Perfect pitch: tossing a banjo into a dumpster without hitting the sides.
Yes I know the jokes ;)
Anyway, in actuality...
Last night a friend and I were discussing the concept of perfect pitch vs. relative pitch and I'm curious about opinions here. What are your experiences with perfect/absolute/relative pitch (either personally or others you may have met)? Does it help or hurt in a setting where one might be listening to multiple untunable instruments? Has anyone tried "learning" perfect/relative pitch?
Most musicians I know who play in orchestras, and equivalently experienced folk musicians, get to know automatically what concert "A" (440Hz) sounds like, and can usually tell fairly accurately whether their fiddle A string is flat or sharp without having recourse to a tuner.
Excellent proposal for a Discussion, Amy J, and lots of ideas and theories to explore through your wikipedia link.
This ought to inspire some lurking scholars to burst into prose.
The notion of relative pitch is thought-provoking to this aural-based traddie.
"Some music teachers teach their students relative pitch by having them associate each possible interval with the first two notes of a popular song. (See ear training.) Another method of developing relative pitch is playing melodies by ear on a musical instrument, especially one which, unlike a piano or other fingered instrument, requires a specific manual adjustment for each particular tone. Indian musicians learn relative pitch by singing intervals over a drone, .........."
-from the above link.
I have a pretty accurate sense of relative pitch, and (not sure if this is related or a separate competence) I am able to accurately identify even pretty obscure chords and harmonic relationships which most people struggle with.... but I absolutely don't have perfect pitch and couldn't be within a semitone of "A440" if my life depended on it.
However, it does mean that I'm not upset if the pitch on a recording doesn't relate to a standard A440 as long as it's in tune internally.
I like to say that I have certain elements of absolute pitch, in that I sure can't tell the difference between isolated frequencies of 440 Hz and 445 Hz, but I can usually identify the key of a tune within a few seconds, because 1) I can pick out tonics, and 2) I know my vocal range.
Further to Mark Harmer's point, I am fascinated by talented and experienced musicians who don't even *think* about keys when they're playing and who, apparently as a direct consequence, just transpose effortlessly. When I'm learning a tune, the very first thing I do is figure out the key, which I keep in the back of my mind when I'm learning. I store each tune in memory with the key attached, and while far better musicians than I are noodling about when the guitarist asks them what key they'll be playing in, I always have the answer offhand. I can transpose pretty quickly, but generally not at speed. (It usually takes me a few months before I can play a reel I've practiced at speed, so I suspect that my slowness in transposing says more about my level of comfort with the fiddle than it does about my sense of relative pitch.) And although when I do transpose, I'm not thinking, "Hmm, in Ador we have the sequence A2 e e2, so when going to Edor we'll have E2 B B2", I do have the new key in mind in some sense.
But not everyone does, apparently. Last night, oldstrings led a polka that I usually play in D. It sounded a bit lower than usual, and I quickly figured out that it was being played in G. No problem on the fiddle - just shift everything down a string. But when we finished, one of the flute players - who'd played the tune more than acceptably, as far as I could tell - looked at me quizically and said, "Why did that feel familiar, and yet unfamiliar?" I replied that we usually played the tune in D, but this time had played it in G. The flute player hadn't even realized that we were in a different key, and neither had the other flute player at the session - they just had a vague "something is a bit different" feeling. To me, this indicates a profound level of comfort with one's instrument, comparable to the level of familiarity most of us have with our voices: who among us ever thinks, "Oh, nuts, they're singing _Happy Birthday_ in G, but I only know it in F"?
TDM, is this not called "playing by ear". In other words as long as you know the tune in your head, and you have a starting note, you can find the other notes on your instrument without actually knowing what they are called (because you don't need to know).
My father has perfect pitch. Among the standard fare of parlor tricks, I can play any cluster of notes on the piano and he can name them all flawlessly. I suspect that at least one my brothers has similar skills, now that I think about it. (The other has a photographic memory - guess I grew up in a bit of freak show). I certainly don't have perfect pitch, but without a point of reference I can more often than not sing an A 440 spot on before hitting the key on the piano. Some days it turns out to be the G below instead - go figure. It means nothing. Compared to your average person I probably have really good intonation and interval recognition, but directly compared to them I'm pretty much tone deaf.
It's a nice to have but not a requirement. My mother didn't have perfect pitch at all but that didn't slow her down any. She could "sight sing" virtually anything. It didn't stop her from picking out any particular note you played poorly by name if she knew the key. Comments out of the blue from the other room like "The 2nd C sharp in the adagio is still a little flat" would just perplex me. I'd have to go back to the score to figure what she was talking about. She could play any melody that she could sing without error, in any key and in double stops if you asked.
