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OK, probably got some folks attention putting the words "perfect" and "pitch" so close together ;-) But what I mean is has anyone developed their relative pitch to the point they can immediately name any note, chord, harmony, etc once they hear it, given a reference pitch is heard first. I'd love to hear how you got to where you are, how long you've been working at, what some of the most useful exercises have been, etc. And maybe a little on how it's changed what music sounds like to you, what the experience of music is like.
Last edited by jaydogg; 09-14-2013 at 02:47 PM. Reason: added note about reference pitch missed in original post
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09-13-2013 08:28 PM
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Relative pitch and perfect pitch are two different things. My relative pitch is perfect, so there is no further need to "develop" it, but I don't have perfect pitch. Explain further.
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I take the OP to mean that one could identify (say) a 13th chord as such every time. Not whether it's C13, Bb13 or whatever (which would be absolute pitch), but just that it's a 13th.
Likewise one can listen to a chord progression and identify all the chord types and functions with 100% accuracy (but not the actual key). Eg, "I - vi - V/ii - V7alt - "etc.
That would be what I'd call "perfect relative pitch". I don't have that myself - I can rarely be that certain; maybe 80% at a guess, on average.
Personally, I got into music late (age 16), and had really terrible ear to begin with, having no childhood experience of partaking in music at all. I have managed to improve it considerably over the years, but it's still way off what I'd consider ideal, at least for jazz (where one's ear needs to be quick as well as accurate).
The only "exercise" I've ever done is transcribing songs, which I've done right from the beginning. Not as an ear training exercise, but just because I had to (notation for those tracks not existing). IOW, I never sought to improve my ear specifically, I just wanted to play music. But the fact I was forced to use my ear back then (and then began enjoying transcription for its own sake) led to its steady improvement.Last edited by JonR; 09-14-2013 at 08:14 AM.
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My daughter has perfect pitch. You can hum her a note and she will be able to identify it or you can ask her to sing a Bb and she will be able to do it without a previous reference pitch. I am guessing that is developed by early exposure to music and I'm not sure one could actually learn that ability over time although I don't really know that.
relative pitch on the other hand, as well as the ability to identify chord quality is something that can be practiced and learned over time.
I would think that perfect pitch is the least useful of these other than as a parlour trick and in tuning your guitar in circumstances where you don't have a reference. relative pitch and the ability to identify chord qualities is very helpful in improv and in transcribing and I suspect most people develop this skill the way JonR did it - by transcribing a lot of tunes.
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I think perfect pitch is useful (but I doubt an adult could develop it unless they already had the ability). Of the musicians I'm acquainted with, the ones that are the best at playing tunes they don't know on the bandstand have perfect pitch (I only know two in this category). Maybe they're using relative and perfect pitch, I think they probably are, but like I said these musicians with perfect pitch seem to be on another level when it comes to playing by ear.
Originally Posted by ColinO
BTW, I've met two other people, students in this case, with perfect pitch in ear training classes I've had. They were not developed enough as musicians (yet?) to be able to play at a professional level on a jazz bandstand much less do it by ear.
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Agreed. Originally Posted by ColinO
Personally, I've been playing guitar for so long that I can now tune it with no reference to very close to concert pitch - within a half-step, typically just a little low. I just know how the strings are supposed to sound - especially the low E, which is close to my lowest comfortable vocal pitch. So I'm kind of combining relative pitch (comparing to my lowest voice note) with pitch memory. However, I'm less confident tuning the other strings from memory, and rely on relative pitch for those.
Pitch memory is an interesting phenomenon, different from absolute pitch but probably related:
Absolute Memory for Musical Pitch
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Personally, I don't believe that there is any such thing as "perfect pitch", if it's separated from relative pitch. If someone can accurately identify a D natural, it's only because it's somehow related to something they've been exposed to before. Therefore, it's "relative" to a "pitch" that's already committed to memory. If a person had never, ever heard a D natural before, how could they possibly identify one as such when they heard it for the first time. Originally Posted by JonR
(Wasn't there once a guy who had a theory on relativity?)
