how useful is perfect pitch

[matt.guitarteacher]

With what little is known about Robert Johnson I see it as inconclusive. There is a difference between something that is inconclusive versus something being a myth.

Yeah, I'd say "inconclusive" is going easy. There are as many if/then's in that article as you'd need to argue the other side, I'd imagine.

Yeah, pitch/tone considerations aside, the musician in me says that the PHRASING of the faster guitar articulations just feels more realistic at the slower speed. I mean, they're certainly "fast enough" in the slower version. In his voice doesn't sound particularly "low" in the slower version, anyway.

Of course, I'll admit my bias on this one.I want to believethat the yeti is real, in this case. I'm going "grassy knoll" on this. I believe. :-)

[dasein]

Dasein - you still have not answered Matt's question. What are the principles of the method to teach 'absolute pitch'?

Without giving too much away...

You'd start out with four notes. The teacher would point out some of the salient characteristics of those notes.

Then you go to the piano and the teacher would start drilling you, playing one of those notes and asking you to name it.

The teacher would have to make a mental note of which notes you were confusing. Some students confuse notes that are close to each other (like C and B). Other students confuse notes that are related by overtones (C and G).

Go on to two, three, four note combinations in different registers. Melodic dictation. Once you start getting it mostly right (95% accuracy or so), you add another note. Repeat.

Eventually, the chords start getting quite elaborate. 11 note clusters and you have to pick out the missing note from the chromatic scale.

But a teacher can go as fast or as slow as you need to, and work on particularly troublesome areas.

Yeah, I'd say "inconclusive" is going easy. There are as many if/then's in that article as you didn't need to argue the other side, I'd imagine.

Again, I would ask:

All of Robert Johnson's recorded songs were recorded in two separate recording sessions, a year apart. Why did two separate recording engineers, for two separate sessions, decide to speed up his recordings? And how did they manage to decide to speed it up at EXACTLY the same speed?

And why didn't anyone along the way, people who heard Robert Johnson play, NEVER once mention that the songs were too fast and the singing too high?

You might think that the slow-downed versions sound better, and that's fine. That's a subjective decision, and if it's one thing that study after study show, it's that humans aren't anywhere near as good at making subjective (gut) decisions as they think they are.

For me, the "unnaturalness" of Robert Johnson's singing and playing is part of its power.

[lammie200]

...For me, the "unnaturalness" of Robert Johnson's singing and playing is part of its power.

By "unnaturalness" you mean what? I can respect your opinion.

To me his lyrical content, colloquialisms, vocal range, phrasing and guitar playing are the power. Recording conditions and techniques from about 80 years ago, not so much. Neither is the fact that there was probably a 20-25 year gap from when they were originally recorded and then duplicated for more substantial sales and airplay.

BTW, The author of the essay perpetuates the 20% increase/decrease in speed notion. I am guessing more like 5-7% at most. May not even be perceptible by some, hence none of his few contemporaries that were used as evidence commented on the subject. At that difference it isn't inconceivable that the latest issue had it wrong IMHO. At 20% I can see the sensationalism taking shape.

Also, BTW, the guy that wrote the essay in your link also wrote a book on Johnson. I didn't read the book, but I am pretty sure that Johnson's recording speed was never mentioned in his book. The essay seems to be more of a CYA "Pardon me, I am the expert because I wrote a book on the subject, please excuse the internet gossip" type of thing to me.

Something that was admittedly sped up:

Lastly a little bit more conspiracy theory:

Update: More on this from Dave Rubin - taken from: http://www.guitarseminars.com where there is more discussion.

"I headed the team that produced "Robert Johnson: The New Transcriptions" for the Hal Leonard Corporation and I wrote a companion book for Guitar School that analyzed 15 of the most popular songs. We approached the tunings (A add 9 for "Dust My Broom" and "Phonograph Blues" take 2, open Em - like Skippy James - for "Hellhound On My Trail," etc) and keys with fresh ears and came up with new findings which I believe to be correct.

