Can Perfect Pitch Be Taught?

[goldentone]

And has anyone done so?  Or known of it being done?

I don't see why not.

If we can teach ourselves to identify intervals and chords, why can't we learn perfect pitch?  It is one step further of a finer aural distinction.  Currently I am teaching myself intervals and eventually I will move onto recognizing chords.  The key that I am using is middle C major.  I just tested myself, and from these daily sessions of the past few days, lo, I do know middle C.  It may be an ambitious endeavor, but it just seems a matter of time in exposing oneself to the particular pitch until it is engrained, and then we'll know it when we hear it and we'll be able to hear it in our heads, and sing it.

I am interested in your responses.   

[Etude]

I don't have PP but I can think of a note and hear that note in my head, I guess I just picked it up but the other way round is harder... I can name single notes, but I can't pick out notes from a piece with a whole other bunch of notes flying around.  And I can't do it with chords that aren't strictly tonal.  I played two stringed instruments, and when you have to constantly tune your instrument yourself the open string notes stay in your mind.  I did use the starting notes of pieces I was very familiar with to help me remember what each note sounded like, but the need to do that has become less and less.  It isn't true PP but it'll do for now.

[anna_crusis]

I think you have to start when you're really young (under eight) for it to work properly, just like you need to acquire a first language by that age (or never learn to speak). The longer you wait the more likely you're to end up with what I call  'pseudo perfect pitch' - that is, the kind of pitch sensitivity that most musicians have that allows them to mentally  hear pieces in their correct key but is easily fuddled by adverse conditions.

The kids I've met with real PP can instantly identify tones in atonal chords from any instrument. It's really scary.

[slobone]

My understanding is that what we call "perfect pitch" can't be taught. It means not only identifying any pitch, but knowing whether it's exactly in tune or is off by a few cents.

That said, I think most professional musicians do develop an excellent sense of pitch. Except pianists, of course...

[Etude]

And usually drummers since they don't normally deal with specific pitches.

[musicrebel4u]

That said, I think most professional musicians do develop an excellent sense of pitch. Except pianists, of course...

Absolutely wrong!

[musicrebel4u]

As other teachers and I already noticed for 7 years of teaching with Soft Way to Mozart, it in fact does develop perfect pitch in students of different ages.

[Essyne]

Absolutely wrong!

I'd have to agree w/ you, musicrebel - After all, how many pianists do you know that sit down @ the piano and are completely content w/ it being out of tune?

As other teachers and I already noticed for 7 years of teaching with Soft Way to Mozart, it in fact does develop perfect pitch in students of different ages.

I think that there's an extreme difference between innate perfect pitch and learned perfect pitch. . . . but frankly the student who has to "develop" their perfect pitch, in my opinion may be better off - Hard work only makes you stronger, yes?

[musicrebel4u]

I think that there's an extreme difference between innate perfect pitch and learned perfect pitch. . . . but frankly the student who has to "develop" their perfect pitch, in my opinion may be better off - Hard work only makes you stronger, yes?

I have to disagree 
Let's say: I am in Texas and you are in Texas. What different does it make if you (for example) were born in Texas and I had to come here from elsewhere? We are at the same geographical destination.

As it goes to hard work...Well, there is another anecdote:

One farmer was plowing and plowing his land every year and had no harvest. When he was dieing from starvation, he asked Almighty, what did he do wrong. He was working so hard and didn't achieve no results.

Yes, - was the answer. You were plowing very, very hard. But did you ever plant any seed after plowing?

You may teach any beginner to work really hard, when one sees results of such work.

[Essyne]

lol - I like you, musicrebel 

The student who has to work hard at something conveys extreme dedication to the art. If something is always handed to you on a silver platter, you can take it or leave it; frankly, it doesn't mean as much to you as it would to someone who toiled for years to get the same thing.

Of course, this is all a big generalization; therefore, my argument "holds no water," as they say. . .  (Don't ask who - I don't know  )

[musicrebel4u]

lol - I like you, musicrebel 

The same here! 

