slightly off topic - perfect pitch

[feadogin]

"Their perfect pitch ability gave them more trouble than benefit if you ask me though. It seriously hampered their ability to do aural and sight transpositions and use sheet music as a reference at the same time if they had heard the piece even one time before.

Likewise in ITM, changing from a D whistle to C or A or whatever, would cause a great level of cognitive dissonance for them. You could read the same D have the "right" fingering for the note but the wrong note would sound."

(Sorry if I did this quote wrong).
I wonder if I have a touch of this "perfect pitch" stuff, because I definitely have trouble playing the same tune on different key whistles. If I learn a tune on a C whistle, I always play it on that key whistle, because it just sounds wrong to me in D. I can only start C-whistle tunes on my C whistle.

I've also always learned tunes by ear, and I have a really hard time reading music. (I never knew it was all because of my perfect pitch!)



I heard a story about perfect pitch on NPR a few years ago that said that perfect pitch is related to language ability. Kids that develop perfect pitch, I'm told, are those who learned music at the same time they learned to talk.

I wonder if it's related to the connection between the halves of the brain (which is supposed to be better developed in women). Any connection between gender and perfect pitch?

[Jack]

Quote @ feadogin

I wonder if it's related to the connection between the halves of the brain (which is supposed to be better developed in women). Any connection between gender and perfect pitch?

All the cases/examples I've personally heard of (excluding on here) have all been wimmin, now that I think about it.

[clarinetnut]

I don't know the statistics, but at my university (I'm a music major), we have about as many male professors with perfect pitch as female. (I must tell you, it's a little disturbing to perform a recital and get back a comment sheet from one of the professors who doesn't play your instrument that says "all your G's are sharp"...)

[cowtime]

My brother has perfect pitch I suppose. He can tune anything and it will be right on. I have learned that I tend to tune stuff a tad sharp, so, I tune to what sounds a bit flat to me, and it's right!

I can sight read music pretty well on several instruments, and never think of the name of the note- just where my fingers need to be on what ever instrument I'm playing at the moment. Maybe that's how I make the transition from one insturment to another, I don't know.

If I'm wanting to play something I heard(no music written out) I can usually do it . How? I don't know. I just know what I need to do to get the sound I'm hearing in my head. It's one of those things I just enjoy, and don't think about it. Same thing with harmonizing vocally- I just hear it in my head first.

I never thought to try to analyze how these things are done. Very intresting thread here.

[lesl]

This is a fascinating topic. I bought those perfect pitch tapes some years
ago. (I think his name is David Burge?) I worked on the parts that you
could do alone - nobody I knew would do it with me, thought it couldn't
be done.

I think it is a perception skill. I don't go for the colors thing, though I do
usually think of an A as yellow, that's about it for me. I liked more the
comparison of being able to tell different herbs in the kitchen by smell.
They are all herbs but each smells a bit different.

Being able to 'perceive' different lengths of soundwave by ear and
knowing which is which, that's how I think of it. I remember in the
course they started by having you spot mechanical things as perception
aids. Like how on a piano the F# below middle C has a weird buzz in it.
On my piano the A down there has a honk, anyone could spot it a mile
away if they had it pointed out to them ahead of time. Using these
mechanical things can start you off but its not the same as being able to
recognise the sound of the particular wavelength. That'd be like saying
you could tell oregano by smell cos that was the herb that made you
sneeze..

I dont' have perfect pitch but listening for pitch has improved my pitch
recognition. By this I mean, when you hear a tune to be able to play it on
your instrument without having to be told/shown what notes. I'd say that
came from practise. I think absolute pitch is the mastery of pitch
recognition, and can be learned if you really spend enough time.

Another thing I remember from the course is that it is easier if you
practice it on your first instrument. I never tried that cos I forgot until
recent years that my first instrument was a little black plastic one
octave "tonette" whistle!