Most importantly, we had access to virtually all of the original 78s as owned by Steve LaVere. It was quite a thrill to hear these recordings in person. It sounded as if RJ was in the room playing and singing. Steve had corrected the speed with his variable pitch turntable so that the platters turned at exactly 78 RPMs. This produced slower tempos and pitch, resulting in Johnson having a deeper voice and, in my opinion, it gave the songs (especially the uptempo ones like "Preachin' Blues" and "32-20 Blues") a better groove. The 1996 version of the Columbia CD set basically reflects these corrections.

The problem started in the 1960s when they original engineers "corrected" their original source material by bringing all tunes up to natural keys like G and A, not realizing that Johnson really was playing in F#,G#, etc. remember, Johnson was playing SOLO guitar and likely tuned by ear before each session (perhaps each take) without a reference tone like, say, from a piano. Why would he care about concert pitch or A 440? In additon, with a new guitar with new strings, for example, in a hot environment, his guitar may have gone flat. In addition, he capoed extensively like most of his contemporaries. Re; "Love in Vain Blues": I maintain that it is his only song in Spanish (open G) tuned up a half step. Check out our transcription on page 192, the last measuer, where he ends with the tonic chord "open" (actually capoed - the dead giveaway of the tuning. "

[lawson-stone]

What is always missing in these discussions about "he has perfect pitch, and when A=435 he goes crazy" is that in western music, we already have imperfect pitches. The exact mathematical scale is not A=440. The western scale is "even tempered" which means that since the mathematical process of creating overtones produces numbers with infinite amounts of decimal places, the only way to get a consistently tuned scale is to put all the notes slightly "out of tune" and out of kilter with their mathematically dictated values.

So defining "perfect pitch" is by reference to A=440 as though this were some God ordained standard written into the fabric of the creation is... bogus.

On the other hand, if "perfect pitch" means essentially a "photographic" memory for pitches, I imagine there are people who have that. I can't imagine it would not be helpful in playing music, though it would be worthless in the absence of good technique on the instrument, good time, good feel for the genre in which one plays, and a good sense of listening to the totality of the ensemble in which one is playing.

But seriously, A=440 is a social convention dictated by the physical constraints of our musical instruments and can't be the basis for any kind of inherent perfect recognition of notes.

BTW there is some evidence that color perception is also heavily influenced by social convention. 4000 years ago, many languages used the word "green" to describe "gold."

[BigDee62]

I'm sorry that you thought I was talking to you personally.

Thanks for that. Obviously being over sensitive / paranoid, a character flaw of mine. It's all good.

[BigDee62]

A close friend seems at least partly gifted in this way, and has PP. Also, he can get you to play a 10 note cluster on the piano, and he'll tell you with no hesitation which 2 notes you have left out! That's no party trick you'd wanna learn just ti impress your friends.

Maybe not, but I'd still call it a party trick and, as others have said, not a particularly useful one. Here's my rationale (caveat: not a statistically valid sample size).

As a graduate assistant in music theory at one of the world's best music schools, I had the pleasure (?!?!) of teaching freshman theory and ear-training. Now I'm not calling anybody a liar here, ok? I'm sure everybody here sincerely believes the stories they're sharing.

However, with one exception, these amazing abilities vaporized during the ear training classes. Sure, some students were significantly better than others, but I was only aware of one freshman student who could nail every exercise. He wasn't one of my own students but I got to know him well, and he went on to perform piano concertos around the world. As a freshman he could sight read as well as any of the piano professors (now THAT was a great party trick).

And, he also believed he had strong relative pitch, not perfect pitch. His argument was that he could feel his sense of pitch slipping when he took a semester off from school and piano practice (for back surgery).

[Jonzo]

The teacher would point out some of the salient characteristics of those notes.

Please share the "salient characteristics" of a few notes.

[BigDee62]

... we already have imperfect pitches. The exact mathematical scale is not A=440. The western scale is "even tempered" which means that since the mathematical process of creating overtones produces numbers with infinite amounts of decimal places, the only way to get a consistently tuned scale is to put all the notes slightly "out of tune" and out of kilter with their mathematically dictated values.

