Absolute Pitch...?

[franken]

My question is, how do you get rid of absolute pitch?  I've heard it is possible, I've just never heard how.

[Etude]

Just asking, why do you want to get rid of absolute pitch?

[zheer]

I wish i had it.

[Etude]

I wish i had it.

Well, this isn't really perfect pitch, but could help -

For every note of the chromatic scale, find one of your favourite pieces that begin with that note.  Whenever you want to recall that note, recall the start of the piece. 

I used:

for C - Ravel's bolero (didn't really need much help with C in the first place)
for C# - Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2
for D - Prokofiev's Toccata
For D# - Liszt's Piano Concerto no. 1
For E -  Sometimes the opening of Opus Clavicembalisticum
For F -  Liszt's Totentanz
For F# - (actually don't have one for this)
For G -   It was always a random grade I violin piece I had to play
For G# - Chopin's Minute Waltz 
For A - Paganini's Caprice no. 24
For A# - Chopin's first waltz.
For B - My mum's car horn was at the same pitch, so I usually have no problem with this one.

And transpose up/down octaves mentally when needed.  Eventually, I didn't need some of these, and could recall the note in my mind almost instantly, although when I'm unsure I usually end up resorting to these pieces.

[ralessi]

i have absolute pitch and i can say that i only want it half the time.....maybe even less...the only good it does for me is in   ear training class.  maybe ill use it more later but...i only get pissed off when listening to orchestras and choirs at school, listening to tone deaf people try to sing, ect.....its just a hassle.  and perfect pitch is something you either have or dont have, you can acquire a tone system to where you can locate pitches but its not the same.....

Ricky 

[quantum]

Don't try to get rid of it.  Just install a light switch so you can turn it on or off when needed. 

I'd suggest listening and isolating other elements in the music.  It's just that you are so fixated on perfect pitch, that it bother's you when something is not in tune.  For example: can you listen to a beautiful performance of a piece with slight mistakes?  Do the same with your perfect pitch, listen but don't let the imperfections cause you to be so attentive to them. 

Listen to some orchestral music with score.  Follow along with the Clarinet, French Horn or Trumpet parts, instead of the 1st Violin part. 

Do some accompanying for any transposing instruments (such as those listed above). 

Listen to some middle eastern music.  (That may twist your ears a bit  )

[bradley]

Hi all.

I have perfect pitch (the real one, not the one where you assign pieces to the different notes) and I think it's great. I don't know what I would do without it. I can't possibly see why you would want to get rid of it. It helps with many areas of music, esp sight-reading/singing, memorising, composing, etc. I find it doesn't distract me while listening to orchestral music, etc. because I can actually sort of turn it off for a bit. It's not that I literally turn it off and it's not there, it's just that I don't have to be listening to what the notes are (kind of hard to explain). It's comparable to colors. You don't have to walk around and notice what every single color is that you see, but you obviously are aware of what they are. It's just that you're not focusing on the colors, but rather on the bigger picture. Hope this helps.

Bradley

[prometheus]

I only get pissed off when listening to orchestras and choirs at school, listening to tone deaf people try to sing, ect....

You don't need to have absolute pitch to be really bothered by people singing out of tune. So even if you can get rid of it, you will steed be bothered by it.


Another question, is there a real difference between Etudes way and people with the natural ability of absolute pitch. Because I used that method for relative pitch and that seems to work very well. I think I could also do it with perfect pitch.

[perfect_pitch]

I have perfect pitch (the real one, not the one where you assign pieces to the different notes) and I think it's great. I don't know what I would do without it. I can't possibly see why you would want to get rid of it. It helps with many areas of music, esp sight-reading/singing, memorising, composing, etc. I find it doesn't distract me while listening to orchestral music, etc. because I can actually sort of turn it off for a bit. It's not that I literally turn it off and it's not there, it's just that I don't have to be listening to what the notes are (kind of hard to explain). It's comparable to colors. You don't have to walk around and notice what every single color is that you see, but you obviously are aware of what they are. It's just that you're not focusing on the colors, but rather on the bigger picture. Hope this helps.

Lucky the man who can turn it off.... You have no idea how annoying it is when you CAN'T turn if off.... I'm haunted by off tuned sounds.

[whynot]

quantum, I just love your posts.

Two things about this conversation caught my attention.  One is the assumption, or at least implication, that people with perfect pitch are automatically disturbed by hearing imperfect tuning.  This is simply not true.  If you meet enough people with this skill and ask around, eventually you will find some with fantastic ears who are not bothered by it.  Or are bothered when they hear professionals who are out of tune, but not at all when it's beginners (nor are they upset by train whistles and other sounds of life, if you know what I mean).

Second, in or out of whose tuning?  Yes, I understand about things that are just plain off.  I deal with this all the time, and I'm sympathetic.  But I also want to play a bit of devil's advocate, because although I have perfect pitch according to the generally agreed definition here, I also know that there are always higher possible levels of hearing, and subtler nuances of pitch to discern and understand.  Plus, saying "perfect pitch" in this context doesn't cover countless other tuning systems that we don't have experience with and which would make our perfect pitch seem not very perfect. 

