The Secret To Perfect Pitch

[Will O'B]

Either you got it ... or you don't. But that's probably no secret.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070827/en_nm/gene_pitch_dc

[Cynth]

That was an interesting article. I've met a number of people who seem to confuse having good relative pitch (e.g. being able to sing a perfect fifth accurately, or something like that) with having perfect pitch. When I was in a choir in college we had a member who had perfect pitch. She would hum our starting note instead of the conductor using a pitch pipe or the piano. It was pretty neat.

[Redwolf]

That was an interesting article. I've met a number of people who seem to confuse having good relative pitch (e.g. being able to sing a perfect fifth accurately, or something like that) with having perfect pitch. When I was in a choir in college we had a member who had perfect pitch. She would hum our starting note instead of the conductor using a pitch pipe or the piano. It was pretty neat.

We used to have a guy like that in our church choir. It was fun, because he could hum each starting pitch sotto voce, and to the listeners it would sound like we could just launch into Palestrina without any guidance at all!

It's a curse I wouldn't want, though. The few people I've met with perfect pitch hate it, because nothing ever sounds properly in tune. Also, they have all kinds of problems when the conducter asks the organist to transpose a piece because while most of us are just reading the intervals between the notes, they're actually reading the notes themselves (the fellow in our choir used to describe it as having to be a simultaneous translator).

Redwolf

[Doug_Tipple]

I'm glad that I don't have perfect pitch. Fairly good relative pitch suits me just fine. Other than being a walking and talking tuning machine, I don't see a whole lot of advantage for having perfect pitch. I would much rather have perfect memory. I'm tired of reading a book only to find three fourths of the way through it that I had read it before. Can you imagine what life would be like if you had perfect pitch? You would have to spend your whole life having to listen to people singing or playing slightly off-pitch. It would be like having to listen to American Idol ad infinitum.

[gonzo914]

I have two 14-year-olds with absolute pitch. Their last choir director used them as a pitchpipe when he forgot the real one. They are fourteen now, and we've know about this since they were 7 or 8.

When they were in piano class, they were describing a tune to me, one that I knew and could play on a whistle. So I played it, asking "Is this it?" and they said, "No, dad. It's not F sharp, A, D; it's E, G, C."

They also have very good relative pitch, so they can go back and forth between our old, flat piano and singing with one that is in tune. When asked to sing a D (or some note, I forget which one, but D will do), they asked "Do you want real D or the D on our piano."

Once I asked them "What color is C?" "Green," replied one without missing a beat or thinking the question odd. His brother disagreed, "No, it isn't; it's brown."

[djm]

I bought one of those Perfect Pitch courses from a musician's magazine years ago - tons of cheaply recorded cassettes. The guy's voice would put me to sleep in minutes, but the point was that you could learn to recognize the pitches by their feel. His contention was that each note has a certain feel to it, regardless of the timbre of any particular instrument. Once you learned and memorized the feel of any note he said you would be able to recognize that note in any octave. Once you had memorized the sound of any note, the course went on to memorizing the sound of any interval, then on to chords, etc. I wish it had worked for me.

djm

[Caj]

Sorry, I have to be skeptical.

"We noticed that pitch-naming ability was roughly an all-or-nothing phenomenon," she said.

That lead [sic] researchers to conclude that one gene, or perhaps a few, may be behind this talent.

By this logic, understanding Chinese is genetic. Survey 2200 adults and give them a bunch of Chinese phrases; you'll find that virtually everyone understands either all of it or none of it.

I don't see how this demonstrates a genetic link at all.

I guess the researchers assumed that if it was a learned skill they'd see a broad range of performance from people at different levels of development. But there are many learned skills where almost everyone you meet is pegged at around 0% or around 100%.

Actually, it's hard to establish any link between genetics and musical ability, because you're more likely to be musically inclined when raised by musically inclined people. So any observed "inheritance" of musical ability is easily explained by environment. And twins separated at birth are not easy to come by.

Caj

[Aanvil]

"One guy said, 'I can name the pitch of anything -- even farts,"' said Dr. Jane Gitschier of the University of California, San Francisco, whose study appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Now there is a talent of some acclaim.

[fyffer]

Fascinating topic, and close to home.

I've been told by my wife that I have PP, but I don't believe her.
I had a college roommate who had PP, and I have nothing close to the musical sense that he has (though I like to think I'm pretty OK).