Lesl

[OutOfBreath]

One thing I can say for sure is that pitch perception improves with practice. I still can't pick out the key a piece is played in without a reference but I remember a few years ago it would take me forever to tune my guitar even with an electronic tuner. I'd "sneak up on" each note real slow , eyes fixed to the tuner. Then, just a few months ago I started trying to tune without the tuner, using it only as a confirmation. Now I find that I can give the tuning key a quick twist one way and then the other and be pretty close to spot on most times. I also find that I don't usually need to fret a reference string at the same pitch -- i.e. I can tune to a pitch a fourth or fifth away from an already tuned string as easily as tuning to the same pitch.

I guess maybe there is hope for me after all...

[lesl]

That's relative pitch. But also there is another thing, I don't know what it is
called - after a while you can recognize voicing on your instrument. So
for example on the guitar, after a while if you hear someone play a D
chord in first position, you recognise that its a D chord without seeing it.
If you don't have absolute pitch you might not know if the player is using
a capo but you can definitely recognize the chord from its voiceing.

Similarly you can hear the sound of a (3Bcd triplet on a whistle or a flute.
It has a unique sound. You might not know which key whistle its being
played on, but you can hear the voicing of that c especially since its a
little off-pitch. On the pipes you can almost always tell when they are
playing a c - same reason.

I'm pretty sure this is not absolute pitch, since I dont' have it. Anyone
know what you call it?

[Wombat]

I'm pretty sure this is not absolute pitch, since I dont' have it. Anyone
know what you call it?

This would be relative pitch too. When you hear the triplet its sequential. When you hear the chord it's simultaneous but you're stilll recognising intervals. Not really correctly called 'perfect', of course—there's no such thing—but very good. Actually, on second thoughts, perhaps relative pitch can be perfect in this sense .. so long as an instrument is reasonably in tune, you can tell correctly any interval you're presented with. That's really all anyone wants from relative pitch anyway, oh that and the ability to hear if a note is slightly sharp or flat when the difference is truly above a reasonable threshold of audibility.

Edited: sorry, I just noticed that I'd missd an essential aspect of your question. hearing the note a little off tune and recognising it as such is relative pitch as suggested. But I suspect you are also recognising a difference of timbre characteristic of certain notes. I don't know what, if anything, this is called. You might well be hearing a difference in what sound engineers call equalisation which is the relative dominance of certain overtone frequencies over others. A good mixer will recognise good instrument matches and mismatches and know just how to compensate. What you are listening for are things like separation, muddiness and so on. This is part of what we are talking about when we describe a whistle as well (or poorly) balanced across the octaves.

[fluter_d]

I'm not sure what you'd call that ability to pick out a key based on note patterns unique to a particular instrument, but boy is it easier to pick what key the fiddler is in if you work on it! Even F and Bb become recognisable, if you hear 'em often enough... :roll: I don't have perfect pitch, but I've found that, if I'm playing a lot at any given time, I can tune my flute accurately to A without any reference. (My flute's a Rudall and Rose, & if the tuning slide's all the way in you can get it to play in Eb if you push and the room's warm enough). If I'm playing a lot every day, then this translates to other instruments (for example, I can tune a fiddle/banjo etc. to correct pitches). However, I don't consider myself to have anything approaching perfect pitch - I can tell what key someone is playing in by the instrument's quirks, rather than because I can find A or whatever.

Interestingly, on the subject of colour/sound recognition, I know someone who turned to me one evening at a session and said, 'That tune is just so orange.' Having looked worried and questioned further, it transpired that she thinks of tunes in terms of colour - blue or yellow or whatever. And she's a good player who knows lots of tunes, so this wasn't a case of one tune for red, one tune for orange, etc.

Also slightly OT, but I can't resist :
Perfect pitch is when you throw the accordion into the dumpster, and it lands on the banjo.

Deirdre (who will henceforth be playing solo... )

[OutOfBreath]

Also slightly OT, but I can't resist :
Perfect pitch is when you throw the accordion into the dumpster, and it lands on the banjo.

Deirdre (who will henceforth be playing solo... )

I always heard that perfect pitch was when, under the guise of sling spit, er, condensate, from your tunable whistle you pierce the heads of two or more bhodrans with the flying lower half of the whistle...

