perfect pitch

i haven't tested it b/c i like to think i have it...

(xpost)

I've also found that my own "absolute" pitch gets sharper or duller depending on how much I'm using it -- like when I was in music school it was pretty instantaneous for any note. Now (probably due to pounding on the drums too much) I have to think for a second and occasionally I get a bit off.

Susan, pls. explain.

xpost

Google Image Search unfortunately didn't turn up the even goofier picture of a younger David Burge grinning and clenching his fist triumphantly. (A full-page ad for his course ran in every issue of Keyboard Magazine back in the 80s.) Now he has gray hair (but presumably his pitch is as perfect as ever:

http://www.perfectpitchpeople.com/burge.jpg

well, if you're used to the A being the one note your tuning fork (or whatever) plays, it's easy to summon it up in your mind.

99.99999999% of those people can't even tell when two things are in the same key, even when they're played at the same time.

I do this, too. I'm completely rubbish at actually naming the notes, though.

Despite what Mark S says I do not think I have perfect pitch, or at least I am missing that final component that would allow me to say I had perfect pitch.

I've found that when I hear a song, I can usually picture the chord progression, provided it isn't too complex (i.e. jazz/bossa nova).
When I go to play the chord progression on a guitar, I'm quite often a full step below, like Tim mentioned above.

With single note lines and intervals, I'd say my ear is still developing.

I'm not the worlds greatest key transposer either. It usually takes me a minute or two to transfer the key of a song. I'd say this requires practice.

Whatever, I've got a recording of Paganini's "24 Caprices" and I can tell by listening what key each one is in...but only if my guitar is close by and I can play an 'E' as a reference point, then methodically concentrate, one step at a time, the exact interval between the E and the predominant pitch of the piece. (Similar to the way I can't remember how many days in the month without relying on that "Thirty days hath September..." mnemonic.) Identifying the key as major or minor takes about 4 seconds. That's not perfect pitch, but it's something, I guess...

(Incidentally, I just love these informative threads! Very useful.)

I'm not sure if this is what you're asking, but "middle C" on a piano would be a "high C" on a trombone or bassoon, for example. Both notes are exactly the same frequency, but are played in a higher register on the bass instruments.

Like fcc said, a C is a C no matter what instrument it's played on -- the difference between B-flat and C instruments is a matter of transposing the fingerings, I think. A clarinet played "open" (no keys pressed) will produce a G (rel. to the piano), but on a flute, that open note will be an F. This is just the way those instruments have been designed.

xpost

Anyway, I think his argument was that it's a rarely occurring genetic anomaly that cannot be learned/trained. I remember him remarking that there was no obvious common denominator at all for the people who truly had it (in terms of SES, etc.)

Yes, I think it's something like that. Like I could not listen to an album or play an instrument for five years, and at the end of that time would still be able to spontaneously sing/whistle/produce an exact F# (or other random note) without needing any aids. I think that's what's meant by absolute pitch...

http://www.thetrumpetblog.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-perfect-pitch/

That guy sounds like a putz. Glad I left music school.

lol

Did you hear about the former student of your teacher who just passed away?

Um, no I did not. A well known one?

Can you email me if you don't want to say a name here?

Not well known to the general public no. Well known in certain NYC jazz and jazz guitar circles. Will email you.

Emailed

lol @ "little patients"

Wondering why Con #6 is a Con. Maybe the wording is confusing.

I have absolute pitch and a lot of the "cons" are not really a function of absolute pitch so much as either (a) the madness that sets in from six hours a day of practicing (b) good relative pitch or (c) being a special fucking snowflake who thinks his life is the music version of a beautiful mind. Also I don't think out of tune music bothers people with absolute pitch any more than people with good relative pitch. And anyway it doesn't necessarily bother me, although I notice it, because sometimes out of tune sounds good. I also have never found it to be true that stuff not tuned to A440 bothers me, in fact I often really enjoy it n

If and when your kid starts taking piano lessons with my kid's teacher, I will ask him to test you on this.