I thought the Wikipedia article was really interesting - particularly about parts of the world where there's a higher percentage of people with perfect pitch. I'm also intrigued by the question "can you learn it?" - although my immediate response is "why would you want to?"
I can see no particular advantage to perfect / absolute pitch and quite a few disadvantages, especially if it got to the stage that recordings of orchestras which were 1Hz either side of A440 annoyed you. Having this level of accurate pitch memory would make it pretty much impossible to (say) sight-read a piece of music in a different key to that written.
However, one advantage might be that those unaccompanied singers will still be dead in tune after 46 verses...
monkey440, you mention your mother's skills at transposition / picking out notes / singing at sight - but she didn't have perfect pitch. Your father did, and was able to name notes in a cluster (actually, I don't particularly think that's perfect pitch, but to do with a high level of analytical hearing) - however, you didn't say if your father was able to play in different keys / transpose etc, the way your mother could. Could he do that?
It's been interesting giving this topic some thought over the last couple of days, and interesting reading the responses here. Thanks for your comments!
I think some of my trouble with the concept of "perfect pitch" is the amount of levels...I never thought I had perfect pitch, but I can pretty accurately sing an A out of thin air...not right on 440, but respectably close. The other open strings of the fiddle are pretty accurate as well. Depending on your take, one could argue I have perfect pitch. However, to get any other notes, I have to relate them to one of these notes, then use my music theory/aural class skills to figure out what it is. In my head this is relative pitch, according to others, just a different level of perfect pitch. But I also can't really tell you if someone is playing/singing in a key very close to A (within a half step), whether or not it's actually A...as I realized this afternoon at a concert where the players tuned up (I think) to a different box. Sounded relatively the same to me.
I think absolute perfect pitch, such as those mentioned where 441 is really very different than 440 would drive me coocoo...to the point of being a disadvantage with sightreading, certain concerts or recordings where the tuning is a different standard.
TDM - interesting note on playing familiar tunes in different keys...it's fun to try, spices up an old tune, and I find that with many tunes, once I've gotten my gounding in the key, I play intervals more than notes. So as long as it's a key I'm familiar with and comfortable in (such as playing a D tune in G), it has more to do with being familiar with the tune than even the instrument (I do this occassionally on whistle, which I'm just learning). Though one must be comfortable in a couple of keys on a less comfortable instrument. imho.
Very interesting topic - and opened up all sorts of philosophical investigations for me into the whole concept of absolute and relative in all sorts of fields.
I just remembered one person I knew who was an amazingly good musician and could play almost anything on the keyboards and transpose at will in a variety of musical genres. She also had perfect pitch (she was taken to a concert at age 8 and asked her parents why the orchestra was playing flat - it was playing in A415) and can say with certainty how many Hz out of true a pitch is. So there are a few people who are just very talented!!
But personally I totally agree - I'd hate to find it annoying to listen to something just because it's a few Hz flat or sharp and I think on the whole perfect pitch has more disadvantages than advantages.
Mark asks:
>monkey440, you didn't say if your father was able to play in different keys / transpose etc, the way your mother could. Could he do that?
Yes and much more. When I mentioned "the standard fare of parlor tricks", I meant that he can do all the freaky things that people with perfect pitch are able to "just do" without effort that us normal people couldn't learn to do if we wanted.
You certainly don't need perfect pitch to be able to transpose semi-tones. That is a skill that can be learned.
I never ran into anyone that had perfect pitch that complained about recordings or people not playing to the modern convention (A=440). I suppose it's possible, but I personally never saw that in the several "endowed" people I've played with over the years. I can remember my dad accompanying me at a gig where the piano was a wonderful relic from the 1700s and it wasn't brought up to the modern pitch on purpose. It was just playing at a different "band". The tone change on my violin bothered me more than anyone else. Now if I would have played a significant note out of tune relative to the new "calibration", say a slightly flat leading tone, that would've brought forth a comment or two.
Good point, monkey440. Just because someone can distinguish between A=440 and A=437 or whatever, there's no reason to expect them to have a strong preference for a particular standard, especially if the ability to distinguish is developed very early in life.
Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
Perfect pitch: tossing a banjo into a dumpster without hitting the sides.
Yes I know the jokes ;)
Anyway, in actuality...
Last night a friend and I were discussing the concept of perfect pitch vs. relative pitch and I'm curious about opinions here. What are your experiences with perfect/absolute/relative pitch (either personally or others you may have met)? Does it help or hurt in a setting where one might be listening to multiple untunable instruments? Has anyone tried "learning" perfect/relative pitch?
This may be of some interest, and please post if you know of any other relevant articles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_pitch
# Posted on February 11th 2008 by Amy J
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
Most musicians I know who play in orchestras, and equivalently experienced folk musicians, get to know automatically what concert "A" (440Hz) sounds like, and can usually tell fairly accurately whether their fiddle A string is flat or sharp without having recourse to a tuner.
