Ear Training...Getting a trained ear.

[jancivil]

well jancivil,

if you read through the last few pages I hypothesized that perfect pitch is nothing more than a combination of relative pitch and pitch memory. not one skill, but two. and there are pages of argument/examples (starting page 5), I really don't want to be redundant.

For example, as you can immediately recognize 60hz, I can remember the lowest G on a violin, the C-string of a viola, the A440 of an oboe etc. solely from experience. So when I say "teaching perfect pitch" I really just mean developing pitch memory AND interval identification to the point that the student can intuitively and sometimes subconsciously find reference pitches from environment...

When you say that you are talking about something other than what I define as perfect pitch, which isn't my definition but once I drew from consensus on the topic. Which is when one can identify a given pitch per se, ie., through itself only.

I don't even know how real it is, since I don't have it.

[shankfiddle]

The constituion of perfect pitch states that it is infact "Perfect" That you don't need a reference and can sing A440 and it align to A440 on a tuner in a blind test.

in the wikipedia definition you quoted a couple posts above, perfect pitchers don't need an EXTERNAL reference. Memory is not an external reference. It's hard to debate with you if you keep changing your definition.

Also that you would be called out to sing A415 and be able to produce it aurally.

So do you think someone with perfect pitch could sing a 441? how about a 440.002? I disagree with this statement, perfect pitch doesn't imply a human oscilloscope.

[shankfiddle]

When you say that you are talking about something other than what I define as perfect pitch, which isn't my definition but once I drew from consensus on the topic. Which is when one can identify a given pitch per se, ie., through itself only.

I don't even know how real it is, since I don't have it.

The consensus definition is not needing an EXTERNAL reference.

If the consensus defines PP as something that can't be acquired... then I'm challenging that definition. If you define 2 as "the number between 6 and 8" then you could argue that 3+4=2 all day long.

Also, the world is not flat, burn me at the stake!

[jancivil]

"...perfect pitch doesn't imply a human oscilloscope."

that to me is a valid question.

I believe I have very fine intonation; recently, tempering something in the piano roll, I found a real difference at .58 cents, since I had to address it and that was my final result in the change of a note to get it intoning acceptably with the ensemble. I think this is fairly unusual though perhaps not freakish. Now, I have to look at a chart: 440 hz -1¢ = 439.746 hz.

So [in relative pitch terms] chances are I could tell you the difference of 1 cycle at this octave; but I would not be calculating it at the same time, to give you more information than 'that's a little flat'.

I think it's possible for someone with perfect pitch, so-called to do similar, but down to an oscilloscope? I am skeptical.

[jancivil]

If the consensus defines PP as something that can't be acquired... then I'm challenging that definition.

I don't know if it can. I don't know that I'd know unless I acquired it (but, I wouldn't be surprised if it was demonstrated that it can be acquired).

I didn't find absolute pitch so compelling, per se, as far as its particular value in music. I thought about it a little. I have been mistaken for someone with it. .

I don't mind if someone finds something different than I did, I'm not that invested in it.

[jancivil]

The constituion of perfect pitch states that it is infact "Perfect" That you don't need a reference and can sing A440 and it align to A440 on a tuner in a blind test.

I never heard of that. That is a combination of singing ability and hearing, which I would think is probably acquired.

[Hink]

The constituion of perfect pitch states that it is infact "Perfect" That you don't need a reference and can sing A440 and it align to A440 on a tuner in a blind test.

I never heard of that. That is a combination of singing ability and hearing, which I would think is probably acquired.

actually I asked about PP many years ago here and then did some research myself and learned something interesting (I'm not going to go through this whole thread to see if it's been mentioned) that absolute or perfect pitch is more prevalent in native asain speaking people because so many asian dialects are tonality based. So basically it's not only the way the sound is pronounced but what pitch it is as to it's meaning or proper context so pitch recognition plays an important part in their dialect. As I recall there was a bit of debate whether or not language really had as much affect as did training but I thought I would just throw this out there, it's been a while since then and right now I have a headache and a half so I am not going to relook everything up

[Tony Ostinato]

see here i was reading perfect pitch as meaning exactly that, a human oscilloscope, or even a human computer.

but like i say ive never seen the science, tho id love to. its all been anecdotal afaik.