Goddamn it, because of this thread I listened for what pitch the coffee machine in my office was making (B). I tried to leave that world behind.

^special snowflake

The piano teacher is quite interested in the subject of perfect pitch and told me about some internet phenom kid named Dylan who has it and whose dad has some theories on how to teach it. Have not investigated yet.
Did you ever get my email to your gmail?

I wouldn't be surprised if it can be taught, or at least if there is a range of people to whom it could be taught. The idea that it is an "innate" ability strikes me as a partial myth -- I think certain people are more likely to display or develop it, but it still requires significant exposure to music and note names.

Yes, btw, got the email. I didn't know him, but knew of him.

Even with me, my ability is much sharper when I'm in regular practice. E.g. if I haven't touched an instrument for a few months, I might not be able to identify a C# without first finding an easier reference pitch in my mind.

It is an innate ability like regulating your body temperature, your body can do, but you might have to be some kind of very deep yogi to achieve conscious control of it.

I too only knew of the guy until last December, when I finally met him hanging out at Mezzrow. To avoid the holiday blues I try to go to Smalls or Mezzrow in the gap between Xmas and New Year's. Of course the couple of times I have done this, somebody in the room has not made it through the next year, so maybe I shouldn't do it again, unless the third time is the charm.

From opening minute or two of that video the dad gave the kid extremely intense training.

I think I remember hearing about training with tuning forks -- is that what he does?

Much more than that, I think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoIofNSgeHs

I grew up in a house with a piano, two classically-trained parents, classical music playing all the time, etc. I don't think anyone realized I had perfect pitch until I was maybe 6/7. I was certainly never on the level of the kid in that video, although when I was in conservatory I could do most of what he's able to do at like age 5, lol.

Watching the video I was still able to name all the notes as he added them one-by-one to the cluster, but my on the spot chord identification is not what it used to be.

Perfect pitch seems about as useful as being able to see perfect color

if you remember a snippet of melody and the key it's in, you can fake perfect pitch well enough for most situations

Useful within the artform or in general? I would think perfect color would be extraordinarily useful to a painter.

Why? I can't actually see any use at all, unless someone's being tested to identify a precise hue, or a precise pitch. Otherwise, relative pitch/hue is perfectly fine (and responsible for almost all the artwork and music that exists). In either case, it's a mixture, balance and contrast that matters, not any absolute standard of what "red" or "Bb" means.

in general -- if you're in a situation where you're singing or playing music, relative pitch is hugely more useful

never took a test to see if i have perfect pitch

i really didn't have formal training, probably just a year (didn't like it)

but i always played with people and learnt i had good relative pitch that way

one thing i feel is if i think about it too much i get the notes wrong more often than if i just go by a sensation (not think about it too long or something). feel like this is a very small part of musicianship tbh tho

thing is i've met people with perfect pitch and they too are capable of writing the most uninteresting and cliche music possible so it's not really indicative of anything

Why? I can't actually see any use at all, unless someone's being tested to identify a precise hue, or a precise pitch. Otherwise, relative pitch/hue is perfectly fine (and responsible for almost all the artwork and music that exists). In either case, it's a mixture, balance and contrast that matters, not any absolute standard of what "red" or "Bb" means.

― Dominique, Tuesday, August 9, 2016 12:31 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I would think that the ability to recreate exactly the color that you want (e.g. saw somewhere IRL) could be useful.

I think there's a lot of confusion between whether perfect pitch is necessary and whether it's helpful. It's most certainly helpful and most certainly not necessary. I'd also guess it correlates very strongly with other abilities such as good relative pitch -- in fact it's very hard for me to believe that there are people in the world who have perfect pitch but bad relative pitch.