The student who has to work hard at something conveys extreme dedication to the art.

Oh, I wish to see THE STUDENT  Students like to work hard when they CAN.

If something is always handed to you on a silver platter, you can take it or leave it; frankly, it doesn't mean as much to you as it would to someone who toiled for years to get the same thing.

If you ask me, I would prefer to fly from Houston to Dallas. Imagine how I would enjoy the destination place if I would walk there (especially at summer time)  !

[Essyne]

ehh . . . *no comment*    

[Bob]

I think it's possible, but more difficult the older someone is.  I dug into it more a long time and find some study that only found one person who developed it, but even then there was something off about it.

Becuase there are different kinds of perfect pitch, aren't there?  I met a guy with perfect pitch who couldn't tune flat or sharp though.  That was a surprise.  Pianist too.  Not much reason to listen for intonation that way.  He could tell what note was what, but couldn't tell between two of the same notes, which one was higher or lower.  

So I'm thinking possible, but extremely unlikely.

Not to say you can't always improve you hearing though.  

[musicrebel4u]

I think it's possible, but more difficult the older someone is.  I dug into it more a long time and find some study that only found one person who developed it, but even then there was something off about it.

Becuase there are different kinds of perfect pitch, aren't there?  I met a guy with perfect pitch who couldn't tune flat or sharp though.  That was a surprise.  Pianist too.  Not much reason to listen for intonation that way.  He could tell what note was what, but couldn't tell between two of the same notes, which one was higher or lower.  

So I'm thinking possible, but extremely unlikely.

Not to say you can't always improve you hearing though.  

Yes! Perfect pitch could be a nice cherry on the cake, but can't replace the entire thing.

[keypeg]

Perfect pitch on piano with its equal temperament would be an uncomfortable thing to have.

[anna_crusis]

Perhaps the very young fare better because they are being provided with reference pitches long before their hearing is ever fuddled by out-of-tune instruments, alternate tunings or (in the bad old days) analogue recordings running at the wrong speed.

If you had a clear, unambiguous reference right from day one, that would be a foundation on which you could build your sense of pitch. Whenever you heard a tone later in life, you'd be refering back to that vivid aural memory.

Most of us (me too) I think had our sense of pitch spoiled somewhat early on by being confused by a bewildering array of random variations. We needed someone there stating authoritavely 'THIS is a D and nothing else!'

[optima]

Perfect pitch on piano with its equal temperament would be an uncomfortable thing to have.

What do you mean? You can tune the piano...


Perfect pitch is sth i don't have and sth I am jealous of . Last week, a friend of mine told me about a guy that could hear a piece ( for example Beethoven's Sonate Pathetique) and could instantly play it.

Ok, maybe perfect pitch is sth useful and can't be taught.However, now that i almost reach the end of my "student" days at piano, I look back and see that we were taught things in the wrong way...what I mean is that (for classical studies) proper attention is given only to sight and not to the ear. Just thing about how we all started: by counting spaces at the pentagram to identify a single note at the key of Sol ( G), and now, after years of practising,many of us( if you have a good prima vista) can "decode" instantly even the most demanding piece.

I strongly believe that the same could happen if we would first listen to a musical piece and we were then asked to play it on the piano.It may sound difficult now, out of the blue, but I believe it would be feasible if we were exposed to this teaching method with pieces of gradual difficulty throughout our student years.. Of course, perfect accuracy (esp in rhythm)cannot be achieved without having the scores, but what i believe and always complain about is that  in the teaching procedure many times "acoustic memory" is neglected and we get more stuck with the score and  "visual memory"..

