Absolute pitch? Scientists say: "No such thing!"

[tomtoo]

I do believe that while perhaps not born with it, some people seem to be able to identify pitches at young ages and even before they are able to communicate which leads to the suggestion for some that they were born with it. While the truth (imo) is that their perception of tones is just more acute than that of others thus making it just one more trait that makes us all a little different

How cool is your opinion !

[Tricky-Loops]

There were a few people in my sightreading/ear training courses back in the day that were as close as I've ever encountered to having absolute perfect pitch, though, but none of them claimed to have it. They could just start singing any given song a capella with no reference note and were almost always right on key.

People who really have skills, don't have to blow about it everywhere... People who have to blow, mostly don't have any skills at all.

[woggle]

Just out of curiosity, did anybody happen to obtain the full journal article in the OP? Just wondering if there were any other juicy tidbits in there.

no - strangely there are three online issues missing from our library access to that journal and that is one of them! Out of years of articles. However I did notice there is good evidence that people remember pitch for songs, as others have been saying they've noticed - and I've seen papers before on how people remember tempo of songs pretty well too

[Tricky-Loops]

Just out of curiosity, did anybody happen to obtain the full journal article in the OP? Just wondering if there were any other juicy tidbits in there.

no - strangely there are three online issues missing from our library access to that journal and that is one of them! Out of years of articles.

[cryophonik]

There were a few people in my sightreading/ear training courses back in the day that were as close as I've ever encountered to having absolute perfect pitch, though, but none of them claimed to have it. They could just start singing any given song a capella with no reference note and were almost always right on key.

People who really have skills, don't have to blow about it everywhere... People who have to blow, mostly don't have any skills at all.

Good point!

Still, I think I recall one of them telling me that it was related to the way that she had trained her throat muscles to be able to find certain pitches, rather than absolute perfect pitch. It was way back in the late 80s, though, and my memory is pretty fuzzy. I mostly remember the nightmares of me trying to sing descending augmented fourths in front of the entire class.

[Sounddigger]

Still, I think I recall one of them telling me that it was related to the way that she had trained her throat muscles to be able to find certain pitches, rather than absolute perfect pitch.

That makes much sense to me. Personally, I have what some call "relative pitch". Sometimes it nears "absolute".

In my case what happens is that I have a few sounds that I know extremely well, i.e. the open strings of guitar. It's not that I just know the strings' sound, I literally "feel" them and the way they resonate in a space. If I want to know their pitch, I just think about a particular string, and "listen" to it in my head. Generally I'm only off by a half tone. Often, especially when I've played a lot, I can be spot on.

That makes me conclude that "relative pitch" is a matter of memory. For me it works with the strings of the guitar (and fairly well with a pitchfork in A). It makes perfect sense that for a singer it would work by her thinking and feeling about how her throat muscles tighten (or such). Some piano players can do it by thinking about how certain pitches sound (and how the strings vibrate) on their piano.

"Absolute pitch" and "relative pitch" are often mixed up. I suspect that "absolute pitch" is merely an extreme case of "relative pitch", which typically an autistic savant would be able to cultivate. It's obviously much culture bound, as there are very different tuning systems in existence that would make someone with "absolute pitch" for a certain system get totally lost...

Anyway, for those who'd like to improve their "relative pitch", I suggest you try to pick a certain sound you like or have particular affinity with, and try to memorize it with all its intricacies. Pretty soon you will be able to reproduce the pitch just by thinking about it. Once you can do that, you can work on finding any other pitch.

[Tony Ostinato]

i'll say i have a good ear, i transcribe almost daily for the bands i play with and do horn charts and sometimes rhythm section charts and program things into my windsynth/reaper setup:



but i can't tell 440 from 440.00000000001, i've never met anyone who can.


funny they dont have a colloquial equivalent for color perception, like someone who can perfectly match colors what do they call that?

its probably harder to fool people that youre perfect with colors.


the age of digital sure has made things more in tune tho.

[SODDI]

funny they dont have a colloquial equivalent for color perception, like someone who can perfectly match colors what do they call that?

Manet.

[Hink]

Still, I think I recall one of them telling me that it was related to the way that she had trained her throat muscles to be able to find certain pitches, rather than absolute perfect pitch.

That makes much sense to me. Personally, I have what some call "relative pitch". Sometimes it nears "absolute".