Excellent point. I dated a viola player in music school. Both of us were grad students in music theory and we talked about how we both had very good pitch. But we had *different* pitch. In her head a perfect 4th was truly perfect, but in my head it was equal tempered.

[medblues]

What is always missing in these discussions about "he has perfect pitch, and when A=435 he goes crazy" is that in western music, we already have imperfect pitches. The exact mathematical scale is not A=440. The western scale is "even tempered" which means that since the mathematical process of creating overtones produces numbers with infinite amounts of decimal places, the only way to get a consistently tuned scale is to put all the notes slightly "out of tune" and out of kilter with their mathematically dictated values.

So defining "perfect pitch" is by reference to A=440 as though this were some God ordained standard written into the fabric of the creation is... bogus.

On the other hand, if "perfect pitch" means essentially a "photographic" memory for pitches, I imagine there are people who have that. I can't imagine it would not be helpful in playing music, though it would be worthless in the absence of good technique on the instrument, good time, good feel for the genre in which one plays, and a good sense of listening to the totality of the ensemble in which one is playing.

But seriously, A=440 is a social convention dictated by the physical constraints of our musical instruments and can't be the basis for any kind of inherent perfect recognition of notes.

BTW there is some evidence that color perception is also heavily influenced by social convention. 4000 years ago, many languages used the word "green" to describe "gold."

It is challenging but not scientifically impossible to determine how much of a skill is affected by learning and how much by hardware (genes, very early brain/inner ear development). So far, fairly good research suggests that "perfect pitch" is affected more by hardware and less by learning. To add to what is already mentioned, even professional musicians with perfect pitch start losing some of it when they age (I remember reading that the note G was a weak spot).

Synesthesia is associated with perfect pitch. Many people with eidetic memories also have synesthesia. I would not be surprised if this is also observed to a significant extent in "supertasters" and true "golden noses" who find gainful employment in the perfume industry.

I think perfect pitch would be very helpful to a professional musician not only for increased talent-skill but more for enhanced perception of richness and dimensionality of harmonies, timbre and color.

I don't believe perfect pitch necessarily interferes with enjoying music that is "different" or "out-of-tune". Conversely, people with perfect pitch would be better in appreciating microtonal music and should not necessarily be bothered by blues harmonies which are inherently out of tune from the western classical perspective. As pointed out by previous posters, perfect pitch gives people an unfair advantage in learning instruments with continuous pitch changes (fretless, slide, vocals).

I don't know if perfect rhythm is tightly associated with perfect pitch and I also don't know any studies analyzing how much of it is affected by hardware and how much by learning. But if someone with perfect pitch does not have great sense of rhythm, s/he will be highly limited in musical performance accomplishment (maybe even as a composer).

[mr. beaumont]

I have perfect pitch, but my ear tunes to A=432.

My nickname on the scene is "PITA."

[BigDee62]

You'd start out with four notes. The teacher would point out some of the salient characteristics of those notes.

Then you go to the piano and the teacher would start drilling you, playing one of those notes and asking you to name it.

I'm really too old to use this expression, but ... OMG.

I don't want this to sound like a personal attack so I'm biting my tongue.

I do think a lot of people would benefit from being a little more of a skeptic and questioning what they hear and read.

I'm done.

[JazzMuzak]

Maybe not, but I'd still call it a party trick and, as others have said, not a particularly useful one. Here's my rationale (caveat: not a statistically valid sample size).

As a graduate assistant in music theory at one of the world's best music schools, I had the pleasure (?!?!) of teaching freshman theory and ear-training. Now I'm not calling anybody a liar here, ok? I'm sure everybody here sincerely believes the stories they're sharing.

However, with one exception, these amazing abilities vaporized during the ear training classes. Sure, some students were significantly better than others, but I was only aware of one freshman student who could nail every exercise. He wasn't one of my own students but I got to know him well, and he went on to perform piano concertos around the world. As a freshman he could sight read as well as any of the piano professors (now THAT was a great party trick).