What I do have, I'll describe as a curse (which has been alluded to in prior responses).

Here are my symptoms:
I have an extremely difficult time performing a tune or song I know very well (instinctively or innately) in a different key than the one I know it in. This has been troubling in that for years I have been (and may be again someday) one of those "Acoustic guitar cover-tune guys" - you know the type: sometimes called a "JT wannabe", doing covers of the Eagles, CSN, Grateful Dead, Jimmy Buffet, etc. for 4 hours in a bar. I learn the tunes from the recordings, and there they sit. If someone I'm playing or singing with for whatever reason decides to do something in a different key, I'm musically useless. Especially if I'm trying to harmonize. In my brain, it's not the same tune. It has a distinctly different "feel" or "color". I can't describe it any other way.

Now, I do have what I think of as a very good memory for pitch, and good relative pitch. For instance, if someone asks me to sing any particular note out of the blue (an A, for instance, to tune a guitar), I can usually pull one out of my head in a number of different ways. I can always get a C by thinking of the Beatles "Let it Be". It's a *very* "C" tune. I can get any other note from there. I can usually also get a G or a D the same way, by remembering the opening of certain tunes (G: Bach's Little Fugue in G minor comes easily).

So what do you all think?
Am I just crazy?

[fyffer]

"One guy said, 'I can name the pitch of anything -- even farts,"' said Dr. Jane Gitschier of the University of California, San Francisco, whose study appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Now there is a talent of some acclaim.

But can he f*rt to match a pitch?

Gross story coming, but if you've read this far, you obviously can handle it.

In college (some of the stuff I did in college, I still don't believe), we were serious music major dorks. We would randomly break into three- or four-part harmony at any time (most often under the influence of something), but a particular talent I discovered is that I could often f*rt "in tune".
If I felt one coming on, I would tell my two roomates who would then sing an interval (3rd, 6th, 4th, whatever), and my charge was to complete the triad, in whatever inversion was presented to me. More often than not, we made very nice triads.
I don't think it qualifies me to get on Letterman, but we thought it was quite a hoot (or should it be "toot").

Sorry if that was gross, but you brought it up.

[BillChin]

The article says 1 in 10,000 have absolutely perfect pitch. I have read other sources saying the number is much higher, more like 3% or 3 out 100. Maybe the higher percentage doesn't have the ability to identify the pitch of farts

I have known a couple of people with so-called perfect pitch. It is a blessing and a curse. They could identify the notes as well as reproduce them with their voice.

I have decent relative pitch recognition, rather poor absolute recognition.

I would be more interested in a study focusing on those that can read sheet music easily and those that struggle with it. It is my theory that a high percentage of the population is "dot-dyslexic," just as a percentage are alphabet language dyslexic. I believe I am one of the dot dyslexic because I struggle so much with reading sheet music, even though I was exposed to it before age 12. Force feeding dots on the dot-dyslexic may not be the best way.

[fyffer]

The article says 1 in 10,000 have absolutely perfect pitch. I have read other sources saying the number is much higher, more like 3% or 3 out 100.

... and how many people who have the gene for perfect pitch (if that is indeed what causes it) go their entire lives without exploring it at all? I've met people who I've found to have excellent musical ability who have done absolutely nothing with it.
That is the true sin.

[peeplj]

I would think it could be more of a liability than an asset.

Here's a question for ya: if you have perfect pitch, how are you tempered?

Just kiddin.

There isn't anything perfect about pitch...I just count myself lucky I can usually get in tune with somebody else.

--James

[djm]

If I felt one coming on, I would tell my two roomates who would then sing an interval (3rd, 6th, 4th, whatever), and my charge was to complete the triad, in whatever inversion was presented to me. More often than not, we made very nice triads.

So if I f*rt first and harmonize afterwards I'm disqualified? I was reading that people with PP start to lose it when they get older and their PP starts to go sharp. It seems you are bucking the trend by going flatulent.

djm

[Redwolf]

Sometimes a person can recognize some notes absolutely and not others. In my case, I can almost always recognize a middle C (natural) if I hear it played, most likely because it's in a very comfortable part of my vocal range. A while back, we were watching a TV show (can't remember what it was...a sitcom, I think) and a character told the piano player to give him a C note. I turned to my husband and said "that's not "C nat., that's C sharp. Went to the piano and, sure enough...it was C sharp. Doesn't work for other notes, though.

Redwolf