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But that is what perfect pitch is, the ability to remember pitches.
Colors are frequencies too. I think someone could recognize the color red as being a unique color and recall that color even if they didn't know what it was called. And they wouldn't need to see some other color (like blue) and be told what that color was before they could identify red. Shoot we all can do that actually.
It doesn't seem that far fetch to me that some could do that with sounds?
Patrick, haven't you been around someone with perfect pitch? I remember waking up my friend to go surfing first thing in the morning. Then listening to the radio and saying to him, that's a cool progression. He would just tell me the progression as in Amaj7 to Bb7#11 or whatever it was. He always knew the key, with no reference. It was so easy for him.
I've seen it, I believe it.Last edited by fep; 09-14-2013 at 01:24 PM.
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Recognize; verb . . . "To know or identify from past experience or knowledge." Originally Posted by fep
Of course someone could hear a D natural, not know what the hell it is . . . then hear it again tomorrow and say . . . "hey . . I recognize that sound. It sounds just like what I heard yesterday". However, had they not heard it yesterday it would not be identifiable . . . it would just be a sound they've never heard before.
Therefore, it's relative to what they've heard before. Similarly with your example of the color red. If a little girl was to see a hat in the color red . . and seeing that color for the very first time ever, she'd probably smile and say . . "that's a pretty hat". If she saw something different tomorrow, like a pair of shoes in the color red . . she'd probably smile and say . . . "hey, that looks just like that pretty color hat I saw yesterday. Therefore it's relative.
With relative perfect pitch . . it becomes a matter of "graduated interval recall". It's virtually impossible to identify a note as a D natural . . . unless you've some how, some where heard what a D natural sounds like once (many times?)before.
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Yes and that is perfect pitch. Originally Posted by Patrick2
It seems we agree in concept just not in the definition of perfect pitch. Perfect pitch is a bad term in my opinion, I prefer the term absolute pitch. Nobody is perfect... one illogically could have imperfect perfect pitch. Imperfect absolute pitch makes more sense.
But there is a distinction between what musicians refer to as perfect (or absolute pitch) and relative pitch.
My understanding is:
Relative pitch is the ability to hear and identify intervals.
Absolute pitch is that ability to identify a pitch without using another pitch as a point of reference. And to recognize that pitch with a high degree of accuracy and precision.
They both require memory.Last edited by fep; 09-14-2013 at 02:02 PM.
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Oops, inadvertently got the discussion into "perfect pitch". My original post has nothing to do with perfect pitch, but I understand the confusion (especially since I accidentally left out the key phrase, "given a reference note"). I'm asking about having a highly trained sense of relative pitch, to the point you might say it's perfect. JonR saw through the fogginess of my question. I'm surprised to hear that transcribing alone got you there, but that's cool. And it's certainly something I do, but could do *way* more. I'm kind of geeky about things and like to mess around with pitch pipes and tuning forks :-) I'd love to hear some other interesting exercises people have used successfully.
@cosmic gumbo: certainly you weren't born with a perfect sense or relative pitch? So how did you develop it?
And on the side track discussion, I agree with fep, perfect pitch is not a very useful term. Especially since there is so much confusion about it.
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Yep . . I definitely agree with what you've stated. I really don't often see too many appropriate uses of the term "perfect" . . (with one exception being my choice for a wife). Originally Posted by fep
As it relates to pitch or tone identification, I've always referenced it as . . "that cat's got a great ear". That always seemed good enough. No one's going to be 100% perfectly accurate in identifying each of the 12 notes 100% of the time. Even with a reference note, unless it's something easy like a M3 or a P5 interval. One could certainly hum or scat chromatically up from a reference note and hit it correctly 100% of the time. But, if for example, I pluck an Ab and ask a person to sing an Cb, without climbing chromatically up to it . . . how many people who claim to have perfect, absolute or relative perfct pitch do you think would actually ping the note . . . without hearing the interval played within the past few minutes of being asked to do it?Last edited by Patrick2; 09-14-2013 at 04:29 PM.
