Perfect pitch survey

[greg]

this is as simple as i can do, I mean, it's REALLY not a difficult concept, you either have one or the other, or neither, like me 

just do a lot of studying and you can develop absolute pitch just like anyone else.

[Renfield]

okay, Renfield, I read your post. The concept of "Relative Pitch" and having "Perfect pitch" is quite simple and straightforward, i don't understand why so many people are having trouble with the concept.

Let me make it as simple as i could

an example of having Perfect Pitch:

I press a note on the piano, and ask you what it is, if you can tell me the name of that note, then you have perfect pitch (note: I merely press ONE note, so there is nothing relative to it for you to make any sort of reference). like, if I pressed an E-flat(the black note between D natural and E natural), and you tell me it's D sharp or E flat, then obviously you have perfect pitch.

an example of having Relative Pitch

I press a series of notes, a melody if you will. At the end, i ask you to notate it on paper. if my original melody is F natural - A natural - C natural. But you wrote C natural - E natural - G natural. Then, you obviously don't have "perfect" pitch, but you are able to distinguish the intervals in between, and while you didn't get the "exact" answer, it still works. In this case, you have Relative pitch.

this is as simple as i can do, I mean, it's REALLY not a difficult concept, you either have one or the other, or neither, like me 

Oh, I'd think it's more complicated... Here are two counter-examples to its simplicity:


1) You play a note on the piano, a single note (for example C sharp). What you are doing is playing a tone, right? You ask X what that tone was: but X can only reply using a word. Hence, if X does know the tone, but not the word, you will be misled into thinking he couldn't recognise it.

Thus, it seems you can't define absolute pitch via this method, unless you can assure that your subject knows the correspondence of names (words) to the respective tones.


2) You play a series of notes (again, tones from now on), within a set "distance" from each other (I believe, with my limited knowledge, that this could be a scale). If a subject can identify the distance between the notes, but not the notes, they have relative pitch, correct? But if they also have absolute pitch, does the latter "subsume" the former?

More properly, is relative pitch a less-advanced version of absolute pitch, or are they two different abilities, with the property that relative pitch is a material implication of absolute pitch (in other words, that you can't have perfect pitch without relative pitch)?


I don't think it's as simple as it looks, all in all; and most especially so when musical training becomes a factor.

[mahlertitan]

I am not saying that process of attaining relative/perfect pitch is simple, i am saying that the concept what perfect/relative pitch means is fairly straightforward.

you said:
"1) You play a note on the piano, a single note (for example C sharp). What you are doing is playing a tone, right? You ask X what that tone was: but X can only reply using a word. Hence, if X does know the tone, but not the word, you will be misled into thinking he couldn't recognise it.

Thus, it seems you can't define absolute pitch via this method, unless you can assure that your subject knows the correspondence of names (words) to the respective tones"

uh.... there are only a few names for the tones, ABCDEFG, either sharp/flat for each. but in essence, there are only 12 distinct tones on say a given span on the piano (say from C natural to C natural one octave up). So, i can't imagine that somone who has even little music education to not to be able to come up with the names. After all, if you don't know what the tone is, you can simply push the piano key, and learn that tone. A very simple process. Especially when you can mentally recognize it (the hard part), you can name them(the easy part).

I know you might disagree with me, but people who HAVE perfect pitch have being doing music for most of their life, and the basics theory stuff, like scales, notes, intervals, etc... are quite "basic" "kindergarden" "piece of cake" "walk in the park" etc... this is why i find your question pointless.

you said:
"2) You play a series of notes (again, tones from now on), within a set "distance" from each other (I believe, with my limited knowledge, that this could be a scale). If a subject can identify the distance between the notes, but not the notes, they have relative pitch, correct? But if they also have absolute pitch, does the latter "subsume" the former?

More properly, is relative pitch a less-advanced version of absolute pitch, or are they two different abilities, with the property that relative pitch is a material implication of absolute pitch (in other words, that you can't have perfect pitch without relative pitch)?"

yes, if the person has perfect pitch, he/she obviously is not going to have trouble with relative pitch. Relative pitch is less than perfect pitch obviously, they are very much the same. Perfect being at the highest level, the relative being lower.

