Talk:Absolute pitch

Semitone = Half step in the States. Should it be notated or change? Ich 00:47, Jul 7, 2004 (UTC)

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My father told me the names of the white notes on a piano when I was five years old. For many years after that, I could identify white notes on a piano when I heard them, but with black notes, I could tell only that they were black notes. And it didn't work with other instruments. During my 20s, "C"s on a piano began to sound almost, but not quite, a full tone higher than "C"s, and ever since then I get confused and cannot identify notes. How does that fit into theories about the origin and nature of this phenomenon? -- Mike Hardy

Different pianos may be tuned a semitone higher or lower than "concert pitch", which may cause this phenomenon. -- tk1@despammed.com

"Usually, people with active absolute pitch will not only be able to identify a note, but recognize when that note is slightly sharp or flat." You need not actually identify the black keys to have perfect pitch, but only know that they are indeed black keys, if that makes sense. Jendeyoung 18:33, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

I've noticed many people with perfect pitch (absolute pitch) complain that they begin to hear notes up to a whole step higher as they enter early middle age. It's probably a relatively common aging process, just like losing hair and eyesight. Perhaps you can pick up the clarinet, since it's a Bb instrument.--69.226.242.31 08:35, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

That's scary; I've actually noticed something like this myself, but I attributed it to listening to so much early music where A = Ab or somewhere in between. Interesting! Antandrus (talk) 15:34, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

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This article uses the oft considered inaccurate term perfect pitch throughout its text. Any reason?-Hyacinth 21:04, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Probably because it is in more common usage, even though it is irritatingly imprecise. I tried to train my students to use the term "absolute pitch" but it was a losing battle. Google for perfect pitch = 87,000; absolute pitch = 20,000, as of today. Antandrus 17:04, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

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It is possible that you learned to name tones (a collection of characteristics) instead of pitches (a single characteristic of a tone). When musical contexts change-- most typically, timbre and harmony-- the perception of a tone also changes.

Perfect pitch and absolute pitch have become interchangeable terms. I suspect that "perfect pitch" is used throughout the article because it is a less clumsy term than "absolute pitch"-- it's alliterative and has a nicer rhythm.

cheers chris http://www.acousticlearning.com

But the pitch is the fundamental, unless it is a bell or something with an irregular overtone series. When I hear a C# I first hear the C#, whether it is a piano, an oboe, a tire squeal or a modem trying to connect; the perception of timbre comes later. Interesting though. Antandrus 05:41, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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The melody trigger technique is now being used (successfully) to gain absolute pitch at Prolobe.com

-Pete

1 in every 10,000?

Active absolute pitch possessors in the United States number about 1 in every 10,000.

I am somewhat doubtful that this is actually true. Throughout my secondary school life I've known quite a number of people who can sing whatever note you tell them to. I can too and even now in a small choir of only roughly 20 people there is also someone else who can. Although I was in Hong Kong in secondary school and in Australia now, surely even in the United States there are many more than 1 in 10,000. -- KittySaturn 09:55, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

I also see this statistic mentioned frequently. My own experience (which I can't put in to the article, since it's original research) is that possessors of perfect pitch may be far more numerous than this, based on how many I knew in graduate school. I taught at a large music conservatory, and I'd say that maybe 1 in 20 of the students in the advanced theory/sight-singing sections that I taught had "active" perfect pitch, and maybe one in ten had "passive". No students in the lower sections did. Overall, maybe one in 50 or 100 students in the school had the ability. The 1:10,000 statistic holds up only if it possible that the students in the school were a tiny subset of the general population. I also observed that students from East Asia (China, Korea, Japan, Singapore especially) were much more likely to have pitch than those from the west; I have no idea why, since not all those places have tonal languages. Antandrus (talk) 15:47, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Although the statistic is probably inflated to some extent, your case is probably above average. But you must also take into account that you are not only in an academic environment, but also in a musical one. In this environment, although the percentage of people possessing absolute pitch from birth should be unchanged, the percentage of people who develop absolute pitch should be much higher. You must remember that the majority of the population does not study music seriously. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.40.30 (talk • contribs)

I have active absolute pitch, being capable of identifying keys, notes, and producing any notes. I recently participated in an All-State Mixed Chorus ensemble, and approximately 10% of those in the chorus had absolute pitch. The general population might be 1:10,000, but musical population, much higher. Artvandelay 02:06, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

10% is pretty impressive. That's about the number of people who had absolute pitch in graduate classes I taught, as well as when I taught Advanced Ear Training. (I have it myself, and have had since about age 12.) Always found it a liability when singing in a cappella vocal groups though, and drove me crazy when I tried to learn to play transposing instruments. Antandrus (talk) 02:43, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Learnable Vs. Genetic Only

I am very interested in knowing if Absolute Pitch can be learned, and more about what absolute pitch exactly means.

