of recordings are done slightly out of pitch, a lot of guitars aren't in tune to a=440 or 442 or whatever. i'm not entirely sure if i have perfect pitch, but i think i do, in that i can hear a note in my head laying down in my bed and get up and play it on a piano. it doesn't really bother me if a song isn't tuned to 440 or whatever, and i like slide guitar and bending notes. so perfect pitch doesn't mean anything more than saying someone knows the song bo diddley. doesn't mean they can't enjoy all the other songs that use the bo diddley beat. nothing's perfect, or so they say, and it seems like a waste of energy to expect the world to change for you.

[Straycatstrat]

 

I don't believe that has anything to do with perfect pitch. Everyone hears the same thing and can be equally upset at pitch problems regardless of perfect pitch. Perfect pitch just lets you know what notes they are, it doesn't have to make you all finicky or more or less sensitive to clunkers.

 

 

Yes. That's what I wanted to point out above with "sensitive to errors within the pattern".

Interestingly, this seems to allow many exceptions due to listening habits/expectations and there is a range where it only tickles the brain in a desirable fashion. I mean that minimal interval deviations may add color to a chord, a slightly flat intonated note at the right place can make a sad line sound even more heartbreaking, the "right" tonal offset of bendings in a blues guitar solo makes it even "more authentic" or is perceived as having "more feeling" or many people have absolutely no problem to settle down with the slightly too high tuned guitar of Carlos Santana.

 

This is also an indirect answer to Hard Truth's question, only that it's not the absolute pitch but the interval treatment/understanding that makes the characteristic difference.

[slight-return]

 

{censored} - even a string section has a different idea about what "in tune" is compared to a piano.   Doesn

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

 

I don't believe that has anything to do with perfect pitch. Everyone hears the same thing and can be equally upset at pitch problems regardless of perfect pitch. Perfect pitch just lets you know what notes they are, it doesn't have to make you all finicky or more or less sensitive to clunkers.

 

 

Meow meow and cat food

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

Here TEAL'C, a pupil of my school with the magna cum laude pitch doctorate imprinted

 

Dr. Absolute Intergalactic 2.4 Hz-27.6 Yottahertz Floating Comma Middle Relative C

 

[Ernest Buckley]

Perfect pitch is like... useless.

 

Seriously, I knew several people who had it and their life was unpleasant, especially when it came to accappella choral singing.

 

Relative pitch is much more useful btw.

[Duddits]

 

Dudddits, you may just be a cat but you explained it better than me. Wanna get together and sing sometime, Paul.

 

 

Anytime! (But only if you do the singing and I get to play the keyboard).

[Duddits]

 

I don't need anything to sing any song in its original key. I can sing beer commercials that I haven't heard since the sixties in the perfect key.

 

I think more people have perfect pitch, but aren't "musicians" so they don't realize it.

 

Sometimes, for example, I'll hear someone casually singing a song somewhere, just singing to themselves, and I'll recognize that they happen to be singing the song in the right key. They probably don't even realize that they've remembered the pitch of the original and matched it perfectly.

[kurdy]

 

I think more people have perfect pitch, but aren't "musicians" so they don't realize it. Sometimes, for example, I'll hear someone casually singing a song somewhere, just singing to themselves, and I'll recognize that they happen to be singing the song in the right key. They probably don't even realize that they've remembered the pitch of the original and matched it perfectly.

 

 

I don't think that's the same as perfect pitch--I think it's more like aural memory. With perfect pitch, you can recall the pitch independent of the sound producing it. I don't have perfect pitch, but it's quite easy for me to recall a song in it's original key, just based on the memory of what it sounds like after having heard it so many times. That's different from hearing the sound of a doorbell and instantly being able to identify which notes they are.

 

But yes, it is true that non-musicians can have perfect pitch as well.

[Duddits]

 

Interestingly, this seems to allow many exceptions due to listening habits/expectations and there is a range where it only tickles the brain in a desirable fashion. I mean that minimal interval deviations may add color to a chord, a slightly flat intonated note at the right place can make a sad line sound even more heartbreaking, the "right" tonal offset of bendings in a blues guitar solo makes it even "more authentic" or is perceived as having "more feeling" or many people have absolutely no problem to settle down with the slightly too high tuned guitar of Carlos Santana.

 

 

I completely agree, and that really gets down to the art of the musician and is separate from perfect pitch. It