I think, in my experience with music. Training primarily concerns with the relative pitch, because perfect pitch is something that only a few people (relatively speaking) can master. Most people/musicians/composers can get by playing/writing music with knowing relative pitch. A violinist friend of mine, who is greatly skilled at his craft, can only attain "relative pitch", and even that is already quite remarkable, considering that he is only 16. Another pianist friend of mine, she is around my age, about 20, has "Perfect pitch", she once identified a series of notes in a composition of mine(perfectly correct), and taught me much about music. She has been playing piano and learning music theory ever since she was a little girl, and this "special" ability is also a product of years of hard work.

It seems to me that with hard work, many can achieve "relative pitch", but it takes something special to achieve "perfect pitch".

[rappy]

Well, I think it's coincidence if you have perfect pitch. I never did hard work and had it since I can remember. Of course it implies some sort of relative pitch: If I hear a G and a D, I know it's a fifth because I know the single notes (some basic education is necessary, of course).

[mahlertitan]

Well, I think it's coincidence if you have perfect pitch. I never did hard work and had it since I can remember. Of course it implies some sort of relative pitch: If I hear a G and a D, I know it's a fifth because I know the single notes (some basic education is necessary, of course).

yeah, having the talent is a big factor.

[Renfield]

I am not saying that process of attaining relative/perfect pitch is simple, i am saying that the concept what perfect/relative pitch means is fairly straightforward.

you said:
"1) You play a note on the piano, a single note (for example C sharp). What you are doing is playing a tone, right? You ask X what that tone was: but X can only reply using a word. Hence, if X does know the tone, but not the word, you will be misled into thinking he couldn't recognise it.

Thus, it seems you can't define absolute pitch via this method, unless you can assure that your subject knows the correspondence of names (words) to the respective tones"

uh.... there are only a few names for the tones, ABCDEFG, either sharp/flat for each. but in essence, there are only 12 distinct tones on say a given span on the piano (say from C natural to C natural one octave up). So, i can't imagine that somone who has even little music education to not to be able to come up with the names. After all, if you don't know what the tone is, you can simply push the piano key, and learn that tone. A very simple process. Especially when you can mentally recognize it (the hard part), you can name them(the easy part).

I know you might disagree with me, but people who HAVE perfect pitch have being doing music for most of their life, and the basics theory stuff, like scales, notes, intervals, etc... are quite "basic" "kindergarden" "piece of cake" "walk in the park" etc... this is why i find your question pointless.

You missed my point. You (and not only you, it's not personal) support as a valid mean of identifying perfect pitch whether one can name tones without comparison (i.e. in an "absolute" manner). However, the part about "naming" implies an additional circumstantial capacity to match tones with words, which is not always the case.


Perhaps the reason this sounds so trivial is that you're thinking only about the 12 distinct tones, "in essence", but let me ask you this:

Assume you know a person by his appearance, but you don't know their name. Now, assume you're also familiar with the appearance of five others, and do know their names. Finally, assume that there are, in total, 12 people the pictures of which you can be shown, all of distinct appearance.

If it's one whose name you know, you need practice to remember who is who - not which face belongs to which person, but which name does.

If it's one whose name you don't know, and you're not even sure how many of them might appear (unless you consciously limit your choices to the 12 "people" mentioned above, versus all the people you can meet), you can know if you've recognised them before, but without a "verbal reference", it's not so easy to name them.

"Relative" pitch might even be used here, to work your way to precisely ascertaining the name of the "nameless tone". But regardless, don't think "absolute" pitch relates to names: it relates to tones. Then names relate to tones, after training.

And, again, given that there are way more tones in total than the "essential" 12, it still requires a lot of practice to be able not only to know each of the 12 "essential tones" by name, but also exclude the other 11 names when seeking to "tag" one tone.

(Even more so if we're talking about the full range of tones producable anywhere, which is actually the "list" from which some of us "choose", and which only contains a handful of coherent names, to the non-musically-trained.

The fact that most people with perfect pitch are rushed into a conservatory at first notice does not mean some might not choose against that. I know I did, and I know that my erstwhile music teacher is still frustrated by that choice.

Still, the point remains: perfect pitch does not immediately imply naming - only identification, but which can be non-communicable.)