Most certainly helpful, most certainly not necessary, and most certainly not sufficient either, I should add. Yes, there are lots of people who have perfect pitch but no particular ability to write good or interesting music. But OTOH they might have the ability to nail french horn parts in an orchestra -- music isn't only composition.

not really relevant to the argument here, but i suspect the entire idea of "precise hue"/"perfect colour" is rendered moot by colour perception being more or less situational: there isn't an ambient-light ground zero to gussy up an absolute scale in, and if there was we'd almost never be in it

a better analogue for perfect pitch might be something like a throwing eye -- you need to keep you body in training to maintain the accuracy, and you can finetune it by practice, but the basic gift is there early, and seemingly in-born?

xp

to man alive, why wouldn't you be able to create the color you want without it being the scientific/physical definition of red?

And perfect pitch being useful is highly debatable -- as mentioned above, in practice, if you're a singer with perfect pitch, you're going to live a very hard life performing with anyone else, unless they all also happen to have perfect pitch. For that matter, you're going to have hard time singing with a piano unless it's always perfectly in tune.

to mark's point -- yes, I don't actually know what the physical definition of "Red" would be. There's doubtless a better analalogy, tho I figure the idea of perfect color would be about as useful

And perfect pitch being useful is highly debatable -- as mentioned above, in practice, if you're a singer with perfect pitch, you're going to live a very hard life performing with anyone else, unless they all also happen to have perfect pitch. For that matter, you're going to have hard time singing with a piano unless it's always perfectly in tune.

None of this is true.

Having perfect pitch doesn't mean you have a note-lock on your voice. You can still hear what the piano/people around you are doing and follow it.

i don't think perfect pitch is a huge deal, but it does have its uses. i was driving to a gig with a friend in the car and he had to arrange an Al Green tune on the fly...i just played the recording and he (sans instrument) could be all "well it's in this key, but i want to do it in a different key", and mentally transcribed the chords and arranged them for horns, then gave everyone their parts when we got there.

Right -- I mean, that's what everyone's doing in an ensemble to blend in. I guess having an innate sense of the pitch that *always* had to be adjusted seems like more work, more tension to me.

and if there was we'd almost never be in it

this is essentially my argument against perfect pitch fwiw

But OTOH they might have the ability to nail french horn parts in an orchestra -- music isn't only composition.

― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Tuesday, August 9, 2016 6:40 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

which if you think of it doesn't really require perfect pitch because it is relative to the rest of the orchestra

a note in perfect pitch is useless when the whole orchestra is playing slightly sharper or flatter

the question comes to if a person with perfect pitch can identify microtones and slight deviations from 12EDO pitches (any smaller/different divisions of an octave)

most perfect pitch training is memorization of tone objects, which microtones do not fall into

so 'in the real world' it is no better or worse to have perfect pitch

lol a lot of experts on what perfect pitch is and isn't ITT without any experience with it

And perfect pitch being useful is highly debatable -- as mentioned above, in practice, if you're a singer with perfect pitch, you're going to live a very hard life performing with anyone else, unless they all also happen to have perfect pitch. For that matter, you're going to have hard time singing with a piano unless it's always perfectly in tune.

I have sung with multiple people with perfect pitch and none of them seemed to have a particularly difficult time doing unless they were sightreading something that we were transposing to a different key for performance. If the ensemble as a whole went flat or sharp, they were capable of going with it and, on one hilarious occasion, bring the ensemble back into the correct key between movements of a longer piece.

Man Alive, just because you are the only one on the thread that has it doesn't mean everyone else on the thread shouldn't be able to tar you with the brush of challopinions.

For me personally, my relative pitch is strong and there are a couple of reference notes I can usually hum (thank you, college choir director, for making pulling an A out of nowhere a part of every rehearsal warmup) but I do not have perfect pitch. I kind of wish I did, as that would make my sightreading life a lot easier.

xp

I don't have it, if that's what you mean man alive.