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I agree with Fep and JonR on this topic, and might have some useful insight to the OP. First, "perfect pitch" absolutely exists in a small amount of the population. Like Fep, I have several friends who have this ability. They all describe it as "hearing in color." I once had a student claim to have perfect pitch at auditions. I thought I would cut him down a bit by holding down the pedal on the piano and playing 10 or 15 random notes in quick succession. He named them as fast as I could play them. Doesn't mean the kid could spell a 13 chord or take a decent chorus on Blue Bossa though, he just "heard in color" all he needed to do was be told the letter for each "color" at some point in his life, the ability was something he was born with. I'm now friends with this guy and he can even tell you how out of tune something is to A440 in real time. He's the best guy to sit next to at the jam session.
I also have a student who has perfect relative pitch. He was not born with it, but learned it between the ages of 8 and 11. Once he hears his first note of the day, he has perfect pitch till he goes to sleep. I'm not exaggerating, he's about 90% first thing in the morning too. Even if his accuracy first thing in the morning were ever to reach 100%, I still wouldn't consider what he has to be "perfect pitch" because he does not claim to "hear in color." He claims it's a function of his memory and based primarily on remembered images of his fretboard. Again, even though he can transcribe pretty much anything and plays very well by ear, It's another story when I ask him to identify the type or chord being played, or the name of the scale being used, as these are theoretical concepts and not tied to ears as much as intellect.
As to learning this. I really think that transcription is key to building your ears fastest. Transcription of melody, harmony, and rhythm on a regular basis will get your ears there. I know from experience, I had weak ears all through school. It wasn't until I started teaching guitar, and later jazz, that I had to transcribe on a literally daily basis just to keep my students busy. This helped more than anything. Another thing that has helped a lot is having a solid grasp of music theory to supplement my ear. Knowing musical probability and common practice reduces the possibilities of what you could be hearing. For example, if you theoretically know the changes to a tune, transcribing a solo on it should be a lot easier as the chord tones sound quite different from the non-chord tones. Another example would be transcribing changes; I always start with the bass line. If you know the bass line you can operate under an assumption that the bassist will be playing a chord tone (the root usually) on the beats with chord changes. once you have the bass line written down, you can just plug in chord types until you find it. The more you do this, you will begin to recognize chord types by feel without having to try as many. As any given chord has many possible voicings, transcribing changes via individual notes is much more difficult and time consuming than becoming acquainted with how they feel. When I transcribe, I use this order, it's gotten faster and more accurate the more I do it.
1. Bass line
2. Changes
3. Melody
4. Inner voices (background vox, horn parts, string parts, section harmonization, the hard stuff)
hope that was helpful in some way.Last edited by timscarey; 09-14-2013 at 10:28 PM.
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All the musicians I know, have relative pitch, how could you be one without it? Once you start internalizing scales or melodies, you are developing relative pitch. It's just a matter of fundamental music development. Originally Posted by jaydogg
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Well, I wouldn't describe where I am as "there" Originally Posted by jaydogg
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It's a very slow, ongoing and incomplete process (48 years now and counting).
The first time I became aware of my musical ear (ie total lack of) was age 12 or 13 at high school, when the music teacher (auditioning for the choir) asked us to sing a note he played on piano. I was baffled: how was I supposed to make my voice sound like a piano?? I simply had no idea how to pitch my voice, let alone tell if it matched another note. It was a totally bizarre idea to me.