[mahlertitan]

it's going back to that old problem of "how do I know that you know". Sure, let's say you can identify tones, but for some odd reason can't memorize the name associated with them. How would anyone know that you have this ability? How do I test you on it? Can you give me an example?

[Novi]

it's going back to that old problem of "how do I know that you know". Sure, let's say you can identify tones, but for some odd reason can't memorize the name associated with them. How would anyone know that you have this ability? How do I test you on it? Can you give me an example?

What if you were to play a note, and the person were to say, yep, that's the same note as the first chord in Beethoven's Pathetique? Would that be a vaild alternative nomenclature? I.e. the person doesn't know what c minor is, but can intuitively recognise it? Or is that relative pitch because you're kind of 'remembering' the tone?

For those of you with perfect pitch and find it a hindrance when listening to music, what exactly is it that is annoying? Would it be, say, the A=415 of some performances that makes you think that the whole thing throughout is flat? Or is it just a more acute sense of intonation which makes even very minor deviations seem quite glaring?

[mahlertitan]

What if you were to play a note, and the person were to say, yep, that's the same note as the first chord in Beethoven's Pathetique? Would that be a vaild alternative nomenclature? I.e. the person doesn't know what c minor is, but can intuitively recognise it? Or is that relative pitch because you're kind of 'remembering' the tone?

but, do you see how unlikely this scenario is? for someone who has listened to Pathetique (and knows music quite well), and doesn't know what the note is called. Suppose, you tell this person that this key is C sharp minor, when someone ask him the same question again, will he reply in the same way?

[Renfield]

but, do you see how unlikely this scenario is? for someone who has listened to Pathetique (and knows music quite well), and doesn't know what the note is called. Suppose, you tell this person that this key is C sharp minor, when someone ask him the same question again, will he reply in the same way?

You are making the (in my opinion mistaken) assumption that one instantly learns the names of things. And regardless, Novitiate got the gist of my question, which isn't really about me personally:

What if you were to play a note, and the person were to say, yep, that's the same note as the first chord in Beethoven's Pathetique? Would that be a vaild alternative nomenclature? I.e. the person doesn't know what c minor is, but can intuitively recognise it? Or is that relative pitch because you're kind of 'remembering' the tone?

What I am asking, and you are dismissing as trivial (and I am insisting it isn't) is whether it is vital for names to be "singly" associated, in order to acknowledge "absolute" pitch - something which I find absurd - or just the tones.

And Novitiate's example highlighted my question very aptly.

(For the record, I can confirm that I am able to recognise the tone the Pathetique starts with, or the second, or the fifty-fifth tone in the piece, and repeat it a hundred times on its own in my head. I just can't name the bloody thing!)

Though you're right in that, as far as "proving" absolute pitch this way is concerned, it's almost impossible to do so; but is using such an "unclean" rule as the naming one a good alternative? Unless you assume the subject is musically educated, which again means the method is limited in scope. That is what I'm getting at: no more, no less.

[mahlertitan]

Then you don't have what academics call "perfect pitch", case closed.

[Renfield]

Then you don't have what academics call "perfect pitch", case closed.

Come again? What were you answering to?

Here I am trying to discuss a subject I think is worth some discussion, and you're replying as if it's a competition. Easy on the trigger, there!

If nothing else, you are tempting me to ask an academic or two about what they would consider perfect pitch, and see if it isn't "the ability to recognize [my emphasis] the pitch of a note or produce any given note" (Concise Oxford Dictionary), which I don't see having anything to do with names.

Although interestingly, the Concise Grove Music Dictionary (via Gramophone.co.uk) appears to list absolute pitch as "The ability to name [my emphasis] the pitch of a note, or to sing a named note, without reference to a previously sounded one.", which I have spent the last several posts arguing against, as a definition.

Whereas relative pitch is, according to Grove (the Concise Oxford doesn't have it), "the ability to identify intervals by ear without being able to identify individual pitches, as with Absolute pitch." Is that the same as recognising notes, but not being able to name them? Is it even related to that at all? This is another question I asked above.

So all in all, I'll stick with Oxford, but it appears even academics are not so clear on this subject. But did I not begin the discussion with saying it isn't as simple as it sounds, anyway?