and we are just discussing accuracy, theres also speed and latency. a computer can track/estimate the pitch of a single note within 1 and 1/4 waveform by watching the crossing points. it does considerably suckier on polyphonic material.

id guess itd be like the pitch olympics, youll get some people with amazingly good results but im not sure how many will get all 10's.

i for sure am not perfect, i have weird days where im off from a step up to a step down and thats pretty huge. once i hear a correct note i get all lined up again. i think it used to be worse in the days of vinyl and casettes because theyd be more likely to be off pitch and then id get used to it and carry it with me for days.

hmm let me test myself right now...got the a 440 in my head...yeay i think i got it tho it couldve been cents off and maybe i wouldnt know but yeay, same note at least.

one time someone fooled me with a keyboard that was transposed down a couple steps and i thought i was going nuts. you can play that joke on your friends with good ears.

[Sascha Franck]

First of all, there is a problem of relativity in the whole exercise! If you put little Perfect Pitch Joanie in the Wayback Machine to a day where 'A = 415' will she fail to have perfect pitch any more? She will have to rename 'all 12'. Will the pitch exactly halfway between A/440 and Ab/415.305 stump her? IE: Will it be a non-pitch, according to this preconception. These are the kind of questions that crop up, relecting a little on the nature of 'absolute pitch'.

First of: From what I know (from actually talking to people with perfect pitch), there's different levels of perfection. Some folks really seem to be like "human oscilloscopes" by nature (read: they were born like that or aquired that skill very early in their lives) whereas others are less exact. Some others again seem to need the occasional "recalibration". A rather good friend of mine (gifted keyboard player with perfect pitch) once even couldn't tell the difference between Ab and A. When listening to a tune he was transcribing, he was flat by a semitone all of a sudden. But on other days he's almost correct on a cent level.
I don't know what conclusion to get out of this, just that there really seem to be different levels of PP.

Regarding unusual "concert pitches" it seems that some of the folks with PP can adjust to it more or less easily while others can't. Under normal conditions (i.e. when things are not slightly disordered) my mate mentioned above couldn't play on a keyboard that was transposed by a semitone. We once tried to fool him by pitching up an entire backing (that he already played on) a semitone and also transposed the master keyboard +1. He somewhat didn't know how to deal with the situation, at first he thought his ears needed the above mentioned recalibration, but as he just listened to some other things (so he knew everything was intact), it couldn't be that. Still, it needed quite a while until he found out something was wrong.

Anyway, to me it seems that PP folks can adjust to certain tuning offsets, and maybe there's even some that could deal with transposed instruments.

And well, it does indeed seem to be that PP works best in equal temper.

if you read through the last few pages I hypothesized that perfect pitch is nothing more than a combination of relative pitch and pitch memory. not one skill, but two.

That might be true for "aquired" PP (if that was possible, which still is not proven at all, more to the opposite, the general scientific consensus is that you can't aquire PP). For those that just "have it", there seems to be no need to actually (and also actively) remember any pitches. They're just there. At least that's what the folks I asked answered. They also don't exactly need to deal with relative pitch, all they need to do (in case they're indeed musicians) is to make the things they hear fit into a musical system.

Usually people develop some sense of pitch with their primary instrument If it is acoustic. The vibrations against ones body help to faciliatate the understanding much more then when one uses electronic instruments.

That's indeed not all too uncommon, as it seems. I know two piano players that have PP on their instruments, as weird as it may sound. Of course it's tough to tell, but I talked to one of them a bit longer, and he seems indeed to be able to transcribe just about any piece of piano music without ever listening to any reference tone. But he said that when listening to tunes without pianos involved, he would often be quite off. Might have to do with how piano players treat different keys, might as well have to do with the way pianos are tuned, no idea, but it happens. I'm the last person on earth being even remotely close to PP, but on some days I just *know* how an open E chord on my guitar will sound, without having touched the instrument all day long. On other days however I'm horribly off.

- Sascha

[Tony Ostinato]

this could easily be a web app/game

generate the tones and have a gui keyboard and they try to click the matching key to the the tone as fast as they can.

super advanced people could type in the frequency number.