But I was drawn into music by my schoolfriends, who had a band, asked me to join (they needed a washtub bass player, no musical skill required); and I started teaching myself guitar from age 16. I'd learned to read music in school, so I could learn songs from songbooks. But then I started hearing music that wasn't in songbooks, that I wanted to play: fingerstyle blues and ragtime. I used a tape recorder to slow it down and painstakingly learned it all note by note. And I actually managed to work out how to pitch my voice, to hum a note I played, or to play a note I hummed. I still can't exactly "sing", even now; but I know when I'm out of tune, which I wouldn't have known at 13.
And of course, I've learned the sounds of chord progressions. I can spot all the common ones easily: I-IV-V, I-V-vi-VI, I-vi-ii-V, etc. I can spot other common things like minor iv chords, secondary dominants, borrowed chords. That's what nearly 50 years of learning and playing songs does for someone with crap ears!
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Excuse the "I know someone who" story but it's actually true.
I knew a piano player (great classical and Jazz player) who had "perfect pitch". So he could tell you what notes your door bell was playing and also if it was flat or sharp. Similar to Colin O's daughter I guess.
He used to teach where I worked and would sometimes ask me "a student wants to know such and such a song and I've never heard it, do you know it?" If I didn't know it he would walk across the road to the record store with some manuscript paper and get them to play the CD. He would write out the changes and rough out the melody while it was playing.
Crazy guy. He got interested in computers and simply stopped playing music altogether. Such a great, great jazz player though. Used to freak me out.Last edited by Philco; 09-15-2013 at 06:40 AM.
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Apologies in advance for pursuing this OT point... Originally Posted by timscarey
My view is that we're all born with the potential to develop this skill. But for most of us it just doesn't get "switched on" at the early age when it needs to be; so it falls into disuse and becomes much harder to re-awaken in later life. The research I've read suggests it's very like language skills in this respect: we learn to speak our mother tongue as infants, simply by listening to adults and copying them - an extraordinary accomplishment when you think about it. But this ability to learn a language solely by ear tails off through childhood until, as adults, we'd find it extremely hard.
IOW, it's as if the brain is born without "software" but with an "operating system": hardwired for things like language skills, and presumably other aspects of what it means to be "human". The environment loads the software and programs it (eg which particular language we end up learning). The system learns to accommodate itself to what it finds; it develops the skills it needs, and jettisons those it finds no immediate use for.
This suggests that absolute pitch - being an aural skill - could be learned alongside language in infancy, if the child experiences music in the same meaningful contexts as verbal language. Ie, if it perceives music to be an important part of human interaction (as speech is) then its refined aural language-learning "program" will be attuned to music as well.
It's true that speakers of tonal languages - such Chinese - where pitch inflection is crucial to meaning, have a higher incidence of absolute pitch than speakers of non-tonal languages. This suggests that either AP is learned in infancy (not inborn at all); or that it's inborn in all of us, and awakened (if necessary) by the process of - or alongside - learning language.
Of course, it's also relevant that not all tonal language speakers have AP! That's presumably because the tonal aspect of the language involves relative pitch, not absolute pitch. (If it involved AP, then the different registers of men's and women's voices would mean that something spoken by a man would mean something quite different when a woman said it. Some of us think that's the case in English anyway....
)
And yet they're still more likely to have AP, suggesting it's a function of having a greater sensitivity to pitch nuance of any kind; the development of AP being an accidental by-product of paying more attention to fine details of relative pitch. Again, it's that aspect of "meaning" that's critical: if an infant picks up the idea that a sound has meaning, relevance, then it will pay attention to its content and try to learn it. Obviously absolute frequency is one aspect of sound.
It doesn't make sense, after all, that someone is born knowing that 440Hz is the conventional standard! That's obviously learned.
Someone with AP has the same physical listening apparatus we all have. They've just made a stronger mental connection with the frequency receptors in the ear. 20/20 hearing if you like.
Our eyes perceive colour thanks to the rods and cones in the retina. But it's learning that translates those stimuli into perceptions of colour, and the identification of particular wavelengths as different colours. Some cultures "see" different colours from us; they might group colours we think of as different all under the same label; or they might see different colours in a hue we regard as one colour. It's not about a physical "colour-blindness", just a learned choice about what hues are significant.