[mahlertitan]

you do realize that the people who made Oxford dictionary aren't exactly expert in everything they cover... why should i argue with you? you obviously don't like my answer, so you definitely should consult an academic (it helps if his/her field is music) and ask them about it.

[jochanaan]

Okay, it's time to shine some light and try to bring down the heat.

I have perfect pitch.  For as long as I can remember, I have been able to recognize pitches (not tones necessarily--a separate issue) without effort and without any other referent than my own pitch memory.  This is what perfect pitch is: the ability to remember pitches well enough to recognize or reproduce them without referring to another instrument or tuning fork or whatever.  Whether one knows the names of the notes is beside the point, although it would be difficult to tell if one had perfect pitch if one didn't know the note names.  I cannot guarantee that I can reproduce A440 within 1 Hz plus or minus; but I can come very close.

Someone mentioned the Faure trio as having many key changes and implying that it would be a challenge.  Such things are no challenge to me; I recognize the key instantly and without effort wherever it is.  Even in atonal pieces, I know exactly which notes are being played at any instant.

Relative pitch has to do, not with the pitches themselves, but with their relation to each other.  Anyone who has neither perfect pitch nor relative pitch is functionally tone-deaf.  (Such people might still become pianists or percussionists; just ask Evelyn Glennie, an astonishing percussionist who is also profoundly deaf.)  Most musicians, I would imagine, have relative pitch and have been trained in its use; but I have not met many who have perfect pitch.

About period pitch: Yes, it's a problem.  I have to "recalibrate" my pitch sense every time I hear a period group.  And some of the French and English groups seem to play at about A390, because they sound a whole step flat to my ears; A415 sounds about a half-step low.

Another problem comes when I play a transposing instrument such as the English horn or Bb clarinet.  I find it very difficult in such cases to remember that a written C sounds as an F, or Bb! I really have to do a double transposition in my head--at sight.  On the other hand, I can easily transpose at sight from a non-transposed part; that involves only a single transposition.

And yes, perfect pitch is a useful gift for composition or arranging.  I can "hear" things in my head and don't have to refer to a keyboard.

A final comment:  Some have described teaching programs designed to teach perfect pitch.  One of them tries to teach pitch recognition by "sound color."  That has never been my method, if I have a method at all; I remember the pitches regardless of their color, which changes with every instrument.  So all I can say is I doubt they would be effective.

[rappy]

And yes, perfect pitch is a useful gift for composition or arranging.  I can "hear" things in my head and don't have to refer to a keyboard.

Yes, and I wonder if that's possible with relative pitch either. Doubt so, although many people say that perfect pitch doesn't make you a better composer.

[mahlertitan]

Yes, and I wonder if that's possible with relative pitch either. Doubt so, although many people say that perfect pitch doesn't make you a better composer.

That is true, i mean a keyboard is not that hard to find....

[lukeottevanger]

Perfect pitch story:

Writer Boris Pasternak started life as a composer, a pretty good one in the Scriabin line. In fact he was an adoring acolyte of Scriabin's. The time came when he knew he had to make the choice between music - his main love - and literature - in which he excelled even more. But he couldn't bear to make the break from composing, so he set himself a scenario to act out. He would go to Scriabin's house to discuss his thoughts on stopping composing. At some point in the conversation he would mention his lack of perfect ptich. If - as he assumed he would - Scriabin said something along the lines of 'but Tchaikovsky [etc. etc.] didn't have perfect pitch either' Pasternak would take that as a cue to give up composing. And that is exactly what happened when the conversation took place. Hence, Doctor Zhivago was made possible by Pasternak's lack of perfect pitch...

[rappy]

That is true, i mean a keyboard is not that hard to find....

Well, but on a keyboard you have to try out, while in your head you can find the most weird progressions by yourself.

[jochanaan]

...many people say that perfect pitch doesn't make you a better composer.

If that were all that was required, I'd be as well-known as Mozart!

Well, but on a keyboard you have to try out, while in your head you can find the most weird progressions by yourself.

True, but sometimes I find that something I think would work doesn't, while something I feel will never work does just fine.  Very strange.

[Marcel]

Is it possible to imagine tones, melodies, key modulations, harmonies etc. when someone is composing without perfect pitch ? I wonder if Tchaikovsky didn't have perfect pitch, how could he compose such gentle harmonies and artful key modulations ?