And, he also believed he had strong relative pitch, not perfect pitch. His argument was that he could feel his sense of pitch slipping when he took a semester off from school and piano practice (for back surgery).

The person I described earlier had ear training with me and the teacher would constantly get frustrated because he would sing back rhythms or melodies and she would write down both different ways he did it even if it was super subtle and a normal person would have been able to tell what he intended. Any melody or chord progression he played she knew instantly. Sometimes I'd play clusters on the piano and she knew all the notes instantly. It basically got to the point where the teacher told her not to answer any more.

Just because you haven't experienced it doesn't make it not true....

To add more fuel to fire she took about a 10-20 year gap from playing piano and when she came back to it she could still play and sight read listz, Debussy, etc. and she still had this "perfect" pitch.

If its a tangible skill for some why wouldn't it make sense that it comes in varying degrees? While it may be a party trick for some it certainly wasn't for her.

She sounds like she might be similar to the student you mentioned, but she went to school for music later in life instead. She'll even admit that her pitch it somehow not as good as it was when she was my age, although I struggle to see how it could get any better. She also says that when she was 18 and even before, she was already able to play Listz and sight read just about anything etc.

Similarly to to the student you mentioned, she sight read better than any of the teachers on campus.

[dasein]

What is always missing in these discussions about "he has perfect pitch, and when A=435 he goes crazy" is that in western music, we already have imperfect pitches. The exact mathematical scale is not A=440. The western scale is "even tempered" which means that since the mathematical process of creating overtones produces numbers with infinite amounts of decimal places, the only way to get a consistently tuned scale is to put all the notes slightly "out of tune" and out of kilter with their mathematically dictated values.

So defining "perfect pitch" is by reference to A=440 as though this were some God ordained standard written into the fabric of the creation is... bogus.

On the other hand, if "perfect pitch" means essentially a "photographic" memory for pitches, I imagine there are people who have that. I can't imagine it would not be helpful in playing music, though it would be worthless in the absence of good technique on the instrument, good time, good feel for the genre in which one plays, and a good sense of listening to the totality of the ensemble in which one is playing.

But seriously, A=440 is a social convention dictated by the physical constraints of our musical instruments and can't be the basis for any kind of inherent perfect recognition of notes.

BTW there is some evidence that color perception is also heavily influenced by social convention. 4000 years ago, many languages used the word "green" to describe "gold."

The thinking in the first two paragraphs just baffles me. I don't understand how people can (correctly) identify that tuning systems are largely social constructions, but then get hung up on words like "perfect" or "absolute." What is language if not the ultimate social construction?

Here is what perfect pitch, absolute pitch, whatever you want to call it is:

You can remember what particular pitches are and identify them.

That's it.

There is no biological essentialism required. There is no mystification. There is no baptism by tongues of fire vibrating at 440 HZ.

How do you know that A=440? Because someone played A=440, you were able to retain this sound in your mind, and recognize/remember it at will.

What happens if you hear A=432? You will hear an A that sounds slightly flat. That's it. It's no more complicated a process than if you see a yellow that is lighter or darker than whatever Platonic ideal of yellow you carry around in your head.

Please share the "salient characteristics" of a few notes.

I've already posted resources for people who are interested, but I'm not going to undercut someone who helped me a lot by giving away her work for free.

I'm really too old to use this expression, but ... OMG.

I don't want this to sound like a personal attack so I'm biting my tongue.

I do think a lot of people would benefit from being a little more of a skeptic and questioning what they hear and read.

I'm done.

You don't have to hold your tongue around me, I can dish as well as I can take it.

At the end of the day, I don't really care what anyone thinks. This isn't the first time this sort of thread has come up, and they all follow the same general pattern.

Someone comes along asking if you can learn perfect pitch. Most people say "no." A few ask "why not?" Reasons are cited, anecdotes are given, people argue about what it REALLY is.

I come in and say, yes, this is something I learned as an adult. Somebody asked if it was possible, and I give my experience as an example. If someone doesn't believe me, it makes absolutely no difference to me. I'm not selling anything, I'm not marketing myself, I'm not offering anything except my own experiences. If someone on the Internet doesn't believe them, what difference does it make to me?