The "hearing in colour" idea is an analogy of course. It means people with AP identify pitch as easily as they identify colour. Not that they see pitches as colours. That would be synaesthesia, a different (though clearly related) phenomenon. In any case, synaesthesia is about subjective associations, not objective properties of sounds.
So, for pitch, AP comes - it seems - from learning (somehow) that pitch is significant. Of course, as we know, it's not actually significant for music itself, which works via relative pitch. But infants don't know that. They'd experience music as collections of discrete pitches, so they would attempt to memorise all those pitches, in the same way they memorise consonant and vowel sounds; and a lot of the process would be automatic or instinctive. But of course - as I say - they'd only do that if it appeared to them that music was as important as speaking. In our culture that's quite a rare experience for an infant. It would probably happen in musical families, especially when the child was sung to, or had tunes played to them, or was encouraged to sing or play themselves - ie, in the same way as they are encouraged to speak.
Naturally, running in the family in this way also makes it look as if musical skill is inherited genetically; something I don't think makes sense in evolutionary terms. We are all musical, just to different degrees - all of which can be explained by environmental influence, even there is some genetic component. (Everyone understands music as a listener, we don't have to become musicians in order to pick up its messages.)
That's interesting, because the research I've read suggests AP is learned before the age of 6. So your student would have picked up his skill on the tail end of his receptivity to pitch. He had enough of the capacity remaining at 8 to get as close as you say. Originally Posted by timscarey
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Fully agree with all this! (It's the way I transcribe, except I might sometimes have melody at #1 or #2.) Originally Posted by timscarey
However, knowing music theory is double-edged. Yes, it helps you predict what you are likely to hear, sets up the ballpark if you like. But the downside to that is it can prejudice your ears. I've often thought I've heard something that wasn't there (or missed something that was) because it sounded very much like something I'd heard before; something I could identify with a theoretical label. But then I'd listen closer (maybe slowing down the track) and realise it was different.
So it's important to be aware of that: to always allow your ear (not theory) the final say; and double (and treble) check. Your ear is always right; but sometimes it hears fuzzy - it's not "20/20" - and you have to help it out.
I think of theory like a map. A map is tremendously helpful in showing you how to get around a strange place. But it never shows everything. And the map is not the final authority; the place itself is! You might well say at some point "hold on, this road shouldn't be here!" - but you know it's a manner of speaking; the road plainly IS there; it's the map that's either wrong or (more likely) incomplete.
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One more thing on absolute pitch. I've seen a couple of interesting anecdotes on its disadvantages, both from the classical sphere.
One was a professional musician who began losing the ability as he got older. He was thankful, as he'd always felt it as a burden, distracting.
The other was an opera singer who couldn't stand singing in unaccompanied choirs. Typically, when choirs are unaccompanied, they'll drift in pitch - always being in tune with each other, but sometimes moving away from concert. She couldn't stand this, because to her it was "wrong". Even though they were all in tune with each other (sounding perfect to all ears except those with AP), they were out with what was "correct". IOW, everyone was out of step but her!
Of course, those are just examples of people who were unable to relegate their AP to the background when performing. AP needn't be an irritating distraction, unless you let it. But it remains a superfluous skill for a musician. Imagine a painter who was able to see x-rays, or ultraviolet light. He would be keen to use them in his work; but it would be pointless because no one else would see them.
A composer with AP might want to use the key of D major because of what that key means to him. But not only would it mean nothing to anyone without AP, it would also mean something different to any other listener with AP.
There's another interesting tale about a musical family, all of whom were successful professionally, except for one of them, who simply couldn't stand music. It turned out he had the most sensitive ear of all them - but he couldn't stand the compromises of equal temperament, where every note is physically out of tune (cents away from pure ratios).