I have listened to some CD's from the Perfect Pitch Super Training course that claim to be able to teach absolute pitch. On their website they claim that anyone can learn Perfect Pitch, and have 2 University studies that seem to agree with them.

At the same time there are the UCSF studies, which suggests that perfect pitch is rare, and is genetic.

The links from the wikipedia article seem to have some of the same conflicting information.

This has led me to a few hypothesis of possibilities for the conflicting data.

1. The UCSF studies have not taken into account students who have learned through the perfectpitch.com courses.

2. Perfectpitch.com is misrepresenting there information or is lieing in someway. (This is not an accusation, only a possibility. It should be noted that it is also a possibility that the UCSF study could be lieing, but this is not likely, especially with other studies showing similar things)

3. There are more than one form of perfect pitch, one that is genetic and one that can be developed. In Sir James Jeans classic "The Science of Music" he discusses how the eardrum is not perfectly round and so that when you hear a note, you will also hear another note at the same time, just very slighlty. Maybe one form of absolute pitch has to do with the shape of the eardrum, and another has to do with the actual fibers in our ears that pick up tone, or maybe one is how our brains are wired to interpret the information. I'm not sure. I have not seen any studies yet that discuss the physiology, only about testing people to see if they have it or not.

This potential difference in physiological types of perfect pitch could maybe explain active vs. passive perfect pitch also.

I have emailed both perfectpitch.com and UCSF. I will post my findings. But I am also posting this to see if anyone knows of any information that might help bring resolution to this conflicting data.

I'm a skeptic of the claim adults can learn perfect pitch. I started the Perfect Pitch Super Training Course regiment two weeks ago. I remain a skeptic. Here's what I've found for myself. I never realized in my 37 years of existance that I could identify C. Now, I know. And it's only for C. Going through the regimen, I can produce most of the notes of chromatic scale on demand so that I'm either dead on or close enough for my voice and my keyboard to generate beats. My hearing isn't as good. I can only identify a note on the chromatic scale half the time. The other times, I'm off by a half step. I feel like I could do a few things to make myself look like I have perfect pitch. In reality, I'm nowhere closer to perfect pitch than when I started. C is still the only note that I can immediately tell like I can identify colors or shapes. Identifying other notes is more like recalling the meaning of words in a foreign language with a mental dictionary, although the mental dictionary could get faster with constant practice. Producing notes feels more like I'm being lucky with a guess than something that feels natural. I think I'm only honing an advanced form of relative pitch. The Perfect Pitch Super Training Course and others should be put to shame for selling their courses to desparate musicians. I'll still continue with the regimen because it's fun to see results, and I feel like I'm developing an interesting (non-musical) skill. But it has nothing to do with perfect pitch. I still remain a skeptic.--69.20.170.196 08:05, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Content in the article

Most of the content in the "Definition" section seems to be less about describing absolute pitch and more about the author(s) passing the ability as an unnecessary annoyance. The author seems a tad envious of the ability and appears to be, "playing it down", so to speak.

For example, while a musician with absolute pitch might feel "off" if a piece is not exactly tuned properly, it is not a constant annoyance. That's like saying a bicyclist will continiously feel uncomfortable if he or she rides a new bike--obviously it will be distracting for a while, but the cyclist can (usually) quickly become adjusted to it.

A revision would be helpful.

As someone who is said to possess a very extreme form of "active" absolute pitch, I can tell you that what you have identified as complete nonsense is, in fact, complete nonsense. I can instantly discern the key of a piece and can tell you if a piece normally played in one key has been transposed to another, but it's simply just an observation I can make. It doesn't cause me any emotional distress when a piece is transposed to an unusual key. Neither am I put off by performances on historical instruments which use a different tuning system than modern instruments. I can tell that the pitches are slightly different, but the important thing is really the relationships between the pitches, so it doesn't bother me at all. The assertions in the article about people with absolute pitch not being able to identify intervals as easily as people with only relative pitch are, from my own experiences, also fictitious. I can analyze notes relatively or absolutely with equal facility. Unless I possess some form of pitch recognition which hybridizes relative pitch and absolute pitch that someone with just absolute pitch doesn't necessarily have, I can tell you that what is written in the article is just false. Batman Jr. 23:48, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Alleged capabilities

JS Bach is noted here as having absolute pitch, but this may be speculative. A reference should be provided.

I thought all but a handful of major composers had perfect pitch and that it is insanely hard to compose anything good without it.

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The part in the article about absolute pitch being more common among native speakers of Asian languages sounds pretty bogus. What's the basis for this, just Diana Deutsch of UCSD? She seems to have a lopsided understanding of how Asian languages work.--69.20.170.196 05:01, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Partial Absolute Pitch

I can identify the white notes with absolute accuracy, but can't identify specific sharps and flats (but when a sharp or flat is played I do know that it is indeed not a white key). Anyone else? 71.131.29.225 23:09, 20 November 2005 (UTC)