And it's good to know that it doesn't bother perfect pitch'ers to deal with non-perfect pitched ensembles! Not sure I've knowingly worked with anyone who had perfect pitch (which was probably fortunate for all concerned), but it would be cool to experience it for a day to see what it's like.

dealing with ensembles sharping or flatting is a matter of relative pitch, though, not perfect pitch. you don't have to be able to pull a middle C from your ass to know that everyone isn't singing it

dominique, my colour argument isn't really the same as your sound argument: a useable i.e. shareable quasi-absolute scale of sonic vibration *can* be established, because the situation doesn't affect how a pitch is heard: 440Hz doesn't sound different in different halls or different climates, bcz the speed of sound isn't affected by e.g. air pressure or humidity -- a piano sounds the same pitch when the sound comes through a wall as across the room)

but perception of colour *is* affected by the ambient colour field -- a given red will just not look the same depending on how much yellow or blue there is in the surrounding illumination (or the backdrop behind it)… there isn't really an equivalent to this in sound

(one possible equivalent is maybe filling the hall with helium? here's an article on sound on mars: http://news.psu.edu/story/202637/2006/06/28/can-you-hear-me-now-not-mars -- the point here is, you couldn't really organise the performance of music in these circumstances, whereas the situational variation for colour happens in every different room you walk into, and actually every different coloured wallpaper)

fun stuff about the politics of concert pitch here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_pitch#19th-_and_20th-century_standards

Yeah, it's not a good analogy --- though I would say that how we perceive sound is affected by the same kinds of things. In fact, our ears can hear the exact same pitch as either sharp or flat, depending on what other pitches surround it (ie, in C-E-G, a perfectly in-tune E will sound sharp, whereas in A-C#-E, a perfectly in-tune E will sound flat).

yes but that's a species of (learned, culturally specific) relative pitch, if "perfectly in-tune" means well-tempered (or indeed if it means whatever the agreed system was before well-tempering arrived)

oddly enough, knowledge of his acute awareness of this microtonal stuff is why i said dan perry had perfect pitch, ten years, five months and four days ago :)

I can thank my other college choir director for that :-)

Culturally specific point taken, and now I am curious - what frequencies are actually being identified to someone who has perfect pitch? Are they the same, or vary by person? Or, is it that someone with perfect pitch can immediately identify *any* frequency?

frequencies are learnt

a westerner with perfect pitch can remember and identify the 12-tone chromatic scale

if that person grew up in a different country with a different scale, they would be able to identify the popular pitches.frequencies used in that part of the world

. = /

shareable quasi-absolute scale of sonic vibration *can* be established, because the situation doesn't affect how a pitch is heard: 440Hz doesn't sound different in different halls or different climates, bcz the speed of sound isn't affected by e.g. air pressure or humidity -- a piano sounds the same pitch when the sound comes through a wall as across the room)

― mark s, Tuesday, August 9, 2016 7:23 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

speed of sound isn't (except warping), but where the sounds emulate from (the 'box', strings, etc.) is

What F#A# said, xp. Similarly, within western music, a person growing up primarily with A440-tuned music would likely have their pitches tuned to A440, and same with any other tuning. And it should at least be possible for a person to be able to remember multiple tunings.

(ie, in C-E-G, a perfectly in-tune E will sound sharp, whereas in A-C#-E, a perfectly in-tune E will sound flat).

It will?

also:

Lockhead, G.R. and Byrd, R. (1981). Practically perfect pitch. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 70(2), 387-9.
Musicians with absolute pitch were shown to accurately name 99% of piano tones when tested; when listening to sine waves, the same listeners achieved only 58% success. They reported using a two-step process, first identifying the tone's pitch class and then its octave.

so perfect pitch people learn more than just "notes," they are sensitive to timbre, colour, and much more characteristics of notes. this has always been my understanding of it and why almost half of them weren't able to recognize sine waves

link: http://www.aruffo.com/eartraining/research/phase11.htm

where the sounds emulate from (the 'box', strings, etc.) is

sure, but this would manifest as an individual instrument (or orchestral section, if it affected them all similarly) being out of tune with the rest of the musicians present

xp

I find that interesting, because it means at least to some extent, perfect pitch itself is "learnt". But maybe (probably?) there is also a genetic component involved, and maybe also some critical period of development it has to happen.