And this is, unfortunately, done not only in piano lessons but at foreign languages lessons as well!You stick to the book and u read more than you speak!Thank God there's internet and Greek television uses subtitles - you somehow have to find your personal ways to bridge the gaps made by the educational system


And how all these relates to our topic? But of course,we are pianists and we all want to reach the desirable result (good interpretation) with the least possible effort ( the example with Texas you gave above - a good reason to be "jealous" of someone with perfect ear ) A different teaching method that would help us realize our acoustic capabilities could be a real help towards this direction 

As for me, I decided to tackle with jazz piano a bit in order to gain a "balance"!

[slobone]

I'd have to agree w/ you, musicrebel - After all, how many pianists do you know that sit down @ the piano and are completely content w/ it being out of tune?

Hmm, are you going to make me dig up about a thousand Youtube clips? Some from members of this forum?

[thalberg]

I read somewhere that perfect pitch depends largely on genetics....more so than even math skills. 

Yet David L. Burge, who sells a perfect pitch training course, claims that it can be learned--but the amount and type of work he suggests is prohibitive for many people.  He claims that it can be learned because each pitch has its own unique properties.  F# is vibrant like the color red, Eb is sedate like the color blue, and so forth.

I also have read that the ear develops best before the age of 6.  Ten years of work between age 20 and 30 will not compare with 3 years of work between ages 3 and 6. 

Now for my own opinion:  Perfect Pitch is not a precise thing--every musician is on a continuum.  Even among people with perfect pitch, some people are drastically better than others.  And there's a lot of grey area between having perfect pitch and not having it.  Like having perfect pitch in only one register (like a violinist friend) or having perfect pitch only for your instrument, or having perfect pitch just for the notes you tune to when you warm up.  Or like having a great pitch memory so if you've heard any pitches that day you remember where they are for the rest of the day.

[jazz-piano]

Yes, I believe Perfect Pitch can be taught but teaching it to children is better.

An adult has much more difficulties to develop it.

[anna_crusis]

I think basically what it boils down to is how well you can remember a single tone without any context to put it in.

I can give you an E by a roundabout method, because I know that the first note of Fur Elise is an E... so by playing the first bar in my head I've got a E. But I have no clue as to how to refine that ability. Obviously if I'm required to pick notes out of a chord then that method is useless - the same as 'Every Good Boy' is useless for sight reading because it's too slow. There probably is a way, but we're too dumb to figure it out.

How many of us know what a C#minor sounds like because it's the first chord in Moonlight Sonata? Go on, try it. Or the sound of your ringtone? Or the pitch of your neighbour's car alarm? I think the ability is there in most of us, but is hopelessly muddled and underdeveloped because it was rarely taught to us as children.

[keypeg]

There is nothing hopeless or muddled about learning to recognize and produce pitch.  Nor should there be a rule that says children are better at learning it unless someone has an effective teaching method and has used that method equally for both child and adult.

It is something that can be learned through training: not intellectual analysis, and not passively by listening.  I got the beginning end of such training last year and whatever I have has stayed.  The odd thing is that I cannot recognize pitch name with my mind (yet) - it goes by intermediary of an instrument.  I can hear a tone, or sing a tone, and if I go to the piano or other instrument I play, my finger will accurately, each time, pick out the note, and then I will know which note it is after seeing what my finger picked.  So there must be a pitch awareness associated to the instrument which is sitting in an area of consciousness (um, unconsciousness).  It was definitely trained, though.  I was taught by singing scales, which had to be accurate, and being aware of both pitch and relativity as sound and name, being aware of the tone I wanted to produce before producing it, and then making certain that was indeed the correct tone.  It was a rather intense process.

It has a bit of a drawback on piano, because I was trained to adjust for the nuances that happen in a scale, where the leading note, for example, is sharpened, or to want a chord to harmonize within the notes.  The piano has been tuned in a compromising way to incorporate all keys, in equal temperament tuning.  I can hear that, and I want to reach in and adjust the strings becuase they sound "out of tune" even if it is a tuned piano.