I understand it's an extraordinary claim, and earlier in the thread I called out someone else for making extraordinary claims without providing supporting evidence. I don't really know what evidence I could give over the Internet. And even if I could, there's no evidence that I acquired these skills as an adult.

So caveat emptor, but I am always happy to answer questions (provided they don't affect someone's livelihood).

[lammie200]

I have perfect pitch, but my ear tunes to A=432.

My nickname on the scene is "PITA."

Your first sentence doesn't bother me. Your second sentence does especially if you use hummus as a deodorant

[matt.guitarteacher]

Someone comes along asking if you can learn perfect pitch. Most people say "no." A few ask "why not?" Reasons are cited, anecdotes are given, people argue about what it REALLY is.

Yeah, the whole semantics arguments where people don't even know what it is frustrates me as well. I also agree with your earlier statement re. "labeling" of pitches, and stated as much in another post. Doesn't really matter what label pitches. Most people can't even discern them.

I may have to check out this book to satisfy my own curiosity. Thanks for the link.

Your link to "resources" leads to a page for buying the book. The sample pages provide no resources; they are simply a sales pitch.

I don't know. Apparently, she's a real person. My google skills are particularly "on" today. I found her bio at the berklee site by typing the clandestine phrase "alla elana cohen". https://www.berklee.edu/people/alla-elana-cohen

Pretty sly, eh?

[lawson-stone]

I have perfect pitch, but my ear tunes to A=432.

My nickname on the scene is "PITA."

I have a photographic memory, but unfortunately there is no memory card in the slot... ;-)

[targuit]

Dasein - To be fair, if your experience was successful, you certainly could clarify the basic principles. I mean this is not like giving away Colonel Sanders' secret recipe for fried chicken or that of Coca Cola locked in a vault.

Example: She has you listen to various harmonic scale tones in an organized way and then helps you learn to hear them in a random context gradually.

I don't think you validate your claim of success by attacking another individual, though that is the MO of some here.

[dasein]

Dasein - To be fair, if your experience was successful, you certainly could clarify the basic principles. I mean this is not like giving away Colonel Sanders' secret recipe for fried chicken or that of Coca Cola locked in a vault.

Example: She has you listen to various harmonic scale tones in an organized way and then helps you learn to hear them in a random context gradually.

I don't think you validate your claim of success by attacking another individual, though that is the MO of some here.

I went over a little bit earlier, but sure, I can talk about it some more.

I'd have to go back and find it, but I remember a couple people bringing up the color analogy, ie, people with perfect pitches hear pitches like they're hearing each note as a distinct color. Maybe someone even brought up the dreaded "synaesthesia" word. And from what I understand, this is a big part of David Lucas Burge's perfect pitch "supercourse."

I get what they're going for, but it's an imperfect analogy.

Take another sense, taste for example. Could you coordinate tastes with colors? Sure, as a sort of poetic exercise. Maybe you'd associate red with spicy foods, yellow with sour foods, ice blue with minty flavors, etc.

There'd be no right or wrong answer. And I think most people would be correlating the two using varying degrees of separation, rather than as a direct analogy. Spicy foods = heat, intensity, boldness. Qualities they also associate with the color red. If you ACTUALLY saw the color red whenever you took a bite of spicy food... you might want to see a good neurologist.

Could you describe colors to someone who's been blind their whole life? Again, you could use poetic devices to try to connect to their other senses and experiences, and they might understand. But I think most people would agree that there's really no other way to truly know something like "red" without just seeing it.

It's the same with pitches. Can you describe F# to someone who's never heard? Maybe you coordinate colors, but in the end, it is what it is... F#.

If it sounds reductionist, it's because in a way it is. Somewhere in your life, you learned that you could classify visual stimulus by color. You learned that some things are red, and you learned how to recognize it. You can now recognize it in your day-to-day life, and separate the "redness" from the thing in question...whether it's a red car, a red house, etc. Maybe you associate different red things with other things... heat, danger, excitement... but you don't NEED to refer to those things to recognize something as red. You just do.