It will?

Yeah, it will if you're trained to tune major chords in the way western classical musicians are, as far as lowering the 3rd, and raising the 5th slightly. But like mark said, that's a culturally specific preference (I need to do some research to remember why that is) -- though it seems like perfect pitch itself is culturally specific too... So it's all topsy turvy now!!

this is the reason: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_comma

enjoy :) :) :)

Just seems weird to me -- wouldn't every chord ever played on a fixed-pitch instrument (e.g. piano) sound out of tune then?

they are all slightly out of tune, that's what well-tempering is: a structured compromise to ensure you can play in the exotic or distant keys (viz F#) as effectively as C or G. Before about 1700 you couldn't: The Well-Tempered Klavier is a basically a promotional tool to demonstrate how excellent the new system of tuning was right across the gamut.

it's also why pianists sometimes describe the different chords as having different character or associated emotion: they're all subtly relationally different.

(though modern piano tuning uses equal tempering, which is a species of well-tempering that dampens this relational difference)

There is apparently still an art to piano tuning though. Can't just set everything with an electric tuner.

but if you tuned a piano to be perfectly, scientifically in tune across the octaves it would sound bad to our ears, correct? from what i've heard this is why piano tuning has some art to it.

xp

in the end you're tuning a piano to sound good with itself: i think if you tuned each string separately to a tuner it would (a) take a very long time and (b) you'd still have to tweak it all to resound nicely and not sound weird

"perfectly scientifically in tune" doesn't really mean anything i don't think: in tune with what exactly? what makes it scientific?

um, frequencies?

it's also why pianists sometimes describe the different chords as having different character or associated emotion: they're all subtly relationally different.

― mark s, Tuesday, 9 August 2016 19:31 (21 minutes ago) Permalink

not trying to sound artsy but isn't this true, though?

i totally feel that not just with piano but with guitars as well

we used to tune our baby grand often, not so much anymore because no one plays it, but even with equal tempering i could feel the difference

which is why i talked about the box/wood/etc

http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/notefreqs.html

xp

um, frequencies?

― sam jax sax jam (Jordan), Tuesday, August 9, 2016 8:57 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is not how you tune things dude

people talk about instruments in this thread as if their material is not affected by quality/environment or source

tuning is definitely an art form but my understanding is that if you tuned a piano to the exact frequency, its strings need to be initially stretched, but each settle in differently, so you need to tune a few times and at different frequencies depending on size and string

in tune with what exactly? what makes it scientific?

With Pythagorean intervals which have been shown to exist in the overtone series.

I'm no expert, but isn't what you're talking about really a matter of overtones created, xp? I don't think any of those things change the frequency of a pitch, but they might add other frequencies on top of it that cloud or color the sound in certain ways.

i'm a drummer and an electronic musician, i've based my whole life around not tuning things.

i'm not an expert either but i know our tuning guy would at times not tune to the exact frequency and would spend a good amount of time on it at different days

but i don't know, my baby grand is not so fancy relative to what's out there

xp to man alive

i think it's true that there's a different feel even with equal tempering; i believe it was more evident with early well-tempering but i haven't ever looked (or listened) into this -- i suspect there's a subjective element to the robust attribution of specific emotions (D major happy, Eb sexy etc)

um, frequencies?

given a particular choice of frequency for middle C, there's a further choice to be made for the most suitable precise frequency for (say) the Eb above it. It's a cultural choice, not a scientific choice. pythagorean commas! i'm not linking it again :)

that's what i (and everyone) was saying though, that pianos aren't tuned to exact frequencies, at least once you get a starting point. it would be possible but would not have good results.

xp

Isn't this overtone idea partly an origin myth, along with the story of the four anvils? Isn't the scale most close to the actual overtone series the Lydian Dominant, which is a nice scale, especially if you are playing Baio, but nothing about it makes the most natural-sounding scale.