[lesl]

Deirdre said:

"I don't have perfect pitch, but I've found that, if I'm playing a lot at any
given time, I can tune my flute accurately to A without any reference. ... -
I can tell what key someone is playing in by the instrument's quirks,
rather than because I can find A or whatever. "

I think to tune your flute accurately with no reference *is* probably the
beginnings of absolute pitch. Some people have more of that ability than
others, I dont' think it is a "have it or not" factor all the time. Though
some were born with it and some can't do it at all, there are shades
between which improve with practise.

Pitch recognition by an instruments' quirks is what I was talking about
before. The c on a pipe is recognizable by that, so is that A on my piano.
Also knowing a pitch by the voicing, thanks Wombat, yeh that must be a
point of relativity.. the pitch is recognizable by its relation to the other
pitches or by timbre. (by the way I'm pretty sure there is no such thing
as 'perfect relative pitch' - its "relative pitch" or "perfect (absolute) pitch".)

Here's my other question. Wouldn't someone, who had perfect pitch in
Beethoven's day, if you brought them to life now, wouldn't their perfect
pitch be rather flat now?

[Brian Lee]

Interesting arguments here. One potential wrench to throw into the works however:

We all of course know that the speed of sound is not a constant value. Instead, it changes depending on atmospheric density (affected by altitude) and temperature. As a widely accepted average, you also loose 4 degrees of temperature (Farenheit) for every thousand feet gained in altitude - again to a point. But as most of us don't regulalry play our instruments much above the Tropopause of the atmosphere we'll leave the specifics of this for another day.

It has also been postulated that this "pitch memory" of the ear/brain is related to a specific frequency in Hertz (Hz) that the ear associates with a particular pitch. Now assuming all this to be correct, any change in air pressure, density, temperature AND altitude will affect this perceived note.

So, when you hear an "A at 440" in Denver, is it the same you would hear in San Fransisco? In Nepal? In Antarctica? In the Sahara? Very likely not...although the differences would be slight, there would be differences. The speed of sound itself can change by several hundred miles an hour depending on temp, pressure and altitude. Just some interesting thoughts to ponder...

[lesl]

Brian said:
"So, when you hear an "A at 440" in Denver, is it the same you would
hear in San Fransisco? In Nepal? In Antarctica? In the Sahara? Very
likely not..."

Well but say you took an electronic tuner to each of those places.
Wouldn't your A440 be the same, despite the atmospheric differences?

ok enough for now. I have to go shovel the 3 feet of plowed ice back of
my car or I will never get to the session today..

Lesl

[Wombat]

(by the way I'm pretty sure there is no such thing
as 'perfect relative pitch' - its "relative pitch" or "perfect (absolute) pitch".)

Well strictly speaking there isn't either. Loosely speaking there is both. See the first page or two of this thread before fanciful posts started appearing that ignored earlier demonstrations that strictly perfect pitch isn't possible, despite what the first year psych texts say and parallel experiments you can perform at home to show the same holds for colour shades.

If you can tell the intervals accurately, when they are reasonably in tune, that's perfect relative pitch, loosely speaking.

Here's my other question. Wouldn't someone, who had perfect pitch in
Beethoven's day, if you brought them to life now, wouldn't their perfect
pitch be rather flat now?

Yes, it would. So much for 'perfection', eh! Zubivka had some really interesting observations about pitch inflation and traditional musics, again before the rot set in.

[Lorenzo]

Like I can hear two sometimes 3 different wavelengths fighting each other, then I ajust it until they are all matched on the wave of that key (or not for harmonized keys).

Have you ever considered becoming a piano tuner? You might not even need a tuning fork or tuning machine. Can you hear in equal temperment? That's when the notes in the octave are equally imperfect...a compromise so that any 3 or 4 note chord within the octave is tolerable. Otherwise, only a few chords would sound good. I'm curious if perfect pitch only works in the middle range of hearing, or at any octave up or down from middle C (the note in the middle hearing range for most humans). I wonder if some animals have perfect pitch. Experiments with good results could be done, I think.