I have perfect pitch - A(440)MA!

[ShackUp]

Fire away!

I'll say again- humans invented the concept of pitch. Humans cannot be born with an inbuilt knowledge of something that humans invented. Memory pitch is absolutely a thing however and in fact is the basis of pitch related aural training in music. It's not a superpower, it's a musical power and if you have been doing it long enough (and well enough) you too will gain it!

humans invented the concept of pitch
...and then taught it to birds, whales and other species that use changes in pitch for communication.

I have now read/typed the word 'pitch' too many times and it's starting to look weird.

Thethird you misunderstood my point. Humans decided what constitutes a C etc. We labeled scales as major/minor/modal and gave names to interval relationships. We gave it a label and thus a child cannot be born knowing that label.

A few children, if told that a particular frequency has the label 'A', will then be able to remember the sound of that frequency days or weeks later. Most will not be able to do this.

My understanding is that where a c# and db are the same on a piano they are played differently on non equal tempered instruments...do you hear the difference?

will then be able to remember

Memory pitch- based on memory for which some have more aptitude than others but all can learn.

Re C#/Db- most decent violinists can tell the difference and adjust accordingly (in fact, on a violin each are played entirely differently).

Thanks so much for this OP. So interesting!

How bad is Pierce Brosnon in Mamma Mia to you? Painfully so?

petra I'm a good-ish violinist and I will always play a c# 'towards' a D and a D flat towards a C, if that makes sense.

“I read somewhere that babies are born with perfect pitch but most lose it - anyone know about that”

My son gradually lost his absolute pitch (which is the better name for it) as his language developed.

Do you think Simon Cowell has perfect pitch? He’s no singer but he can allegedly tell when people are good singers or not. Do you agree with his decisions? Some people I think sound good he will say are off key, some people who sound shit to me he says they’re good.

It is an interesting thread. My DS has perfect pitch. He only knows that it is a c because he has been exposed to a musical training. Before that he would always start a song on the correct note (from his learning of the song) because he knew that was the correct note. So it is a function of memory rather than musicality.

I know a lot of musicians who can identify notes correctly through learning and exposure, but my ds did not have to learn it, he just had to learn the name of it.

DS finds it a bit problematic in that he is always being asked to tune up other people's instruments and that often the orchestra he plays in has rather dodgy intonation, which causes him some private anguish.

This is so interesting.
Thank you op.

Got the link to work! Scroll down a bit for the China in Your Hand piece. www.soundonsound.com/techniques/mix-review-september-2016

Salient bits:

You see, for most people tuning is relative, so if you put together a backing track where everything’s, say, a quarter-tone flat (relative to A=440Hz concert pitch), then the singer will also have to sing a quarter-tone flat to sound subjectively in tune. What’s unusual about people with perfect pitch, however, is that they can hear the absolute pitch of a note, even when it’s played in isolation. While this is certainly an impressive gift, it’s actually something of a mixed blessing in practice, with many possessors of perfect pitch complaining of difficulties transposing lines or adapting to instruments which deviate substantially from their own internalised pitch reference — eg. church organs, harpsichords, pianos, and so forth, which it’s rarely practical to retune

Returning to ‘China In Your Hand’, the single version’s backing parts are, by my reckoning, about 30-40 cents sharp of A=440Hz concert pitch, so it makes sense that Decker’s perfect pitch might have encouraged her to sing out of tune when she re-recorded her vocal parts for that version — and specifically to drift flat rather than sharp, as indeed seems to be the case.

But that’s not the only reason the term ‘perfect pitch’ is a bit of a misnomer (‘absolute pitch’ is arguably more accurate), because perfect pitch doesn’t guarantee accurate tuning even when the backing track suits the singer’s internal pitch reference. Just because a golfer can clearly see the flag, it doesn’t mean he’s certain of a hole in one from the tee — it depends on how he hits the ball. Likewise, infallible perception of pitch doesn’t inherently translate into infallible intonation during the physical act of singing. So, for example, if you check out the album version of ‘China In Your Hand’, Decker sings an F on the word “hand” both at 3:20 and at 3:23, but the latter sounds significantly lower in pitch.

nico I don't think Simon Cowell possesses an ounce of musicality, he is purely interested in the commercial side of things, he sees the package.

"instruments which deviate substantially from their own internalised pitch reference — eg. church organs, harpsichords, pianos, and so forth, which it’s rarely practical to retune"

This is not correct. A harpsichord is retuned all the time - if not once a day then definitely once every few days - because it quickly goes out of tune like a guitar or harp. It is also retuned according to the required temperament of the period/piece.

aynrand that's fascinating!! DH used to work with the drummer from T'Pau and said earlier that the single version of China In Your Hand is a massive overhaul of the album version.

Thanks to this thread, I've been listening to China in Your Hand and sought out the X Factor version too. I don't know if it's because of what I've been reading on here, but the X Factor girl does indeed sound better and more tuneful somehow. But I definitely don't have perfect pitch so I might just be influenced by this discussion.

Wouldn't you think if someone's out of tune, though, they'd stay in the studio until they got it right (assuming they're actual singers and not being auto tuned to hell)? Surely musical people are listening and can tell? Couldn't Decker tell when she heard the recording, if indeed she does have perfect pitch?

"it's a musical power and if you have been doing it long enough (and well enough) you too will gain it!"

This is unfortunately not correct. Many successful musicians don't have absolute pitch, even if they have been studying music from an early age.

Starting music training early does increase the probability that one will develop perfect pitch, though. Several of DD's classmates in her class (for musically talented children) developed it before the age of 10.

As mentioned downthread, there are are correlations between absolute pitch and linguistic background: native speakers of Vietnamese and Mandarin show very precise absolute pitch in reading lists of words, most showing variation of a quarter tone or less.

The correlation is even more striking for Chinese children who were taught music from an early age: For students who had begun musical training between ages 4 and 5, approximately 60% of the Chinese students met the criterion for absolute pitch, while only about 14% of the US nontone language speakers met the criterion. For those who had begun musical training at age six or seven, the numbers in both groups were correspondingly lower, about 55% and 6%. And for students who had begun musical training later still, at age eight or nine, roughly 42% of the Chinese students met the criterion while none of the US nontone language speakers did so.

There is also an interesting association of absolute pitch with early blindness, with some studies estimating that about 50% of children born blind or blinded in infancy have absolute pitch.

If you are interested in this subject, I would definitely recommend Oliver Sacks' book Musicophilia from which I copied the information above.

Chinese, Mandarin and Vietnamese are languages based on inflection, aren't they? It would make sense that native speakers develop great pitch sensitivity. Tend to be beautiful singers too, I think.

I have perfect pitch,I'm a professional violinist and it's extremely useful especially in Contempory music.
However it can also be a hindrance.
I actually have a really poor memory so it's a mystery to me!

I meant to add that most of my colleagues have good relative pitch and it's certainly not essential for my work.

Yes, I've been told by professional singers and musicians that while perfect pitch is nice, it's not in any way necessary for the job.

I think of absolute pitch as a disability when it comes to being a musician. My 2nd violin would spend a whole quartet distracted by us not being tuned to 440 or 440 or whatever.

Vaguely knowing where A is without a prompt is not such an issue.