# Posted on February 11th 2008 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
I know someone with perfect pitch that simple cannot stand listening to gamelan.
# Posted on February 11th 2008 by Wyogal
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
Excellent proposal for a Discussion, Amy J, and lots of ideas and theories to explore through your wikipedia link.
This ought to inspire some lurking scholars to burst into prose.
# Posted on February 11th 2008 by oldstrings
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
The notion of relative pitch is thought-provoking to this aural-based traddie.
"Some music teachers teach their students relative pitch by having them associate each possible interval with the first two notes of a popular song. (See ear training.) Another method of developing relative pitch is playing melodies by ear on a musical instrument, especially one which, unlike a piano or other fingered instrument, requires a specific manual adjustment for each particular tone. Indian musicians learn relative pitch by singing intervals over a drone, .........."
-from the above link.
# Posted on February 11th 2008 by oldstrings
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
I have a pretty accurate sense of relative pitch, and (not sure if this is related or a separate competence) I am able to accurately identify even pretty obscure chords and harmonic relationships which most people struggle with.... but I absolutely don't have perfect pitch and couldn't be within a semitone of "A440" if my life depended on it.
However, it does mean that I'm not upset if the pitch on a recording doesn't relate to a standard A440 as long as it's in tune internally.
# Posted on February 12th 2008 by Mark Harmer
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
Interesting article, by the way. But got me thinking that surely we measure most things in relative terms rather than absolute terms?
I know two people who have perfect pitch and they both really struggle with transposing on-the-fly, something I don't have an issue with.
# Posted on February 12th 2008 by Mark Harmer
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
I like to say that I have certain elements of absolute pitch, in that I sure can't tell the difference between isolated frequencies of 440 Hz and 445 Hz, but I can usually identify the key of a tune within a few seconds, because 1) I can pick out tonics, and 2) I know my vocal range.
Further to Mark Harmer's point, I am fascinated by talented and experienced musicians who don't even *think* about keys when they're playing and who, apparently as a direct consequence, just transpose effortlessly. When I'm learning a tune, the very first thing I do is figure out the key, which I keep in the back of my mind when I'm learning. I store each tune in memory with the key attached, and while far better musicians than I are noodling about when the guitarist asks them what key they'll be playing in, I always have the answer offhand. I can transpose pretty quickly, but generally not at speed. (It usually takes me a few months before I can play a reel I've practiced at speed, so I suspect that my slowness in transposing says more about my level of comfort with the fiddle than it does about my sense of relative pitch.) And although when I do transpose, I'm not thinking, "Hmm, in Ador we have the sequence A2 e e2, so when going to Edor we'll have E2 B B2", I do have the new key in mind in some sense.
But not everyone does, apparently. Last night, oldstrings led a polka that I usually play in D. It sounded a bit lower than usual, and I quickly figured out that it was being played in G. No problem on the fiddle - just shift everything down a string. But when we finished, one of the flute players - who'd played the tune more than acceptably, as far as I could tell - looked at me quizically and said, "Why did that feel familiar, and yet unfamiliar?" I replied that we usually played the tune in D, but this time had played it in G. The flute player hadn't even realized that we were in a different key, and neither had the other flute player at the session - they just had a vague "something is a bit different" feeling. To me, this indicates a profound level of comfort with one's instrument, comparable to the level of familiarity most of us have with our voices: who among us ever thinks, "Oh, nuts, they're singing _Happy Birthday_ in G, but I only know it in F"?
# Posted on February 12th 2008 by Tall, Dark, and Mysterious
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
TDM, is this not called "playing by ear". In other words as long as you know the tune in your head, and you have a starting note, you can find the other notes on your instrument without actually knowing what they are called (because you don't need to know).
# Posted on February 12th 2008 by DonaldK
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
My father has perfect pitch. Among the standard fare of parlor tricks, I can play any cluster of notes on the piano and he can name them all flawlessly. I suspect that at least one my brothers has similar skills, now that I think about it. (The other has a photographic memory - guess I grew up in a bit of freak show). I certainly don't have perfect pitch, but without a point of reference I can more often than not sing an A 440 spot on before hitting the key on the piano. Some days it turns out to be the G below instead - go figure. It means nothing. Compared to your average person I probably have really good intonation and interval recognition, but directly compared to them I'm pretty much tone deaf.
It's a nice to have but not a requirement. My mother didn't have perfect pitch at all but that didn't slow her down any. She could "sight sing" virtually anything. It didn't stop her from picking out any particular note you played poorly by name if she knew the key. Comments out of the blue from the other room like "The 2nd C sharp in the adagio is still a little flat" would just perplex me. I'd have to go back to the score to figure what she was talking about. She could play any melody that she could sing without error, in any key and in double stops if you asked.