In my case what happens is that I have a few sounds that I know extremely well, i.e. the open strings of guitar. It's not that I just know the strings' sound, I literally "feel" them and the way they resonate in a space. If I want to know their pitch, I just think about a particular string, and "listen" to it in my head. Generally I'm only off by a half tone. Often, especially when I've played a lot, I can be spot on.

That makes me conclude that "relative pitch" is a matter of memory. For me it works with the strings of the guitar (and fairly well with a pitchfork in A). It makes perfect sense that for a singer it would work by her thinking and feeling about how her throat muscles tighten (or such). Some piano players can do it by thinking about how certain pitches sound (and how the strings vibrate) on their piano.

"Absolute pitch" and "relative pitch" are often mixed up. I suspect that "absolute pitch" is merely an extreme case of "relative pitch", which typically an autistic savant would be able to cultivate. It's obviously much culture bound, as there are very different tuning systems in existence that would make someone with "absolute pitch" for a certain system get totally lost...

Anyway, for those who'd like to improve their "relative pitch", I suggest you try to pick a certain sound you like or have particular affinity with, and try to memorize it with all its intricacies. Pretty soon you will be able to reproduce the pitch just by thinking about it. Once you can do that, you can work on finding any other pitch.

http://www.perfectpitch.com/perfectrelative.htm

relative pitch is pitch relative to a specific tone, relative pitch is all about intervals and their relation to other notes. What you describe is selective memory of a pitch, not a bad idea but misleading as to what relative pitch really means .

EDIT: USE THIS LINK

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/relative+pitch

it's a lot less reading

[jancivil]

"Absolute pitch" and "relative pitch" are often mixed up. I suspect that "absolute pitch" is merely an extreme case of "relative pitch", which typically an autistic savant would be able to cultivate. It's obviously much culture bound, as there are very different tuning systems in existence that would make 'absolute pitch' person with "absolute pitch" for a certain system get totally lost...

this is exactly what I mean. if it's 'culture bound', pitch, it cannot be absolute. the test is going to be something in between what they identify in 12 EDO at 440, for 'absolute'.

so per the original post, the whole thing seems dodgy to me, 'absolute' pitch, 'absolute' meaning what it does.

[woggle]

"Absolute pitch" and "relative pitch" are often mixed up. I suspect that "absolute pitch" is merely an extreme case of "relative pitch", which typically an autistic savant would be able to cultivate. It's obviously much culture bound, as there are very different tuning systems in existence that would make 'absolute pitch' person with "absolute pitch" for a certain system get totally lost... :shock:

this is exactly what I mean. if it's 'culture bound', pitch, it cannot be absolute. the test is going to be something in between what they identify in 12 EDO at 440, for 'absolute'.

so per the original post, the whole thing seems dodgy to me, 'absolute' pitch, 'absolute' meaning what it does.

The test would be to see if people could recognise/produce a pitch consistently with some degree of accuracy - that's a test that is not constrained culturally, you can either run it in terms of frequencies or in terms of intra-subject norms (or both)

[zircon]

Even if 'absolute' pitch does not exist, there are clear differences between people with what we think of as 'perfect pitch' vs. those who do not. Some people, like me, can - with practice - remember the key of songs we know and be able to pick out, say, a C. But there are people who can listen to massive chords, series of notes, and entire pieces and easily be able to transcribe them almost by instinct, with no thought involved... to them, it's like seeing the color red or blue and just recognizing them immediately.

[stonestreet]

Nice thread,

My thoughts that have come from other peoples thoughts that have come from other peoples thoughts...

It is about sensori-motor correlations. There is phylogenic structural drift (structural change through sequential reproductions) and ontogenic structrural drift (structural changes through an individuals history.) We are riding the crest of a wavefront from the earliest point in time in the conservation of living where everything else is open to change. Pitch recognition takes place in structural coupling of a living organism and absolute pitch lies within the cognitive domain of an observer. I do not currently have enough of an understanding on this but it is something like confusing non-intersecting domains, the domain of the operations of a living organism and the cognitive domain of an observer. Something I do all of the time.

I became interested in this when I had a realisation a few years back that we are a bunch of habits that live in a sea of chemicals. The scientific community certainly are more rigorous in their explanations. To me language is quite a long habit and one certainly that is not easlily kicked. How far is this removed from Hinks video posting of the McGurk effect. Structural coupling occurs with interacting systems such as sensory systems and motor systems. It is a circular affair.

Have fun

Laters Mark