I think what matters is whether or not you think 3:2 is a REAL fifth, i.e., a fifth that is actually in tune.

yes we're mostly aggressively agreeing -- all i'm really saying that i think it's a bit weird calling the frequency system that isn't used any longer the "exact" or "scientific" frequencies

pythagorean is fine (and i guess he was a mathematician) but musicians in his day used them because they liked the effect (and probably because it was a convenient procedure on the kinds of instruments then popular), not because they're some platonic ideal of tuning: they're not more scientific than any other tonal system

xp

Piano wouldn't be tuned in a way that would make good, Pythagorean chords -- that's essentially what mark is saying above, re: the compromise they made when going with well-temperament. Older keyboards and harpsichords were though, but they could only sound good in the one key where all the Pythagorean intervals were tuned to (that particular culturally validated mode of) perfection. ;)

The thing about Pythagorean tuning, and the intervals he talked about -- they may be culturally validated in Western harmony, but to me, that's not exactly saying they are only cultural in value. The intervals are real enough, and when you're tuning a chord, the harmonic "beats" you're trying to get rid of, and the fundamental tone you're trying to produce in perfectly tuned chords are real, physical sensations. They ratio and resultant sound is not actually subjective -- it's just that not every culture goes for the sensation.

Yeah, the fact that the intervals are naturally occurring has always made me think that, in that sense, they are scientific.

(xps)

so iirc strings on a piano have to be tuned/tightened slowly

you can't tune the first string to the right frequency, but you have to build up to it by slowly tightening each string one at a time

even after that, the strings move, and tuning a single string will change another string (usually one located on the opposite side iirc)

my memory is hazy on this tho, so getting the right frequency across every single string is impossible because of the strength/quality of the box). the better constructed and older pianos have better stability because the glue and such as settled in making it tighter

an instrument can never be built to a scientifically perfect proportion/dimension so as to keep a string tuned at the exact frequency we are theoretically talking about

this is why old well built instruments are sought after -- it has already settled and is sturdier, making it able to hold strings in place better

having said all this! if i remember correctly, this is why you don't tune to some theoretical frequency, because each piano will be a bit off. so you tune to what the heavier strings settle into, meaning you make that your 'base' and divide the octaves mathematically based on that set of stable strings

Didn't Galileo's father come up with a tuning system, based on the number 17 perhaps? There was a lot of talk about using rational numbers before equal temperament came along, iirc. Maybe somebody already mentioned or linked to.

I once read a good discussion about piano tuning that I can't quite remember in a nice book about the physics of music by a guy named almost like an ilxor, but this book is expensive and even a used copy might cost you $900 grandmothers.

^^^this (x-post)

i just got my piano restrung and the guy says for a while i need to get it retuned more often than usual in this climate -- bcz the strings are settling against each other

(actually i should probably get it done soon)

ie what F♯ A♯ (∞) said

Aargh can never spell this word right, baião.

But yeah, whatever I read was more or less what F♯ A♯ (∞) said

I have one word for you: inharmonicity.

The natural inharmonicity of a piano is used by the tuner to make slight adjustments in the tuning of a piano. The tuner stretches the notes, slightly sharpening the high notes and flatting the low notes to make overtones of lower notes have the same frequency as the fundamentals of higher notes.

Also:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(acoustics)

Which Dominique already mentioned

So everyone has moved on from this thread, but now in the cold light of the day after wanted to untangle some piano stringssubthreads underlying the tuning discussion, one of them perhaps in my mind if no one else's:

The intervals are real things based on real ratios, but there is some wiggle room of where exactly to put them. The majority of people can live with some version of equal temperament and don't need just intonation the same way most people don't have absolute pitch (of course these are different things)

There have been various attempts to mathematically derive what we now think of as the Major/Ionian Scale based on the full overtone series or just going up and in fifths, but these may be more academic exercises than proofs of anything. In fact, I think I read that at one point in history the Lydian was the default major scale. Also, it is doubtful that the ancient peoples of Ionia and Lydia played or preferred the scales named after them a century or two after the fact.