# Posted on February 13th 2008 by monkey440
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
I thought the Wikipedia article was really interesting - particularly about parts of the world where there's a higher percentage of people with perfect pitch. I'm also intrigued by the question "can you learn it?" - although my immediate response is "why would you want to?"
I can see no particular advantage to perfect / absolute pitch and quite a few disadvantages, especially if it got to the stage that recordings of orchestras which were 1Hz either side of A440 annoyed you. Having this level of accurate pitch memory would make it pretty much impossible to (say) sight-read a piece of music in a different key to that written.
However, one advantage might be that those unaccompanied singers will still be dead in tune after 46 verses...
# Posted on February 13th 2008 by Mark Harmer
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
monkey440, you mention your mother's skills at transposition / picking out notes / singing at sight - but she didn't have perfect pitch. Your father did, and was able to name notes in a cluster (actually, I don't particularly think that's perfect pitch, but to do with a high level of analytical hearing) - however, you didn't say if your father was able to play in different keys / transpose etc, the way your mother could. Could he do that?
# Posted on February 13th 2008 by Mark Harmer
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
It's been interesting giving this topic some thought over the last couple of days, and interesting reading the responses here. Thanks for your comments!
I think some of my trouble with the concept of "perfect pitch" is the amount of levels...I never thought I had perfect pitch, but I can pretty accurately sing an A out of thin air...not right on 440, but respectably close. The other open strings of the fiddle are pretty accurate as well. Depending on your take, one could argue I have perfect pitch. However, to get any other notes, I have to relate them to one of these notes, then use my music theory/aural class skills to figure out what it is. In my head this is relative pitch, according to others, just a different level of perfect pitch. But I also can't really tell you if someone is playing/singing in a key very close to A (within a half step), whether or not it's actually A...as I realized this afternoon at a concert where the players tuned up (I think) to a different box. Sounded relatively the same to me.
I think absolute perfect pitch, such as those mentioned where 441 is really very different than 440 would drive me coocoo...to the point of being a disadvantage with sightreading, certain concerts or recordings where the tuning is a different standard.
TDM - interesting note on playing familiar tunes in different keys...it's fun to try, spices up an old tune, and I find that with many tunes, once I've gotten my gounding in the key, I play intervals more than notes. So as long as it's a key I'm familiar with and comfortable in (such as playing a D tune in G), it has more to do with being familiar with the tune than even the instrument (I do this occassionally on whistle, which I'm just learning). Though one must be comfortable in a couple of keys on a less comfortable instrument. imho.
# Posted on February 13th 2008 by Amy J
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
Very interesting topic - and opened up all sorts of philosophical investigations for me into the whole concept of absolute and relative in all sorts of fields.
I just remembered one person I knew who was an amazingly good musician and could play almost anything on the keyboards and transpose at will in a variety of musical genres. She also had perfect pitch (she was taken to a concert at age 8 and asked her parents why the orchestra was playing flat - it was playing in A415) and can say with certainty how many Hz out of true a pitch is. So there are a few people who are just very talented!!
But personally I totally agree - I'd hate to find it annoying to listen to something just because it's a few Hz flat or sharp and I think on the whole perfect pitch has more disadvantages than advantages.
# Posted on February 13th 2008 by Mark Harmer
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
Mark asks:
>monkey440, you didn't say if your father was able to play in different keys / transpose etc, the way your mother could. Could he do that?
Yes and much more. When I mentioned "the standard fare of parlor tricks", I meant that he can do all the freaky things that people with perfect pitch are able to "just do" without effort that us normal people couldn't learn to do if we wanted.
You certainly don't need perfect pitch to be able to transpose semi-tones. That is a skill that can be learned.
I never ran into anyone that had perfect pitch that complained about recordings or people not playing to the modern convention (A=440). I suppose it's possible, but I personally never saw that in the several "endowed" people I've played with over the years. I can remember my dad accompanying me at a gig where the piano was a wonderful relic from the 1700s and it wasn't brought up to the modern pitch on purpose. It was just playing at a different "band". The tone change on my violin bothered me more than anyone else. Now if I would have played a significant note out of tune relative to the new "calibration", say a slightly flat leading tone, that would've brought forth a comment or two.
# Posted on February 14th 2008 by monkey440
Re: Perfect (absolute) vs. relative pitch
Good point, monkey440. Just because someone can distinguish between A=440 and A=437 or whatever, there's no reason to expect them to have a strong preference for a particular standard, especially if the ability to distinguish is developed very early in life.
# Posted on February 14th 2008 by GaryAMartin