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I would think a LOT of musicians could do this ...But, if for example, I pluck an Ab and ask a person to sing an Cb, without climbing chromatically up to it . . . how many people who claim to have perfect, absolute or relative perfct pitch do you think would actually ping the note . . . without hearing the interval played within the past few minutes of being asked to do it?
if you played an Ab and asked them to sing a minor third up from that , which is what you've done
I don't have very big ears naturally and certainly
don't have AP or PP ....and i've learned to do this
It can absolutely be learned .... I agree that transcribing tunes by ear is the way to go .....
for me the various intervals and chord types all have a
distinct 'feeling' irrespective of key
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Although it may be hard to believe, people who actually have perfect/absolute pitch can "ping" the note you ask them to sing every time without having you play them a reference note. It really is like asking how can someone recognize the colour red every time it is shown to them. It's even more accurate than that because there are many shades of red and only one pitch we call Cb (although arguably there are pitches that are very close). Granted, this ability has limited utility in itself, but it's pretty cool to see someone who can do it. Originally Posted by Patrick2
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Well . . . enough people here have indicated that this is more common than I would have believed possible . . so then I guess it is. I'd certainly be very impressed if I was to witness anyone being able to do this with any degree of consistent accuracy. Originally Posted by ColinO
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I've been trying to find figures for the percentage of people (in western society) who have absolute pitch, and have seen a figure of "1 in 10,000" widely quoted - which seems too low to me. One otherwise very good site: Originally Posted by Patrick2
Pitch perfect
- begins by quoting that figure, but then goes on to mention experiments where "of the American students... 7 percent met the criteria for absolute pitch". 7 per cent is of course 700 in 10,000! However, that was among music students, where you would expect a higher incidence (if maybe not that much higher).
7%, btw, was in comparison to Chinese music students, of whom 63% got within a half-step 85% of the time. (Of course that's not exactly "perfect", but still impressive.)
But the research with infants mentioned in that article - as well as the stuff about tonal languages - is significant, IMO.
There's a discussion on the topic here, and contributor Mark R. describes his experience of having AP:
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbt...ople_have.html
- notice that he says music using other tuning systems (away from 440 Hz) "confuses and irritates" him, and can even cause "physical and psychological discomfort". So, for him at least, it's a real disability, a handicap.Last edited by JonR; 09-15-2013 at 10:31 AM.
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i have perfect pitch, and i learned it in my early 20's.
i'm not even sure why i'm admitting this, because if experience has taught me anything, there will be a flood of people to inform me that this is not possible, and what i REALLY have is "special relativity imperfect pitch version 2.0."
but feel free to ask any questions, anyways
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Something I find interesting... this is only anecdotal though.
I've known of five people that had absolute pitch. Not one of them told me they had absolute pitch. I only found out because I asked them or someone else did.
My friend Keith tells me, "your whole guitar is tuned a little flat, it's close, about a 1/4 tone flat." I say, "you must have perfect pitch".?
In ear training class we are doing inversions, the instructor would play a chord, the student would answer "2nd inversion Major 7 chord".
Sueyoung is next and struggles with the answer. The instructor says just make a guess. She says,"the chord you played was B F# D G". (That was the correct notes but the answer was Maj7 1st inversion). She then struggles to come up with what that was using music theory. Sue-Young had perfect pitch, she only told us because the professor asked her. It was actually pretty obvious she had perfect pitch. It was actually harder for her to do some exercises, she wasn't hearing the overall sound of the chord, she was hearing the individual notes. Melodic dictation though, she was fast and perfect on the pitches (not the rhythms though).
Also interesting to me, of the five that I've known had absolute pitch, 3 of them were Asian, 2 of those (maybe all three?) were Korean. (Probably less than 5% of the people I'm acquainted with are Asian).
I've had some classes from Bob Magnusson, he has absolute pitch. He's a master musician, the bass player in this video:
I took classed from Jaeryoung Lee, she also has absolute pitch and is a great musician:
https://myspace.com/jleejazz/music/songs
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