The piano tuning problem has to do with the fact that a piano string is not an ideal string and therefore its overtone series is mathematically impure, its octave partials may run sharp, causing the unpleasant acoustic phenomenon known as 'beating' when interacting with the strings for the same note in higher octave. (Beating occurs when two notes are very close together but not quite the same). To adjust for the sharpened octave overtone the fundamental tone has to be tuned a little flat, or the octave has to be tuned a little sharp, hence the 'stretching' of the octave.

sure, sounds about right

i really enjoyed retuning instruments, playing with different voicings and beat tones in a mellow and warm way

but i'm also into dissonance and microtones so i'm sure it's not something most enjoy

Wonder what this kid is going to do with his life, mad skills...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1YUu9Oh4MU

that's amazing

Anecdotal supporting evidence in favor of absolute pitch being there underneath the hood, if not available to conscious control, in most is not all: singing “Happy Birthday” in the key of C, starting on the G.

Whenever I play piano or guitar along with a group singing "Happy Birthday", it's in F; that's where men and women with average ranges seem to be able to sing it.

Yeah, F is my key, finally found out.

I can just about get two octaves.

So my friend started on G in key of C but now I just tried and sang A in the key of D.

I just feel like one can readily hear a pitch for a short period of time after which it might drift. Absolute/perfect pitch is internally hearing it indefinitely which comes naturally to a few but theoretically might be trainable in others with the right approach.

Wikipedia sez:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_pitch#Influence_by_music_experience

Absolute pitch sense appears to be influenced by cultural exposure to music, especially in the familiarization of the equal-tempered C-major scale. Most of the absolute listeners that were tested in this respect identified the C-major tones more reliably and, except for B, more quickly than the five "black key" tones,[29] which corresponds to the higher prevalence of these tones in ordinary musical experience. One study of Dutch non-musicians also demonstrated a bias toward using C-major tones in ordinary speech, especially on syllables related to emphasis.

I brought this up and my friend got annoyed and said “But what about the pentatonic scale?” and didn’t like it when I said that was the same tonality so what’s the difference.

This morning started on G again.

i tried just now and it was in e flat, starting on b flat. not surprising b/c that is generally the most comfortable key for me to sing in.

emerging theory: what if it's BAD to have perfect pitch?

as in, what if most people with imperfect pitch hear a (very very) slightly "off" note in a good way, because the sound it creates falls somewhere in the "vibrato/artful/improvement" category? whereas someone with perfect pitch might hear that as "not perfect"

i am very much not a "perfect pitch" person, in general. i like messy things

thelonious monk bio claims he had perfect pitch. which is weird if dissonance or "offness" bothers such people

I think it actually might be BAD, as you say, for various reasons.

In the Gordon Lightfoot thread, there's a link to an epic article about his oeuvre, that suggests that his obsession for having his guitars tuned and re-tuned in concert might be that he has perfect pitch.
Of course, if the aptitude for this skill might be innate, the actual pitches are arbitrary and therefore learned.

I do not find that to be true at all (what KM said). It has nothing to do with whether you like dissonance or even whether you need music to be in standard European tuning to enjoy it.

Wait sorry I mixed up a couple of different posts reading quickly. I find that I do really like the “offness” of things that are “out” at times. Which is one thing KM said.

I suspect that whether you’re more sensitive to pitch variation can translate to either liking or not liking those variations, but you’re more aware of them either way.