So that would be the first step in learning perfect pitch, the realization that pitches are different and distinct. It can help at first to associate them with different things. But eventually, with dedicated time and practice, you come to just recognize them without any crutches. They just are.

So in her teaching practice, we would start with four notes. And go through them over and over again. There's an element of brute force repetition that can't be avoided.

But a teacher can help with a couple things. First, what are you having trouble with? After dozens or hundreds of repetitions, do you tend to confuse certain pitches for certain other ones? There may be a pattern, there may be a reason you're confusing them. Maybe you confuse F and F#. Maybe you confuse F and C. If so, you can drill problem areas and find solutions for them.

Second, the teacher would use a variety of "poetic analogies" to help you differentiate a pitch. Perhaps it would be color, sure, but more to it than that. Does a pitch have a certain mood, flavor, feel to it that distinguishes it? Does it maybe even have a certain behavior to it?

Like I said, you have every right to be skeptical. But here's a simple experiment where you can test a small part of what I just said.

Play a certain piece of music in one key, any key you like. Something you enjoy and that maybe you have some sort of emotional connection to. Wait a little bit, then play it in a completely different key. Play it EXACTLY the same way: same melody, harmony, voicings. Play it in a couple different octaves, so you can eliminate register as a variable. Do it with a few different keys.

Now ask yourself: did moving it to a different key change the feel of the piece at all? Get your Nigel Tufnel "D minor is the saddest of all keys" jokes out of your system now. Genuinely ask yourself if it made any difference.

If it didn't, then no worries. You got some practice playing things in different keys.

If it did, then it might be worth thinking about some more. I don't even necessarily mean "this is proof that this all works, and you should all learn perfect pitch." No, I would just encourage you to ponder the effect a key might have on the actual music. You might find different keys fit certain ideas better. If that's all you get out of this, then that would be a great benefit.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news. I just watched a Julian Lange video and...(holding back the tears) the poor sod admitted that he does not have perfect or absolute pitch. Oh, the horror of it all....(sobbing quietly....)

I'll never listen to that guy again.

I also think I said this earlier, but it's worth repeating: perfect pitch is absolutely not necessary to be a great musician.

Paul Hindemith not only thought you could learn it, but that if you COULDN'T learn it, you shouldn't even bother being a musician.

But not only does Julian Lage not have it, I'm pretty sure neither did Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, and countless other great jazz musicians. On the classical side, Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Leonard Bernstein didn't have it, either. Sorry, Paul.

Irez has posted enthusiastically about the ear training he got from Bruce Arnold (who in turn, got it from Charlie Banacos). It's very intensive, thorough relative pitch training. For 95% of musicians, that would not only be more than enough, but easier to learn and more useful. After all, in jazz, knowing a note/chord's function within a key is hugely important. Relative pitch has you working on that at the same time.

Now, if your life long dream was to conduct "Wozzeck" with the BPO, then perfect pitch might be easier in the long run. But by no means is it essential for anyone.

[targuit]

Thanks, Dasein, for elaborating. In truth I never claim perfect pitch nor would I want it, but in effect I am very close. Frankly, as I said earlier, I would not spend ten minutes nor ten dollars on such an endeavor or course. That is because I see no need to divert my attention from what I believe is important. Acquiring perfect pitch just is not on my 'to do' list nor something I think is desirable. But each of us is entitled to their opinions, and I appreciate your elaborating, not so much for me, but because I believe there is too much of 'get Jonzo' vibe on the forum which I don't believe is totally deserved. Once more just my opinion.

In the area of opinion again, I think being a multi-instrumentalist helps. I find playing the piano to be very synergistic with playing guitar and I enjoy it nearly as much.

[dingusmingus]

I went over a little bit earlier, but sure, I can talk about it some more.

...

Irez has posted enthusiastically about the ear training he got from Bruce Arnold (who in turn, got it from Charlie Banacos). It's very intensive, thorough relative pitch training. For 95% of musicians, that would not only be more than enough, but easier to learn and more useful. After all, in jazz, knowing a note/chord's function within a key is hugely important. Relative pitch has you working on that at the same time.