There are tuning systems that:
(1) don't pertain to our instrument, like just intonation, used by string players and hopefully choirs.  Ask most pianists to sing a real acoustic major or minor third, and see what you get; this isn't a put-down, just an example of different experiences;

(2) are not standard in modern use, like Pythagorean tuning, a popular choice in the middle ages--I don't care for this tuning, but I can't say it's wrong, although it will sound very out of tune to someone who doesn't know what it is; similarly, the many tunings used in the baroque era, not just adjusting to all the different regional A's, but also a great variety of possibilities for each interval; and

(3) are just not part of our collective Western culture.  For example, classical Indian music divides the octave into, I believe, 26 notes.  People who grow up with those sounds hear our Western classical music and think it sounds simplistic and lacks color, because we use so few notes.  Some Eastern languages are inflected, meaning that the same syllable can be shaped in several different ways (pitchwise) and each way has a completely different meaning.  Talk about perfect pitch.       

Absolute pitch is the recognition of sound.  Not every sound, just the ones we have experienced and understand.  That leaves a great many musical sounds unaccounted for, that most perfect pitchers are unacquainted with and cannot distinquish.  I don't think there's anything wrong with this, but I do think it's important to acknowledge that none of us has heard and understood all musical sounds, so we are only responding to and judging sounds according to what we know and believe, which can be extremely useful but also may be incomplete.  Whether we are disturbed by the sounds we hear has much more to do with expectations, and how we feel about those expectations being unmet, than it has to do with the actual sounds themselves.  And it is humbling to think about all the sounds we don't even know about, and the fact that less educated people of other cultures and experiences may be able to discern musical matters that we cannot.

In case I haven't expressed very well where I fit in with all of this, let me be very clear that I don't know ANYTHING about classical Indian music, any Eastern music, or most of the baroque tunings.  I confess that new sounds seem weird and wrong to me, and I don't like hearing things I don't understand--because then do I still have good ears?  I realize there are many sounds I haven't learned about and never will.  Well, that about covers my thoughts.  Cheers, everyone.

[perfect_pitch]

One is the assumption, or at least implication, that people with perfect pitch are automatically disturbed by hearing imperfect tuning.  This is simply not true.  If you meet enough people with this skill and ask around, eventually you will find some with fantastic ears who are not bothered by it.  Or are bothered when they hear professionals who are out of tune, but not at all when it's beginners (nor are they upset by train whistles and other sounds of life, if you know what I mean

Lucky them.... It drives me nuts at time... really bonkers. I had to sit through a uni student playing Bachs Partita No. 3 (I think) in E... the really famous one... You know.... (d'td' s m s   drdt,d s, m, s, etc...)  She was so off key... that I cannot possibly forget how bad it was. i still have the exact sound imprinted on my brain. I remember all the notes she played off key, and all the notes she played completely wrong.

If you see a person with perfect pitch, who isn't bothered by this type of stuff, then Lucky bloody them.   



PS - I never meant to quote the whole thing... i was having problems with my browser at the time and I must have gone back to quote something and forgot the just highlight the part I wanted and write a reply - My fault.

[whynot]

I'm confused by my whole answer being quoted.  perfect_pitch, can you please clarify?  Cheers. 

[superstition2]

You don't have to have perfect pitch to hear off-key notes. I'm no expert on this subject, but I don't believe I have "perfect pitch' and I am very sensitive to sharpness/flatness in singers. Relative pitch is the ability to locate pitches in relation to other pitches, right? Since everyone who doesn't have perfect pitch has relative pitch, those imperfect people can still relate one pitch to another. So, they can be annoyed by pitches that don't relate well with the system that's been established during a performance.

It seems to me that perfect pitch is something one must acquire by exposure to music from a very young age, likely infancy. Part of the brain must "imprint" the pitches. I was also told that perfect pitch is more common among pianists because they relate the pitches to the letter names. After all, if someone imprints a pitch, it could be any pitch, including those not represented by the Western classical system, and if someone imprints a pitch without being able to relate it to a note name, that person won't be able to describe the pitch they're hearing.

This is my vague understanding of the topic. I had a short conversation with a prof about perfect pitch...

[porter]

Can someone explain what Absolute Pitch is please in contrast to Perfect Pitch. I'm new to this forum so I may have missed out a page?

Alan

[zheer]

Can someone explain what Absolute Pitch is please in contrast to Perfect Pitch. I'm new to this forum so I may have missed out a page?

Alan

     NOTHING

[g_s_223]

Listen to some middle eastern music.  (That may twist your ears a bit  )

Hmm, I thought they largely used the standard 12 pitches, but with different non-Western scales.

Indian musicians are the ones really to listen to - 31-note scale isn't it?

[mandrake]

Can someone explain what Absolute Pitch is please in contrast to Perfect Pitch. I'm new to this forum so I may have missed out a page?

Alan

Dunno 'bout english but in swedish perfect pitch is when you recognize tones you hear, absolut P is when you can sing them (without reference).

[_steinway_]

Hi!
Well I have perfect pitch and I think it's absolutely great! I don't know why on earth you would want to get rid of it
Ok - I know it can be really annoying when it comes to listening to off tune people playing, singing etc.. 
Well the thing I find most useful about having perfect pitch is that I can listen to pieces (on cds etc) and play it without even having to get the music! (Well it does depend how hard the piece is though!!)
So you know, there are a lot of good things about having perfect pitch. I personally feel extremely lucky to have been born with it!!

[superstition2]

 

[Etude]

Concurred.