Pianists don't have to produce pitches.  In fact, they can't if they wanted to becuase the piano is pre-tuned.  Is there any practical application to having this ability, other than to recongize that you are playing in the wrong key or to find your way to a modulation by ear (which is also and mainly relative, not absolute)?

[jlh]

Here's my view:  I believe that those with this ability are NOT born with some magical ability to hear A440 standard on any note at any time.  The A440 standard is not shared by many musical traditions, and is not only arbitrary, but also inconsistently used by many orchestras around the world, who tend to tune a bit sharp (or in baroque tuning, a half step flat).

Perfect Pitch is nothing more than a conditioned memory of the tuning standard we hear, associated with note names.  Therefore, musicians are more likely to possess perfect pitch than non-musicians, and as with anything related to brain activity, some people are able to develop this skill to a sharper level than others.  For myself, every pitch has its own character (hard to explain, it's not a visual color for me, but that's probably the best term to describe it), and so by that character I can instantly recognize or produce that pitch. 

For these reasons, I am convinced that anyone can develop perfect pitch, though children probably have the best chance for the most development in this area (plasticity of the brain - children can learn and memorize things better and faster than adults - same reason children learn language faster than adults). 

[thierry13]

True perfect pitch can not be taught. The ability to memorize or recognize pitches out of context can be developed not so hardly. For example I allways recognize D minor chords. I allways recognize low G. There are a lot of things I can just think of and be on it. And if I worked on it I could recognize more (some people develop it has childs and it becomes even more instinctive). But that is NOT perfect pitch. Perfect pitch has nothing to do with memorising notes or labelling them. Perfect pitch is physiological and is a finer ear to exact frequencies of sound. Recognizing or being able to sing exact pitches is a RESULT of perfect pitch, not what it is fundamentally. It's just way easier for people who have perfect pitch to do so.

[thierry13]

Therefore, musicians are more likely to possess perfect pitch than non-musicians, and as with anything related to brain activity, some people are able to develop this skill to a sharper level than others. 

That's where you're wrong. True perfect pitch is innate and has nothing to do with musicality. You probably do not even have it(I don't know you, do not take as an insult or w/e). You must simply have an amazing memory for pitches. But that's not having perfect pitch. The perfect pitch can indeed tell you the 440, how far you are from it. He can tell you the 435, 450, whatever you want. Perfect pitch is not a note thing. It's a frequency thing.

[keypeg]

Perfect pitch is not a note thing. It's a frequency thing.

And what is a note?

[jlh]

That's where you're wrong. True perfect pitch is innate and has nothing to do with musicality. You probably do not even have it(I don't know you, do not take as an insult or w/e). You must simply have an amazing memory for pitches. But that's not having perfect pitch. The perfect pitch can indeed tell you the 440, how far you are from it. He can tell you the 435, 450, whatever you want. Perfect pitch is not a note thing. It's a frequency thing.

I didn't say it had anything to do with musicality.  Only that musicians have more probably been exposed to more accurate tuning than nonmusicians on a regular basis that would lend itself to a conditional occurance.

Again, you're splitting hairs by saying someone can tell you if a pitch is 440, 435 or 450, etc.  I'd be willing to bet  that many people COULD tell you if one or the other pitch is slightly under or over by that small amount, but the ability to VERBALIZE the exact frequency difference from 440 is nothing more than a conditional memory.  Find me a 4 yr old with perfect pitch and have him/her tell you the exact FREQUENCY of a note and they will not be able to do it.  Perfect pitch is a frequency thing..................... BUT those frequencies must be memorized for them to be useful.

[thalberg]

Doesn't it make you mad, though, that some people have amazing ears since childhood without doing anything for it, and yet others of us labor and labor in the hopes that someday we might have just a fraction of their abilities?  Not fair. 

[thierry13]

I didn't say it had anything to do with musicality.  Only that musicians have more probably been exposed to more accurate tuning than nonmusicians on a regular basis that would lend itself to a conditional occurance.