Now, if your life long dream was to conduct "Wozzeck" with the BPO, then perfect pitch might be easier in the long run. But by no means is it essential for anyone.

Thanks dasein for the thorough explanation. Interesting stuff.

[fep]

To the best of my memory from about 15 years ago.

David Burge uses the color analogy to explain perfect pitch (maybe that is where it started?). But it is just an analogy, you don't actually see colors when listening to sounds. You might make associations for colors such as red being bright, strong and vibrant like F# which is bright, strong and vibrant. In that way red is like F#, at least for me. Brown is warm like Eb which is warm and round sounding, at least for me. Burge actually has you take a bunch of crayons and make associations of colors to notes.

More from Burge... some piano tuners have expressed difficulties with tuning the F#'s. There is a buzzy vibration sound that they can't remove. However, that is how F#'s sound, that is how they are suppose to sound.

Burge starts with F# and Eb as those notes have very different characters. F# is vibrant and buzzy, Eb is warm and round. So you are not remembering how high or low a note is, you are remembering some other characteristic or quality that can be associated with the note.

I think I was able to hear this when I was working on it but did not get even close to developing perfect pitch. I spent a lot of time on it.

Another color analogy... When watching black and white on TV you can't tell the difference between a green and red dress all you see is shades, you can see dark, grey, white but can only guess at the color. With color TV it's easy to distinguish between green and red and there is no question in your mind, you know you are right. Burge describes perfect pitch like this, you just know what the note is, it's easy for you to tell and you are certain you are right.

[matt.guitarteacher]

Is it really impossible to consider that anyone in human history, past, present or future has ever or will ever successfully teach people (with average perception) the same sense of perception we call "perfect pitch", since we know that some individuals possess this ability. I'd like to think that it's at least POSSIBLE.

Are we really chalking it up to superpowers? I was always very skeptical of the Burge method , but I am hesitant to call someone else on the forum a "liar", and more hesitant to call a music professor at Berklee a "liar" if she can't PROVE to my Internet-anonymous-self that it's true by sharing her work for free, or more preferably, through some funded study. Who's going to fund this study? Are r going to do that?

To hell with it....

********************
I hereby pronounce our fellow forum member dasein AND this professor both to be liars until proven otherwise, to the satisfaction of our "false until proven true" standard. I furthermore declare that Jonzo is actually a Wookie until he provides double-blinded study of a group of substantial sample size proving that he is otherwise.

There's no need to further comment on this thread, barring substantive evidence. Thank you all for participating.

[lammie200]

Can we get back to the Robert Johnson debate now?

[fep]

Is it possible that some adults can obtain perfect pitch while others can not?

Pitch based languages promote perfect pitch?... Speaking Tonal Languages Promotes Perfect Pitch - Scientific American

Perhaps there is something developmental at a young age associated with pitch based languages. Perhaps those who used pitch based languages at a young age have physiologically developed the ability for perfect pitch but need the exposure to leaning a musical instrument to develop perfect pitch. And maybe they could acquire perfect pitch as an adult. Just a hypothesis.

Curious if dasein knows any pitch based languages.

[dasein]

********************
I hereby pronounce our fellow forum member dasein AND this professor both to be liars until proven otherwise, to the satisfaction of our "false until proven true" standard. I furthermore declare that Jonzo is actually a Wookie until he provides double-blinded study of a group of substantial sample size proving that he is otherwise.

There's no need to further comment on this thread, barring substantive evidence. Thank you all for participating.

I don't really mind if someone believes I'm lying. Other people in the thread clearly think it's a bunch of bull, and that's fine.

The reason I got annoyed was the demand that I post someone else's work, the snarky insistence that I "stop making excuses" for not doing it, all combined with the fact that I didn't like Jonzo before any of this started.

I can't believe I'm even suggesting this, but at some point Jordan Klemons and I were going to meet up. If he wants to test me and report his findings, I'm fine with that.

Curious if dasein knows any pitch based languages.

Not at all.