[Hink]

it's funny that the oscilloscope is mentioned, I will never have perfect pitch...I'm good with recognizing intervals but I wont be able to hear a note and say what note it is unless perhaps I have reference (I can change strings and have my strings pretty close by ear but if I'm dead on it's by luck only). However I did work very hard to get a good ear and it wasn't until my brain caught on to the oscillation thing that I really became proficient at tuning a guitar but now as a general rule I can tell when I just out by a small amount and tune on the fly. I can hear rhe slightest oscillation or even between two notes, which has developed into a useful technique by bending two strings together and using the whammy. In the right tunings the oscillation will sound like extremely fast picking when in fact I'm just coordinating my bend with pulling baoh on my whammy (or just pushing down on the back of the whammy with my palm)...I believe this is something Brad Gillis did a lot of and something that eluded me for quite a while.

However I digress, I use to think way back that I was trying to make two notes sound the same when tuning (something that gave me fits with a pitch pipe) until I learned to listen for the oscillation between the two notes. FWIW I learned that using and old strobe tuner, I could see what I was hearing unlike with a typical tuner and I noticed the correlation between what I heard and saw.

[shankfiddle]

However I did work very hard to get a good ear and it wasn't until my brain caught on to the oscillation thing that I really became proficient at tuning a guitar but now as a general rule I can tell when I just out by a small amount and tune on the fly. I can hear rhe slightest oscillation or even between two notes, which has developed into a useful technique by bending two strings together and using the whammy. In the right tunings the oscillation will sound like extremely fast picking when in fact I'm just coordinating my bend with pulling baoh on my whammy (or just pushing down on the back of the whammy with my palm)...I believe this is something Brad Gillis did a lot of and something that eluded me for quite a while.

However I digress, I use to think way back that I was trying to make two notes sound the same when tuning (something that gave me fits with a pitch pipe) until I learned to listen for the oscillation between the two notes. FWIW I learned that using and old strobe tuner, I could see what I was hearing unlike with a typical tuner and I noticed the correlation between what I heard and saw.

Yep, what you are hearing is the sympathetic frequency. I found this early on on the violin, having to tune octaves and unisons perfectly. And when certain double-stops like thirds, tenths, fourths, fifths, were perfectly in tune they'd make this cool buzzing in my head between my temples.

When pitches are far from each other, it's quite easy to pick out two pitches. But when you hear two pitches simultaneously that are incredibly close, your ear blends them together, and you perceive their average and their difference.

For instance if you play a 430hz and 450hz sinetone simultaneously, you'll hear a 440 and a very annoying (or very cool) 20hz beating. Very cool stuff. This is the whole concept behind binaural entrainment. Where this effect (actually a cognitive effect, not acoustic) can actually affect brain function.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binaural_beats

Instead of hearing both pitches in both ears, binaural entrainment sends one version to the left brain and one to the right. Talk about a mindfuck.

[shankfiddle]

(actually a cognitive effect, not acoustic)

and this is why, although the ears only perceive down to 20hz, the brain can go even lower. you could say the brain "synthesizes" these frequencies

[shankfiddle]

In case anyone's interested:

Binaural beats are auditory brainstem responses which originate in the superior olivary nucleus of each hemisphere. They result from the interaction of two different auditory impulses, originating in opposite ears, below 1000 Hz and which differ in frequency between one and 30 Hz (Oster, 1973).For example, if a pure tone of 400 Hz is presented to the right ear and a pure tone of 410 Hz is presented simultaneously to the left ear, an amplitude modulated standing wave of 10 Hz, the difference between the two tones, is experienced as the two wave forms mesh in and out of phase within the superior olivary nuclei. This binaural beat is not heard in the ordinary sense of the word (the human range of hearing is from 20-20,000 Hz). It is perceived as an auditory beat and theoretically can be used to entrain specific neural rhythms through the frequency-following response (FFR)--the tendency for cortical potentials to entrain to or resonate at the frequency of an external stimulus. Thus, it is theoretically possible to utilize a specific binaural-beat frequency as a consciousness management technique to entrain a specific cortical rhythm.

-http://web-us.com/thescience.htm

[jancivil]

so, the whole notion of perfect pitch is even fuzzier for me now. nothing wrong with that...

I think the app/game thing is a good idea!