Again, you're splitting hairs by saying someone can tell you if a pitch is 440, 435 or 450, etc.  I'd be willing to bet  that many people COULD tell you if one or the other pitch is slightly under or over by that small amount, but the ability to VERBALIZE the exact frequency difference from 440 is nothing more than a conditional memory.  Find me a 4 yr old with perfect pitch and have him/her tell you the exact FREQUENCY of a note and they will not be able to do it.  Perfect pitch is a frequency thing..................... BUT those frequencies must be memorized for them to be useful.

Someone with perfect pitch can not tell you this has 440 or 435 or 430 hz. Because they do not count lol. But if they hear it ONCE then they will allways know it is 440 afterwards. It's like if somebody who is blind wakes up and suddenly can see. He won't be able to name colors, but if you show him this is red, this is pink, this is blue, etc. he will never "forget" what pink blue and red is. And he will be able to see the different shades of same color instantly (equivalent of the difference between 440 435 445). Of course if you play 440 and then 420 to somebody without perfect pitch they will be able to tell you that it's lower. But not how much exactly is it lower. It's not about counting the number of HZ. Even perfect pitch is a relative thing. But if you want an instrument tuned to 440, and that one with perfect pitch has heard a 440 once, then he will allways be able to tell you if you're too low or too high even of 5 or even less HZ.

[jlh]

Someone with perfect pitch can not tell you this has 440 or 435 or 430 hz. Because they do not count lol. But if they hear it ONCE then they will allways know it is 440 afterwards. It's like if somebody who is blind wakes up and suddenly can see. He won't be able to name colors, but if you show him this is red, this is pink, this is blue, etc. he will never "forget" what pink blue and red is. And he will be able to see the different shades of same color instantly (equivalent of the difference between 440 435 445). Of course if you play 440 and then 420 to somebody without perfect pitch they will be able to tell you that it's lower. But not how much exactly is it lower. It's not about counting the number of HZ. Even perfect pitch is a relative thing. But if you want an instrument tuned to 440, and that one with perfect pitch has heard a 440 once, then he will allways be able to tell you if you're too low or too high even of 5 or even less HZ.

So we agree then!! 

Do you see now what I meant by memory being a substantial factor in considering the phenomenon of "perfect pitch"?  It is not that those with perfect pitch are born knowing what 440 is, but that, once exposed to that standard and our classification and measurement of frequency and pitch are able to recreate that pitch on demand and name the pitch if one is given.  It is memory.  Pitch memory.  Some people are just better able to catalogue pitches and frequencies than others.  I also think that, just as memory can be improved by exercising and thinking a different way about data (hence all the memory courses available), pitch memory can also be improved by expanding the way one thinks about pitches and frequency. 

[keypeg]

Perfect pitch can be taught.  Others have it innately, and recognize a pitch the way we recognize cats and dogs but need to be told the name of what they have always seen.

Be that as it may, of what use is perfect pitch on the piano?  The instrument cannot be fine tuned by the player.  It is tuned in equal temperament.  That means to anyone with fine hearing of pitch, certain pitches in certain keys of certain notes sound "off" and the player hearing it can do nothing to fix it.  That is aggravating and uncomfortable, and I see no advantage to it.  Is there an advantage?

[slobone]

Perfect pitch can be taught.  Others have it innately, and recognize a pitch the way we recognize cats and dogs but need to be told the name of what they have always seen.

Be that as it may, of what use is perfect pitch on the piano?  The instrument cannot be fine tuned by the player.  It is tuned in equal temperament.  That means to anyone with fine hearing of pitch, certain pitches in certain keys of certain notes sound "off" and the player hearing it can do nothing to fix it.  That is aggravating and uncomfortable, and I see no advantage to it.  Is there an advantage?

Yes, if you're a piano tuner. Which any professional pianist needs to be, at least to the extent of knowing how to do emergency repairs when you arrive at a gig and find a horrific piano...

[goldentone]

Re: Can Perfect Pitch Be Taught?