Lol wait no sorry. I keep misreading too fast on my phone. What I said the first time. I don’t think perfect pitch makes you per se hear off notes in a bad way.

it doesn't surprise me you "misread" it a few times, it was incredibly vaguely worded and argued on my end, per usual, lol!

i didn't mean to suggest anything so absolute, but just another way to look at it (should have said what if it COULD be bad for SOME people). i fully believe that someone with perfect pitch can still and sometimes appreciate "off" notes in the same way that i do, of course.

i started to explain what i was offering instead, but on second thought it would probably apply to so few situations/people/ears that it's kind of absurd to even contemplate!

Perfect pitch has nothing to do with liking consonance or dissonance, though? It's about being sensitive/attuned to the absolute pitch values you're hearing and being able to assign a name to them based on the musical scale you speak (in most of our cases, the 12-tone scale most prevalent in western music).

From talking to friends with pp, my impression is that it's not about dissonant intervals, more so whether the pitches themselves are sharp/flat.

And what James says about it being really good long-term pitch memory makes a lot of sense, ie it's not inherent to Western tuning. Like, say my trombonist friend can still adjust and blend with another horn player who's not quite in tune, but maybe it grates because he has an strong ingrained sense memory of where those pitches should be.

xp

https://link.medium.com/1QMZzBAP9fb
This article, which I haven’t read or maybe read a while back and forgot about and have just been reminded about by my daughter’s piano teacher, makes a distinction between two forms of this, the innate or early trained version and the later-in-life trained version, which is being called “true pitch.”

Most of the absolute listeners that were tested in this respect identified the C-major tones more reliably and, except for B, more quickly than the five "black key" tones,

This is exactly my experience. I can sing or recognize those six notes quickly, but the other notes not nearly as fast

For those six notes, I have internal references that I use, e.g. middle C on the piano, A440 from a tuner I used to use, and for the others, songs I know the key of. Dissonance doesn't bother me at all, but what does is going to karaoke and picking a song and having it be in a different key than what I'm expecting. I think I might even have more trouble than the average person transposing to a different key

I also often “tune” myself to A440 in my head. As I said upthread I think, when I was in music school I could instantly recognize all pitches but now some take longer than others or I use an internal reference.

it doesn't surprise me you "misread" it a few times, it was incredibly vaguely worded and argued on my end, per usual, lol!

i didn't mean to suggest anything so absolute, but just another way to look at it (should have said what if it COULD be bad for SOME people). i fully believe that someone with perfect pitch can still and sometimes appreciate "off" notes in the same way that i do, of course.

i started to explain what i was offering instead, but on second thought it would probably apply to so few situations/people/ears that it's kind of absurd to even contemplate!

― Zach_TBD (Karl Malone), Sunday, May 9, 2021 2:13 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, I just doubt there's any correlation one way or the other with liking vs not liking dissonance or "off" tuning. Because absolute pitch is likely just really good pitch memory, whereas any particular scale/pitch system (e.g. western scales built around A440) is arbitrary. Just for example, I often tune my guitar down a half step or more, and I often tune it to a pitch not in the A440-based scale, just because it sounds good to me that way. And I also enjoy plenty of music where things are not perfectly tuned to a western concert scale, e.g. in african guitar pop from the 70s that I listen to the guitars are often "out of tune" (so consistently and specifically so that I often suspect that it's a vestige of the way earlier regional string instruments were tuned). Like the particular intonation that you seem to so often hear in Congolese pop from the 70s must "sound right" to the guitarists there for a reason -- maybe someone has studied/written about/explained this, idk.

But in any case, I like the way it sounds even though (and likely because) the guitars are intonated differently than dave gilmour's strat, or Segovia's nylon string. I mean guitars are really never "perfectly in tune" anyway and intonation varies widely. And of course I also listen to music that's not in western intonation at all, like carnatic music. But I could also imagine someone with absolute pitch who had spent their whole life focusing on classical music finding it especially painful to listen to something in a different tuning system, but then so might any classical musician lacking exposure to other kinds of music.

Great post!

Piano tuner is here in the living room right now, maybe I should print out and show it to him.